CSBR: Natural History Collections: Integrating the Orphaned Southern Illinois University Fluid Vertebrate Collections into the Illinois Natural History Survey Collections

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

Natural history collections are irreplaceable research resources for biological information. Specimen-based data within them are used for basic and applied research across multiple scientific disciplines. Data in collections are used to detect changes in the health of our ecosystems, highlight species and ecosystems in need of conservation, discover unknown biodiversity, and document the evolutionary history of life on earth. When natural history collections are neglected or abandoned, vast amounts of biological information are lost or made unavailable to the scientific community. In 2015 the large, geographically unique, and recently orphaned Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC) fluid vertebrates collections were moved to the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS) in Champaign, Illinois where they have remained in boxes and unavailable to researchers. This award provides funding for the unboxing and full curation of specimens and specimen-based data in the SIUC collections and their integration into the INHS biological collections. Data associated with over 650,000 specimens will be available for biological research and a myriad of other scientific challenges. Undergraduate students will be recruited from the Museum Studies Program (MUSE) housed in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois. The project team will be working with and training undergraduates in two different courses offered under MUSE. The full curation and integration of the SIUC fluid vertebrate collections into the INHS will occur through a two-stage process over a period of three years. First, metadata associated with SIUC specimens will be normalized by updating taxonomic names, standardizing geographic locality information, and correcting typographical errors. Specimens lacking georeferenced coordinate data will have that information added to their record fields. The second stage will focus on the physical unpacking of the boxes currently housing the SIUC collections and final curation. Final curation will consist of assigning new INHS catalog numbers and importing SIUC specimen metadata into INHS databases, placing specimens in appropriate archival containers as necessary. Duplicated specimens will be removed and transferred to collaborating museums. New archival labels will be associated to the SIUC specimens, which will be placed in appropriate physical locations within the INHS collection ranges and made available for use. Finally, all SIUC specimen metadata will be served online through the INHS and iDigBio (idigbio.org) web portals where they will be available for download by the scientific community. As a platform to help train the next generation of museum curators, collection managers, and museum technicians, the project will engage high school and undergraduate students in database query, specimen identification and preparation, curation, and georeferencing phases of the project. 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.