Support for the Systematics Research Collection at the Missouri Botanical Garden

密苏里州植物园是世界上最重要的植物学研究和植物标本管理中心之一。植物标本馆的馆长是热带植物研究的领军人物，园中收藏的藏品代表着巨大而独特的研究资源。来自世界各地的植物学家参观这些收藏品，并要求借出标本，而获得这些收藏品对数百个当前的研究项目至关重要。不幸的是，新收藏的速度已经超过了花园安装、识别、标记和归档收藏中标本的能力。已有30多万件标本积压在“积压”中，研究界表达了获取这些标本的强烈愿望。所罗门博士将监督一项为期三年的积极行动，以消除这种积压，并建立防止未来积压的策展程序。在密苏里州植物园处理积压的标本将使世界各地的研究收藏品受益。热带生物多样性的研究、本土植物的药用、生态和进化研究都依赖于这些藏品，将积压的藏品处理成可访问的藏品将使花园的植物标本馆藏品成为更全面的研究资源。

The Missouri Botanical Garden is one of the world's most important centers for botanical research and for curation of plant specimens. The Curators of the Herbarium are leading researchers on tropical plants, and the collections amassed at the Garden represent an enormous and unique resource for research. Botanists from around the world visit these collections and request specimens on loan, and access to these collections is critical for hundreds of current research projects. Unfortunately, the rate at which new collections have arrived has outpaced the Garden's ability to mount, identify, label, and file specimens in the collections. More than 300,000 specimens have accumulated in "backlog", and the research community has expressed strong desire for access to these specimens. Dr. Solomon will oversee an aggressive three-year campaign to eliminate this backlog, and to put in place curatorial procedures that will prevent future backlogs from accumulating. Processing the specimen backlog at the Missouri Botanical Garden will benefit research collections around the world. Research into tropical biodiversity, medicinal use of native plants, ecological and evolutionary studies all rely on these collections, and processing the backlog into accessible collections will make the Garden's Herbarium collection a more comprehensive research resource.