Important Historical Collections Research Articles

Managing Data in the NIWA Invertebrate Collection: Past and Present Methodology

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) Invertebrate Collection is a Nationally Significant Collection consisting of around 300,000 marine invertebrate specimen jars housed at the NIWA Greta Point campus in Wellington, New Zealand. Our collection holdings include samples from New Zealand, Antarctic and Pacific waters and represent over 70 years of collecting and is still growing. We estimate approximately 40% of our collections are registered and digitally accessible (about 127,000 records since digital registering began in 2004), with most of our unregistered material being historical collections. We are the repository for several important historical collections, one of the largest being the former New Zealand Oceanographic Institute (NZOI) collection, a taxonomically diverse and a geographically wide-ranging collection which occurred from the 1950’s to the early 1990’s. Associated specimen information such as station data and taxonomic identification for these historical collections are managed by NIWA staff and are in the form of Microsoft Excel and Access spreadsheets, NIWA and NZOI Biodiversity Memoirs, and online via the NIWA cruise and station database. These data are manually collated and registered into our Specify collections software specimen database which offers a unified and comprehensive data repository for our historical specimens, therefore greatly improving data accessibility. To expedite the availability of data and improve access to specimens for our users we are focusing on the registration of both important historical and taxonomic collections, and streamlining the registration of specimens in the field onboard NIWA's research vessel Tangaroa. Our field registration and curation techniques have been fine-tuned over the years and now we are capturing data directly into a shipboard copy of Specify in the sorting lab on the ship, printing labels with a thermal printer, and importing data back to our home version following the end of the voyage using Specify's Workbench feature. This process reduces the time spent double-handling specimens and entering data off paper record sheets and allows the capture of data directly into our database immediately after collection and sorting onboard the ship.

Implications and future prospects for evolutionary analyses of DNA in historical herbarium collections

Global herbarium collections house a vast number of plant specimens stretching back over centuries. They include rare and extinct species, important historical collections, and valuable type specimens that could help to resolve long-standing taxonomic issues. Historical plant collections also provide unique windows into past evolutionary processes and population histories that do not exist with modern data alone. However, because the DNA in such specimens is often degraded and scarce, manipulation and analysis of their genetic material can be challenging. Recent developments in non-destructive genetic sampling and working with very small quantities of genomic DNA, especially in next-generation sequencing and bioinformatic analysis of ancient DNA, now make the majority of herbarium specimens potentially accessible to phylogenetic, population genetic, and barcoding studies. For example, studies of DNA from long time series of Ipomoea batatas and Anacamptis palustris collections revealed linkages between anthropogenic activity and changes in haplotype distribution. These time series also enable the identification of genes under recent selection in the genomes of both the plants and their pathogens, as was shown for Phytophthora infestans, a microbial pathogen of Solanum tuberosum. Here, we summarize the major challenges in using historical plant DNA in evolutionary studies and review genetic studies integrating herbarium specimens. We expect future genetic studies of historical herbarium specimens to use genomic, metagenomic, and population genetic approaches to: investigate how plant populations respond to environmental change; infer temporal changes in genetic diversity; identify genes under recent selection; and investigate past plant pathogen epidemics.

Еталонні колекції амфібіотичних комах України: концептуальні підходи до формування, поповнення та функціонування

During the last 150 years, Lviv scientific and educational institutions are the centers of active investigations on the aquatic insects. Diduszycki’ Museum became the center of systematic study of aquatic insects. As a result, important historical collections of taxonomic groups of insects have been accumulated primarily thanks to efforts of J. Dziędzielewicz, M. Łomnicki and J. Łomnicki. Studies started up in the 1960’s and continued until the First World War, and were restored after 80 years by the scientists of the State Museum of Natural History NAS of Ukraine. All this time collections of the aquatic insects and other orders of insects were kept in the scientific collections of this institution. Part of the collections of aquatic insects moved to Poland, along with their founder, Józef Dziędzielewicz who moved from Lviv to Myślenice in 1915. Today, a significant part of the materials preserved in the raw material collections of the museum needs proper scientific research, appropriate conservation and inventory for the purpose of long-term preservation within the collections of the State Museum of Natural History NAS of Ukraine. All actions for the long-term storage of museum objects should be carried out at the modern scientific and methodological level in such a way as to ensure in the future the processing of collection materials by various methods of the integrative taxonomy. The paper is devoted to the important aspect of the scientific and stock activities of the natural history museums – development of the conceptual approaches to the formation, replenishment, scientific, technical and informational support for the functioning of model collections. The scientifically substantiated approaches to the formation, replenishment and scientific and technical support of functioning of the model collection on the basis of existing standards, instructions and methods, taking into account the foreign experience of museum activity, have been developed. A series of measures have been taken in order to unify the design of a collection of alcohol samples of various taxonomic groups and a collection of slides. The templates of labels have been developed and editing of available information in the museum database on selected groups of aquatic insects is done. Developed approaches for electronic processing of collections were tested on a basis of the Internet portal of the Data Centre „Biodiversity of Ukraine”.

