Posts tagged Fund Natural History Collections
A Taxonomist's Notebook
Across the world, natural-history collections hold thousands of species awaiting identification. In fact, researchers today find many more novel animals and plants by sifting through decades-old specimens than they do by surveying tropical forests and remote landscapes. An estimated three-quarters of newly named mammal species are already part of a natural-history collection at the time they are identified. They sometimes sit unrecognized for a century or longer, hidden in drawers, half-forgotten in jars, misidentified, unlabelled.
“It’s certainly the case that collections right now have vast resources of undescribed material,” says Robert Voss, curator of mammals at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York.
These collections are becoming increasingly valuable thanks to newly developed techniques and databases. Through DNA sequencing, digital registries and other advances, existing collections can be interrogated in new ways, revealing more about Earth’s biodiversity, and how quickly it is disappearing.
But just as the collections are growing more valuable, they are falling into decline. With many institutions struggling to cope with significant budget cuts, some collections are being neglected, damaged or lost altogether. And the scientists who study them are also threatened as their positions disappear.
(Read more: Nature News & Comment)
READ. THIS.
It’s difficult to carry the narrative surrounding the importance of collections in all of our videos - maybe they’d have more impact if we ended each one with tagline please help us save natural history collections because that’s why we make these videos instead of it still has brains on it but I somehow don’t think that’d get the point across.
This article does a superb job of describing the enormous array of possibilities housed within the collections of museums, and the imminent threats we are facing in the face of financial difficulties and lack of public awareness.
This really is a great article. Maybe a little vertebrate-centric, but the problems and challenges it explores apply equally across all Natural History collections & museums, including the many people currently dealing with them.
(via thebrainscoop)