CSBR: Natural History: Expanding capacity and collections in invertebrate biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding the natural world and our place in it depends on accurate information about life on Earth. Much of this knowledge comes from the scientific collections accumulated over centuries. These large collections in turn are partly an amalgam of many smaller ones, made and donated by research institutions and naturalists that no longer have the capacity to care for them or make them available to users. The goal of this project is to provide for the long-term care and accessibility of three important collections received by the Florida Museum. About 67,000 specimen lots (each "lot" contains one or more specimens) representing more than 300,000 specimens of diverse marine organisms will be archivally rehoused, and made available online, through loans, and to visitors. The Florida Museum invertebrate collection (FLMNH-IZ) will be expanded with new shelving and cabinetry to accommodate recent growth. A cadre of undergraduate students will help to carry out this work, as they also learn about marine life, biodiversity, and museum science in short courses organized as part of the project. The project will provide new shelf and cabinet space for the greatly increased at FLMNH-IZ. The collection has doubled in size in 15 years as a result of an active field program, and rescue and curation of valuable relinquished collections. The FLMNH-IZ is a major research node for studies on mollusks and tropical marine invertebrates. It serves the third largest collection of specimen-data on non-insect invertebrates in the world and is used broadly by the research community. The collection averages 35-40 visitors, 75-80 loans, and is the basis of 40-50 publications a year. The project will also allow the curation of three high-quality relinquished collections. The Harry Lee collection is perhaps the most important private shell collection in the US and includes specimens of 12,000 identified species. The Maturo and McKinney Bryozoa collections are among the largest in the country of the poorly known but highly diverse "moss animals". The NOAA-NCRMP collection is an alcohol-fixed, wet collection of reef invertebrates holding several thousand species taken from 26 islands across the tropical Pacific over the past decade, including from several remote, uninhabited, and virtually unknown islands. It offers a wealth of material for systematic and molecular genetic studies of Pacific biodiversity. These collections will be available physically and online, through resources such as iDigBio (idigbio.org) together with the more than 600,000 specimen records already digitized. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.