The Global Museum: natural history collections and the future of evolutionary biology and public education

Abstract

Natural history museums are unique spaces for interdisciplinary research and for educational innovation. Through extensive exhibits and public programming and by hosting rich communities of amateurs, students, and researchers at all stages of their careers, they provide a place-based window to focus on integration of science and discovery, as well as a locus for community engagement. At the same time, like a synthesis radio telescope, when joined together through emerging digital resources, the global community of museums (the ‘Global Museum’) is more than the sum of its parts, allowing insights and answers to diverse biological, environmental, and societal questions at the global scale, across eons of time, and spanning vast diversity across the Tree of Life. We argue that, whereas natural history collections and museums began with a focus on describing the diversity and peculiarities of species on Earth, they are now increasingly leveraged in new ways that significantly expand their impact and relevance. These new directions include the possibility to ask new, often interdisciplinary questions in basic and applied science; inform biomimetic design; and even provide solutions to climate change, global health and food security challenges. As institutions, they are incubators for cutting-edge research in biology and simultaneously protect core infrastructure for present and future societal needs. In this perspective, we discuss challenges to the realization of the full potential of natural history collections and museums to serve society. After reviewing collections and types of museums, including local and global efforts, we discuss the value of specimens and the importance of observations. We then focus on mapping and modelling of museum data (including place-based approaches and discovery), and explore the main projects, platforms and databases enabling this. We also explore ways in which improved infrastructure will allow higher quality science and increased opportunities for interdisciplinary research and communication, as well as new uses of collections. Finally, we aim to improve relevant protocols for the long-term storage of specimens and tissues, ensuring proper connection with tomorrow’s technologies and hence further increasing the relevance of natural history museums.

Plant and fungal collections: Current status, future perspectives

“…Collection programmes should consider expanding their collections of fungi, bryophytes, and living material for botanic gardens and seed conservation facilitating a greater range of research and understanding of the diversity of the area. Living material not only supports conservation initiatives but also serves to engage a broader public in the research (Bakker et al., 2020). Collection of sterile material as vouchers derived from ecological studies in such areas can also shed light on true species diversity (Baker et al., 2017).…”

“…Persistent identifiers on specimen data will enable the tracking of specimen use and citation measures. Unique identifiers are also critical for linking of specimen information to other genomic, trait or relationship data and for linking the occurrence of the specimen in different datasets or aggregators and ensuring information subsequently added to the specimen is available to all potential users (Bakker et al., 2020; Hedrick et al, 2019; Lendemer et al., 2020).…”

“…Natural History collections are a unique resource for research using morphological and molecular techniques (Funk, 2018). They also provide evidence for research into conservation and to tackle broader societal challenges and are a resource for public education (Bakker et al., 2020; Kvaček et al., 2016). Each specimen represents a unique collection event.…”

“…Consequently, new approaches in the use of collections have transformed the scientific landscape in areas such as conservation (Nic Lughadha et al., 2019), climate research (Johnson et al., 2011), and historic disease patterns (Harmon, Littlewood, & Wood, 2019). The use of collections as a “powerful research toolbox” (Bakker et al., 2020), creating innovative science, has been described extensively (Besnard et al, 2014; Carine et al., 2018; Funk, 2018; Heberling, Prather, & Tonsor, 2019; Meineke, Davis, & Davies, 2018; Nualart, Ibáñez, Soriano, & López‐Pujol, 2017; Schindel & Cook, 2018; Soltis, 2017; Wen, Ickert‐Bond, Appelhans, Dorr, & Funk, 2015). Several studies have focused on biases and gaps in collection data (Daru et al., 2018; Meineke et al., 2018; Meyer, Weigelt, & Kreft, 2016; Mounce, Smith, & Brockington, 2017) and, in addition, some biodiversity samples, such as desiccation intolerant seeds (Wyse, Dickie, & Willis, 2018) or environmental samples (Jarman, Berry, & Bunce, 2018) are difficult to store in current collections, limiting their research and conservation potential.…”

Genetic Biomonitoring and Biodiversity Assessment Using Portable Sequencing Technologies: Current Uses and Future Directions

“…Museum collections have gained importance for genetic biodiversity research in recent years [88]. Historic collections can, e.g., be compared to current biodiversity, or be used to generate reference databases.…”