OLD DATA FOR OLD QUESTIONS: WHAT CAN THE HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS REALLY TELL US ABOUT THE NEOGENE ORIGINS OF REEF-CORAL DIVERSITY IN THE CORAL TRIANGLE?

Study of the extinct and extant biota of the Coral Triangle region has not yet provided answers to questions about mechanisms controlling the origins and maintenance of this marine biodiversity hotspot. We present an updated stratigraphy and revise the taxonomic determinations for important historical collections from Indonesia that have been the basis of our knowledge of the history of the region for the past 150 years. Revision of the stratigraphy increases the resolution of ages assigned to most of the collections, and shifts a significant number of coral occurrences from the Pliocene to the late Miocene revealing a new Pliocene sampling gap. The previously recognized Paleogene sampling gap remains open. Analysis of taxonomic turnover with unrevised and revised data show similar overall patterns, with an early Miocene increase in richness followed by a plateau of relatively high richness. Overall, the observed pattern of taxonomic turnover is highly correlated with sample size, suggesting that uneven sampling may be a more important control on the data pattern than processes of speciation and extinction. Highly correlated turnover patterns of zooxanthellate and azooxanthellate taxa are also consistent with this interpretation. The paucity of Paleogene data in the historical collections means that the prevailing paradigm of Neogene origins of high richness in the modern Coral Triangle remains a tautological default hypothesis. New collections are required to adequately estimate rates of taxonomic turnover in the region, and to reconstruct the structure and functioning of ancient ecosystems during the origins of the Coral Triangle biodiversity hotspot.

The role of the Jotello F. Soga Library in the digital preservation of South African veterinary history

The history of veterinary science in South Africa can only be appreciated, studied, researched and passed on to coming generations if historical sources are readily available. In most countries, material and sources with historical value are often difficult to locate, dispersed over a large area and not part of the conventional book and journal literature. The Faculty of Veterinary Science of the University of Pretoria and its library has access to a large collection of historical sources. The collection consists of photographs, photographic slides, documents, proceedings, posters, audio-visual material, postcards and other memorabilia. Other institutions in the country are also approached if relevant sources are identified in their collections. The University of Pretoria's institutional repository, UPSpace, was launched in 2006. This provided the Jotello F. Soga Library with the opportunity to fill the repository with relevant digitised collections of diverse heritage and learning resources that can contribute to the long-term preservation and accessibility of historical veterinary sources. These collections are available for use not only by historians and researchers in South Africa but also elsewhere in Africa and the rest of the world. Important historical collections such as the Arnold Theiler collection, the Jotello F. Soga collection and collections of the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research and the Journal of the South African Veterinary Association are highlighted. The benefits of an open access digital repository, the importance of collaboration across the veterinary community and other prerequisites for the sustainability of a digitisation project and the importance of metadata to enhance accessibility are covered.

What constitutes a fossil mammal community in the early Miocene Santa Cruz Formation?

