CSBR:Natural History: Upgrade and transfer of the Museum of Southwestern Biologys Division of Genomic Resources frozen tissue collection to Nitrogen vapor storage.

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

CSBR: Natural History: Installation of an Archival Storage System to Ensure Specimen Security at the Museum of Southwestern Biology. An award is made to New Mexico State University's Museum of Southwestern Biology to ensure the long-term preservation, quality and security of the Division of Genomic Resources (DGR). DGR is a world-class repository for frozen biological materials representing >200,000 organisms that are digitized and fully searchable on-line. Over 84% are associated with traditional voucher specimens. Dating back to 1979, DGR is the largest wild mammal collection worldwide, and among the top 10 largest bird tissue collections. The facility also houses substantial fish, amphibian and reptile tissues including critical samples from endangered species and threatened ecosystems. DGR is worldwide in scope with excellent representation from North America, Asia, Africa, and throughout Latin America. These specimens provide critical resources for studies of specialized and interdisciplinary studies. Annually > 50 loans of approximately 2000 specimens generate >80 peer-reviewed publications. DGR has held a leadership role in developing connections between the museum community and the molecular genomic efforts. This upgrade to DGR provides a platform to further those efforts, and also leverages the heavy involvement of DGR with municipal, state, and federal agencies, especially in the fields of natural resource management and public and wildlife health. Planned outreach utilizes existing programs at the museum to educate the public, including young students, on the role of collections in the practice of science that benefits society. This project will create a state-of-the-art facility by replacing the existing electrical (-80C) freezer system with 3 large liquid nitrogen freezers and a nitrogen generator that will significantly increase sample quality by providing much lower archival temperatures (-190C) and much longer protection should there be a catastrophic interruption of power or other emergency. In addition this upgrade will reduce electrical consumption substantially (>60% reduction). All samples to be moved will receive unique barcodes to enable the transfer of associated specimen data into a digital object tracking system and to informatics applications. The associated database, Arctos, has direct links to GenBank (and soon IsoBank) that immediately tie the specimen and associated museum data (spatial, temporal, morphological) to other Big Data on the web. This connection places the museum specimen as the primary nexus that connects not only the publications derived from specimen-based research, but also the increasingly vast amounts of new molecular data derived from each specimen.