Abstract
Biological collections are central in understanding and preserving life on Earth. In Brazil, the most representative collections are kept by natural history museums, whose primary focus is in invertebrates, vertebrates and vascular plants. Only a few institutions keep repositories in different kingdoms. The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), established in 1900, is a strategic public health institution of the Ministry of Health of Brazil. As such, Fiocruz is responsible for a wide range of activities, from basic research to the development and production of vaccines, drugs, reagents and diagnostic kits. Its biological collections were soon established in the expeditions made by naturalists and physicians seeking integrated knowledge of the fauna, flora and tropical diseases. Since then, they have been part of the institutional policy. In a few decades, those collections were already in the forefront of basic and applied research on tropical parasitic and infectious diseases. Currently, they comprise thirty-three repositories representing part of the Brazilian diversity of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, helminths, arthropods, molluscs and plants of medical and environmental importance. Different methods of long-term preservation are applied for the conservation of this wide range of organisms represented by about 6 million specimens. Herein, we describe this range of collections and discuss their complementary role as repositories of groups not represented in other biological collections in Brazil. These valuable biological materials have been used in public health and medical research, as well as for technological development and innovation in Brazil. Parallel to this specific usage, Fiocruz biological collections have played and continue to play a unique and important role in understanding and conserving part of Brazil’s biodiversity that is currently under-represented in other biological and natural history collections in Brazil and South America.
Highlights
Biological diversity, as more broadly understood, can be defined as the variability of life on Earth, including all living organisms and the evolutionary, ecological and behavioural complexes of which they are part (Nations 1992)
Biological collections are the repositories for this biological diversity and, at present, are held by culture collections, natural history museums, herbaria and other science centres (Moratelli 2014)
The important role of biological collections within this scope, has been recognised by the current Brazilian legislation, Law 13,123/2015, for access to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge and benefit sharing, as well as by the European Union Regulation (EU) 511/2014, which is based on the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (Davis et al 2016)
Summary
Biological diversity, as more broadly understood, can be defined as the variability of life on Earth, including all living organisms and the evolutionary, ecological and behavioural complexes of which they are part (Nations 1992). During scientific expeditions and actions to combat disease outbreak and emergence, Fiocruz researchers collected, analysed and deposited biological material from different regions of Brazil, comprising all biomes represented in the country Those early biological collections became part of the institutional policy already focused on fighting parasitic diseases caused by bacteria and protozoa and transmitted by insects, molluscs and other vectors (daSilva et al 2011, daSilva and Sá 2016). Because collections have been primarily formed from specimens collected during disease outbreaks and epidemiological investigations, Fiocruz collections represent the biological diversity of human-modified habitats This is another aspect in which Fiocruz collections differ from other repositories, since biodiversity researchers generally prefer to conduct biological surveys in habitats as pristine as possible. This action was suspended and after many requests from the curators, from 2018 forward, the Institution began to provide a specific resource from its own budget
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