Improvement of Historically Important CAS Wet-Preserved Invertebrate Collections

该项目的管理计划是在未来三年内对湿保存的无脊椎动物标本集中约50,750个未分配标本的收集事件数据进行分类、分类升级和计算机化。未分配的材料包括来自旧金山湾、哥伦比亚河河口、蒙特利湾和库斯湾的几个大型标本。厄尔尼诺现象引起的海表面温度等温线的纬度变化通常会导致东太平洋无脊椎动物种群的变化。这种类型的历史变迁可以记录在现在保存在未分配材料中的旧收藏中。来自旧金山湾和东北太平洋其他沿海地区的大量底栖生物收藏，作为无脊椎动物种群水平和多样性的历史标志具有重要价值。旧金山湾的收藏品特别独特，因为它记录了一个受到人类发展和连续入侵非土著生物严重影响的动物群的变化。这些数据在其他地方是没有的，随着公众和科学对这些问题的日益关注，处理构成数据的标本的动力达到了历史最高水平。对于拥有内部专业知识的群体，工作人员将完善这些按物种水平分类的地段的初始分类分配。然后，标本地块将被搁置在主要的分类收藏中。受邀访问的科学家进行进一步的分类改进，将有助于鉴定标本和传播那些没有内部专业知识的分类群的数据，并为学生和志愿者提供非正式培训和技术支持，这些已成为部门活动的组成部分。新分类、加入和分类分配的标本将通过中科院WWW页面以及互联网上的甲壳-L和软体动物名录公布。此外，《ASC通讯》、《甲壳类生物学杂志》、《棘皮动物通讯》、《多毛类电子通讯》、《系统生物学》和《绒毛虫》也将发表。

The management plan for this project is to sort, taxonomically upgrade, and computerize collection event data for the estimated 50,750 unallocated specimen lots in the wet-preserved invertebrate collection over the next three years.The unallocated material includes several large collections from San Francisco Bay, the mouth of the Columbia River, Monterey Bay, and Coos Bay. Latitudinal shifts in sea surface temperature isotherms due to El Ninos can result in invertebrate faunal population changes in the eastern Pacific in general. Historical shifts of this type can be recorded in the older collections now held in the unallocated material. The significant benthic collections from San Francisco Bay and other coastal localities of the Northeast Pacific have great value as historical markers of invertebrate population levels and diversity. The San Francisco Bay collections in particular are unique as a historical record of changes in a fauna heavily impacted by human development and successive invasions of non-indigenous organisms. These data are not available elsewhere, and with increasing public and scientific concern over these issues, the impetus to process the specimens constituting the data is at an all-time high.For groups in which in-house expertise is available, staff will refine these initial taxonomic allocations of the lots sorted to species level. The specimen lots will then be shelved in the main taxonomic collection. Further taxonomic refinement by invited visiting scientists will assist in identifying specimens and disseminating data from those taxa for which in-house expertise is not available and to provide informal training and technical support to the students and volunteers that have become an integral part of departmental activities.Availability of the newly sorted, accessioned and taxonomically allocated specimens will be announced via the CAS WWW page as well as the Crust-L (Crustacea), and Mollusca lists on the Internet. Notes will also go to the ASC Newsletter, Journal of Crustacean Biology, Crustaceana, Echinoderm Newsletter, Chaetozone (Polychaeta e-newsletter), Systematic Biology and Veliger.