Assessment of North American arthropod collections: prospects and challenges for addressing biodiversity research

Abstract

Over 300 million arthropod specimens are housed in North American natural history collections. These collections represent a “vast hidden treasure trove” of biodiversity −95% of the specimen label data have yet to be transcribed for research, and less than 2% of the specimens have been imaged. Specimen labels contain crucial information to determine species distributions over time and are essential for understanding patterns of ecology and evolution, which will help assess the growing biodiversity crisis driven by global change impacts. Specimen images offer indispensable insight and data for analyses of traits, and ecological and phylogenetic patterns of biodiversity. Here, we review North American arthropod collections using two key metrics, specimen holdings and digitization efforts, to assess the potential for collections to provide needed biodiversity data. We include data from 223 arthropod collections in North America, with an emphasis on the United States. Our specific findings are as follows: (1) The majority of North American natural history collections (88%) and specimens (89%) are located in the United States. Canada has comparable holdings to the United States relative to its estimated biodiversity. Mexico has made the furthest progress in terms of digitization, but its specimen holdings should be increased to reflect the estimated higher Mexican arthropod diversity. The proportion of North American collections that has been digitized, and the number of digital records available per species, are both much lower for arthropods when compared to chordates and plants. (2) The National Science Foundation’s decade-long ADBC program (Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections) has been transformational in promoting arthropod digitization. However, even if this program became permanent, at current rates, by the year 2050 only 38% of the existing arthropod specimens would be digitized, and less than 1% would have associated digital images. (3) The number of specimens in collections has increased by approximately 1% per year over the past 30 years. We propose that this rate of increase is insufficient to provide enough data to address biodiversity research needs, and that arthropod collections should aim to triple their rate of new specimen acquisition. (4) The collections we surveyed in the United States vary broadly in a number of indicators. Collectively, there is depth and breadth, with smaller collections providing regional depth and larger collections providing greater global coverage. (5) Increased coordination across museums is needed for digitization efforts to target taxa for research and conservation goals and address long-term data needs. Two key recommendations emerge: collections should significantly increase both their specimen holdings and their digitization efforts to empower continental and global biodiversity data pipelines, and stimulate downstream research.

Closing Gaps But Increasing Bias In North American Butterfly Inventory Completeness

“…Furthermore, additional curation and digitization of museum specimens will be critical in developing a historical backbone for analyses across time and space. Millions of specimens still remain undigitized in arthropod natural history collections (Cobb et al 2019), and the continuation of funding for museum staff and biodiversity informatics infrastructure will be critical in mobilizing these data needed for ecological research, especially potential for some kinds of temporal trend analyses (Soroye et al 2020) . Supporting digitization in tandem with concerted efforts to direct community science initiatives towards under-sampled regions will move us towards unlocking the full potential of these opportunistic data in an era of global change.…”

Digitisation of private collections

“…Digitisation is a concept that, depending on the person, context or situation, may have different meanings (see also p. 3 in Cobb et al 2019). Generally, digitisation is the process of creating a virtual representation of physical objects.…”

“…Using the term digitisation in some cases explicitly refers to making digital images whereas in others it is restricted solely to data. When using digitisation in combination with registering data, it may include all the data linked to a specimen or only part of the data (Saarenmaa et al 2019). By using the term 'digitisation' one also cannot assume that this also includes validation or georeferencing.…”

“…Results from a survey carried out across Europe in 2018 as part of the ICEDIG project and presented as deliverable D2.2 of this project (van Egmond et al 2019) showed that most private collections hold less than 10,000 specimens, some 25% having more than 10,000 specimens. Private collections with more than 100,000 objects are exceptional but still form some 5% of the totalof private collections around.…”

“…Whether data is derived from specimens kept in larger museums or small private collections is much less important than the certainty of high data quality and reliable identifications. The already mentioned survey carried out in the ICEDIG project (van Egmond et al 2019) in 2018 showed that the overall size of private collections and the data they contain is impressive and for specific groups or geographic areas unique. The research community is organised in a multitude of programs, platforms and projects both at the national and international level.…”