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中估计的50,750个未分配标本进行分类，分类升级和计算机化收集事件数据。未分配的材料包括来自旧金山湾、哥伦比亚河口、蒙特利湾和库斯湾的几个大型收藏品。厄尔尼诺现象引起的海面温度等温线的纬度变化一般会导致东太平洋无脊椎动物种群的变化。这种类型的历史变化可以记录在现在未分配的材料中保存的旧集合中。旧金山湾和东北太平洋其他沿海地区的重要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。旧金山湾的藏品尤其独特，因为它是受人类发展和非本地生物连续入侵严重影响的动物群变化的历史记录。这些数据在其他地方是无法获得的，随着公众和科学界对这些问题的关注日益增加，处理构成这些数据的标本的动力空前高涨。对于有内部专业知识的小组，工作人员将把这些分类批次的初始分类分配细化到物种水平。这些标本将被放在主要的分类学收藏中。应邀访问的科学家将进一步改进分类学，这将有助于鉴定标本和传播那些内部没有专门知识的分类群的数据，并为已成为部门活动组成部分的学生和志愿者提供非正式培训和技术支持。新分类、加入和分类分配的标本将通过CAS WWW页面以及互联网上的Crust-L（甲壳类）和软体动物列表公布。ASC Newsletter、Journal of甲壳纲生物学、甲壳纲、棘皮类、Chaetozone（多毛纲电子通讯）、系统生物学和Veliger杂志也会有注释。

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.