ABSTRACT The late early Miocene Santa Cruz Formation of southern Argentina is one of the most productive fossil mammal-bearing formations in South America. Hundreds of species have been named from this formation, resulting in a clear overestimation of Santa Cruz mammal diversity. Recent paleoecological studies have attempted to minimize this problem by analyzing more restricted faunal lists based only on recently collected fossil samples. In some cases, this approach has excluded clearly recognizable Santa Cruz taxa. In this study, I use a family-level rarefaction analysis of the Yale Peabody Collection of Santa Cruz fossils to test whether such absences are likely due to smaller sample size or to other factors. I further attempt to reconcile these absences using distributional data from recent and historical Santa Cruz Formation collections. The rarefaction analysis indicates that most single-locality samples from the Santa Cruz Formation have lower familial diversity than expected based on the taxonomic distribution of specimens in the Princeton University Collection at Yale Peabody Museum (YPM-PU) as a whole. However, I conclude that single-locality samples are not necessarily more appropriate than multi-locality samples for paleoecological analyses of ancient Santa Cruz Formation mammal communities given the large regional extent of the Santa Cruz Formation and the large geographic area encompassed by most modern communities used for comparison. This study highlights the need for more precise stratigraphic correlations among Santa Cruz localities and integration of important historical collections into a modern stratigraphic framework.

‘On Thin Ice’: The Polar Displays at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

The National Maritime Museum (NMM) holds one of the most important historical collections relating to Polar exploration in the UK. It includes artefacts relating to the great 19th century voyages of exploration to locate the Northwest Passage, as well as to the ‘heroic’ early 20th century expeditions of Scott and Shackleton. Many of the artefacts have a long history of display, and Polar exploration has been a near constant presence in the Museum since the 1950s.Representations of the Polar regions may seem to have little connection to British identity and Empire. However, the Arctic in the mid-19th century and the Antarctic in the 20th century can be seen as important places in their own right and central to constructing senses of national identity. There is a close link between the history of exploration and the history of Empire; Polar explorers were represented as heroic figures, providing powerful foci for the imagination of the nation. Polar exploration, Empire, science and national identity were interwoven.The impact of the end of Empire upon British culture and identity has been subject to much debate by historians. Although Empire has diminished in importance Polar exploration remained on display in the NMM, albeit in a number of different guises. This article investigates this phenomenon, the role museums play in promulgating ideas about Empire and nation, and asks what, if anything, happens to displays when Empire declines.

On the Cyphophthalmi (Arachnida, Opiliones) Types from the Museo Civico Di Storia Naturale “Giacomo Doria”

The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale “Giacomo Doria,” Genoa, hosts one of the most important historical collections of the Opiliones suborder Cyphophthalmi, including all the known specimens for the type species of the genera Leptopsalis (Stylocellidae), Miopsalis (Stylocellidae), and Parogovia (Neogoveidae), as well as several other types in the families Ogoveidae and Stylocellidae (it is unclear whether specimens in Pettalidae and Sironidae constitute types). These specimens were recently made available to us for study, and given their importance, we discuss and illustrate them here. Study of this collection allows confirmation of the validity of Leptopsalis, considered a synonym of Stylocellus for more than a century, and of Miopsalis, considered a nomen dubium in the most recent catalogue of the group. It furthermore helps to clarify the identity of several other species in the family Stylocellidae. Here we formally resurrect the genera Miopsalis Thorell, 1890, and Leptopsalis Thorell, 1882, and transfer several species to these genera: M. collinsi (Shear, 1993) comb. nov.; M. gryllospeca (Shear, 1993) comb. nov.; M. lionota (Pocock, 1897) comb. nov.; M. sabah (Shear, 1993) comb. nov.; M. silhavyi (Rambla, 1991) comb. nov.; M. tarumpitao (Shear, 1993) comb. nov.; L. dumoga (Shear, 1993) comb. nov.; L. hillyardi (Shear, 1993) comb. nov.; L. javana Thorell, 1882; L. lydekkeri (Clouse & Giribet, 2007) comb. nov.; L. modesta (Hansen & Sørensen, 1904) comb. nov.; L. novaguinea (Clouse & Giribet, 2007) comb. nov.; L. ramblae (Giribet, 2002) comb. nov.; L. sulcata (Hansen & Sørensen, 1904) comb. nov.; L. tambusisi (Shear, 1993) comb. nov.; L. thorellii (Hansen & Sørensen, 1904) comb. nov.; L. weberii (Hansen & Sørensen, 1904) comb. nov.

The Centre for Retrospective Digitisation at Göttingen University Library

Intent on creating a distributed national digital library, the German Research Foundation has funded Göttingen University Library's establishment of a Centre for Retrospective Digitisation of library materials. The Centre is engaged in evaluation of tools and techniques for image capture and text conversion, bibliographic description, document management and the provision of remote access. Current projects include the digitisation of important historical collections of Americana and mathematical yearbooks.