Transfer of Genetic Resources into Ultra-Cold Storage at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

Friends Of The North Carolina State Museum Of Natural Sciences, Raleigh NC

Investigators

Abstract

Most biodiversity research programs now use biomolecules (DNA and RNA) to help identify, determine evolutionary relationships, or study population biology of species. To meet this need, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the largest natural history museum in the Southeast U.S., routinely preserves biomolecules in the form of tissue samples taken from voucher specimens. The collection contains tissues from many species of vertebrates and aquatic invertebrates, including rare and not easily replaced species, and the number of tissue loans made by the museum to external scientific researchers is beginning to outpace that of traditional museum specimens. This important genetic resources collection has been at risk because ultra-cold facilities are not available at the museum to prevent biomolecules from degrading over time at warmer storage temperatures. This project addresses this shortcoming by providing two ultra-cold freezers, associated tissue storage supplies, and technician time to transfer the collection into ultra-cold storage and update the online collections database. Ensuring the long-term preservation of this collection will greatly improve its utility to a wide variety of user groups in the scientific and resource management communities, especially those in the fields of systematics, population genetics, and conservation genetics. Such research will facilitate informed decisions by conservation planners mitigating loss of biodiversity. The positive scientific impacts of this project will be shared with the U.S. public through three exhibits on biodiversity research at the museum, which is free-of-charge and potentially reaching over 800,000 visitors annually.