Building Natural History Collections for the Twenty-First Century and Beyond

Abstract

Natural history collections (NHCs) are important resources for a diverse array of scientific fields. Recent digitization initiatives have broadened the user base of NHCs, and new technological innovations are using materials generated from collections to address novel scientific questions. Simultaneously, NHCs are increasingly imperiled by reductions in funding and resources. Ensuring that NHCs continue to serve as a valuable resource for future generations will require the scientific community to increase their contribution to and acknowledgement of collections. We provide recommendations and guidelines for scientists to support NHCs, focusing particularly on new users that may be unfamiliar with collections. We hope that this perspective will motivate debate on the future of NHCs and the role of the scientific community in maintaining and improving biological collections.

Preserve a Voucher Specimen! The Critical Need for Integrating Natural History Collections in Infectious Disease Studies

“…By assigning GUIDs during the archiving process, researchers can connect these typically disparate data sets into a single aggregated view of associated vouchered specimens and samples through online searchable databases. This allows all derivative data to be tied back to the original vouchered specimen and/or sample (147), allowing for a more integrated approach to host-pathogen research (72). Any updates made to the vouchered specimen (e.g., species identification, georeferencing, new data sets) would be updated through the network of aggregators and repositories and be made available to the end user.…”

“…When naming newly discovered pathogens, the symbiotype catalog number should be included in the name (e.g., Camp Ripley virus, MSB: Mamm:89863) to facilitate linkage between host and pathogen. This same approach should be used when depositing data sets on Dryad and other publicly available data repositories, allowing for linkages back to the physical voucher specimen (147).…”

The geography of phylogenetic paleoecology: integrating data and methods to better understand biotic response to climate change

“…In addition, there is a dearth of researchers depositing new specimens into collections (Turney et al 2015; Salvador and Cunha 2020). We need more support for natural history collections in the twenty-first century and more support for new users and depositors of voucher specimens (Miller et al 2020).…”

Microbiomes From Biorepositories? 16S rRNA Bacterial Amplicon Sequencing of Archived and Contemporary Intestinal Samples of Wild Mammals (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae)

“…Natural history collections have demonstrated massive potential for expanding our knowledge of global biodiversity, but only recently have their use expanded to documenting microbial symbionts of larger vertebrate and invertebrate hosts (Miller et al, 2020). In this study, we assessed the feasibility of obtaining 16S rRNA microbial amplicon sequence data from mammalian GIs stored within natural history collections and compared OTU and ASV based analyses.…”