Using a Collection Heath Index to prioritise access and activities in the New Zealand Arthropod Collection

Abstract

A Collection Health Index (CHI) is a useful approach to help scope new activities, prioritise curation and accelerate digitisation within taxonomic collections. We use a Collection Health Index (CHI), based on McGinley (1993), to profile the curation levels in the New Zealand Arthropod Collection for major insect groups. There are several highly curated and well known groups (Hemiptera, Lepidoptera, ‘Other Insects’). However, three major issues were identified: 1) curation becoming increasingly outdated in sections with large numbers of, particularly older, specimens (Coleoptera, Diptera); 2) historically poorer curation, with no resident expertise or resource (Diptera); and 3) high levels of family and genus-only material that needs further identification and a significant amount of alpha level taxonomy (parts of Coleoptera, parts of Diptera and Hymenoptera). Assessment using the CHI is simple and fast, allows future planning and is based on common issues for collection management, such as care, accessibility, organisation and data capture.

Strengthening Partnerships to Safeguard the Future of Herbaria

“…Together, we might gain clarity on questions that are fundamental to herbarium accession policies, such as how many specimens and over what time and geographic ranges are needed to determine the range of a species [41], and to track changes in that distribution range over time. Fruitful discussions in zoological collections have yielded rubrics for collection evaluation that can be applied across collections, and these may be adaptable for botanical collections as well [42][43][44][45]. For herbarium specimen data to reach their maximum potential for contributing to efforts to monitor and manage natural capital [46], we need to identify and collectively fill the gaps in our knowledge of the biodiversity in particular ecosystems.…”