CSBR:Curation, Digitization, and Georeferencing of the Ichthyology and Herpetology Collections at Southeastern Louisiana University

Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond LA

Investigators

Abstract

Natural history collections often represent the centerpiece of biodiversity studies. For decades, large state or national collections have provided specimens for taxonomic or phylogenetic studies, but small, regional university collections also have the ability to make strong contributions to biodiversity discovery. Unfortunately, small regional collections often lack the needed resources or are inaccessible to the general scientific community because these collections are not integrated with online databases. The overall goal of this project at Southeastern Louisiana University is to improve curation of existing museum specimens and tissue samples, digitize and georeference specimen data, and integrate these data with online repositories, thereby making the data available to the general scientific community. In addition, this project will revitalize interest in the natural world by using natural history collections to highlight the unique organismal diversity here in Louisiana and beyond. Southeastern personnel will develop a travelling fish, reptile, and amphibian program termed "The Bone Sheaux". This outreach program will be used to stimulate interest in organismal biology to K-12 students in southeastern Louisiana, which includes some of the most impoverished parishes (counties) in Louisiana. In addition, a permanent loan will be made available to Southeastern's field station, Turtle Cove, which hosts more than 3,000 visitors annually for public outreach and teacher training workshops. Finally, a natural history museum course will be developed for Southeastern's undergraduate students and provide them training in museum curation and specimen preparation. Southeastern Louisiana University possesses ichthyology and herpetology collections that initially were developed for teaching and research in the 1950's. The bulk of the collection is comprised of fishes, with the majority of the specimens from the Lake Pontchartrain Basin in southeast Louisiana, and more recently from throughout Mexico and Central America. In addition, it also possesses an ever-growing herpetology collection, a portion of which was recently obtained from the orphaned Tulane University herpetology collection. The objectives of this project are as follows: (1) to curate the ichthyology collection through ethanol changes, and lid and jar replacement to ensure the long-term viability and persistence of the collection; (2) to integrate the Tulane herpetology collection including isopropyl to ethanol changes, re-labeling and re-jarring, and integration of these specimens into the Southeastern collection; (3) to increase accessibility of the ichthyology and herpetology collections to the external community by digitizing and georeferencing the databases; and (4) to integrate Southeastern's collection data with publicly available data repositories, including iDigBio.org. Completion of these tasks will make Southeastern's collection data available to the scientific community and facilitate greater external usage of the collections. 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.