Support for the Field Museum Fossil Invertebrate Collection

菲尔德博物馆的无脊椎动物化石收藏因其庞大的规模和对系统学、进化和古生态学研究的持续意义而享誉国际。藏品包括约32万个标本批次，单个标本多达200万个。然而，标本过度拥挤阻碍了充分发挥馆藏潜力的努力。本提案中概述的项目的实施将导致一个更好的组织，更少的拥挤，更容易访问的集合。该项目将成功地解决保护问题，首先是通过管理我们大量积压的藏品，其次是通过缓解标本的拥挤。这种材料的分类划分和标本整合到一个时间/系统框架被认为是最实用和科学上有益的方式来对待它。该项目概述了整个收藏的重组和移动，以及工作人员和访问策展人对模式标本，棘皮动物和古生代腹足类动物的额外主要策展。最近古植物学收藏品搬到新设施，提供了额外的橱柜空间，足以满足这一需求。对积压材料的整理和整合将有效地为科学界提供“新”标本。

The Field Museum's Fossil Invertebrate Collection is recognized internationally for its vast size and ongoing significance to research in systematics, evolution, and paleoecology. The collection includes about 320,000 specimen lots with as many as 2 million individual specimens. However, specimen overcrowding has hampered efforts to realize the full potential of the collection. Implementation of the project outlined in this proposal will result in a better organized, less crowded, and more easily accessible collection. The project will successfully address conservation issues, first by curating much of our backlog holdings, and second by alleviating crowding of specimens. The taxonomic division of this material and the integration of specimens into a temporal/systematic framework is viewed as the most practical and scientifically beneficial manner in which to treat it. This project outlines the reorganization and move of the entire collection, and additional primary curation by staff and visiting curators for type specimens, echinoderms and Paleozoic gastropods. The recent move of paleobotanical collections to new facilities has provided additional cabinet space more than sufficient for this need. The curation and incorporation of the backlog material in collections will result in effectively "new" specimens becoming available to the scientific community.