Securing the collection of University of Montana's Zoological Museum

University Of Montana, Missoula MT

Investigators

Abstract

More than 20,000 biological specimens housed at the University of Montana Zoological Museum will be relocated to a newly constructed building where museum grade metal cabinetry will replace deteriorating wood-and-metal cabinets accumulated over the past century. The larger space, more efficient storage and more secure cabinetry will ensure the preservation and future growth of one of the largest collections of historical and modern mammals and birds in the Northern Rockies. The move will be combined with an update to the database, making it compatible with international standards for collections data. Thus, information from all specimens held by the Museum will become broadly accessible to the general public. The Museum's extensive regional collection of birds and mammals provides a unique historical perspective on modern species distributions and genetic responses to landscape changes. The relocation and digitization of this substantial collection will provide training and discovery opportunities in biology and museum science for high school and undergraduate students, including summer internships for four students from Montana tribal colleges. The project will provide urgently needed curatorial upgrades to the collection of more than 20,000 specimens of modern-day vertebrates at the University of Montana Zoological Museum (UMZM). As the largest collection of modern land vertebrate specimens from Montana, and among the largest such vertebrate collections in the northern Rocky Mountains, the UMZM provides an important source of materials for research, formal education, and outreach. Current University of Montana faculty are actively using the collections to study diverse questions biological questions, however, the potential for broader accessibility, ongoing specimen preservation, and future growth is severely limited by current infrastructure. Securing the collection will occur via transfer of all research specimens to new cabinets in an archival space. This move will also result in a fourfold increase of the area available to work with the specimens. Building on UM's active incorporation of the collections into undergraduate teaching and research, this project will increase outreach to the local public by new exhibits of UMZM collections centered on seasonal themes, training of K12 teachers to help incorporate biodiversity science into their curricula, and mentored internships at the UMZM of Native American students from regional tribal colleges. The project's activities will be documented at the UMZM's new website (hs.umt.edu/UMZM). The new database will, for the first time, allow web-based access to specimen data from the UMZM collections for academic and other researchers via VertNet and Arctos. These data will be shared with and made accessible with iDigBio (idigbio.org).