Vertebrate Paleontology Improvements at the Florida Museum of Natural History: Plio-Pleistocene and Megafaunal Curation

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The Vertebrate Paleontology collection and associated research program at the Florida Museum of Natural History is one of the leading programs of its kind and ranks in the top ten in North America. This project will provide funds for major curatorial improvements to this collection to enhance its utility as a research resource. Throughout the last two decades the Vertebrate Paleontology collection has grown at a phenomenal pace, on average by about 10% per year. This collection currently contains about 300,000 potentially catalogable specimens of which about only 135,000 are entered onto a computerized data base. The specimens not on the data base, although physically accessible for study, suffer from the fact that they cannot be retrieved during computer searches and sorts. With the rapid growth in computerized data bases within the last ten years, it is imperative that as many specimens as possible be computerized. During this project period, the PIs will curate and enter the specimens from the collection's extensive Florida localities. The goal in three years is to add approximately 55,000 new specimens to the computerized catalog. Another major problem resulting from the very rapid growth of the collection has been lack of sufficient space to curate, study, and house these important scientific specimens. The project will provide funds to install movable storage units ("compactors") that will greatly increase (by about 30%) the net usable space for storage of smaller specimens. During the same time, the PIs also will reorganize the collection's large vertebrate specimens (e.g., whales, mastodons and mammoths, and giant ground sloths)onto specially designed metal shelves that more efficiently use the available space. These collections improvements are the optimal means of enhancing the research capabilities of this important scientific resource and should solve the collection's needs into the beginning of the 21st century.