Recuration and Geo-Referencing of the Herpetological Collection at Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collection

在Lee Fitzgerald博士的指导下，德克萨斯农业实验站获得了一笔赠款，用于部分支持德克萨斯合作野生动物收藏（TCWC）爬虫学部门的地理参考。爬虫学收藏于1938年建立，是世界上任何地方都能找到的最广泛的拉丁美洲和德克萨斯州标本收藏之一，其中包括来自收集活动变得困难或在某些情况下无法收集的地方的标本。近年来，这些收藏已被电子编目，以供在线使用，越来越多地用于研究、教学和公共宣传，并通过积极参与美国国家科学基金会赞助的HerpNET国家数据库项目，部分地进行地理参考。生物收集是推进对复杂生态变化的时空理解的基础。鉴于解决与生物多样性、生态过程和环境变化有关的环境和社会问题的迫切需要，保护、扩大和改善现有的自然历史收藏是很重要的。该项目的地理参考活动将使来自世界各地的研究人员能够更好地利用TCWC的藏品。目前对TCWC爬行动物馆藏的改进将支持生物多样性和有机生物学的研究；这些研究活动及其解决的科学问题将在本项目结束后很长一段时间内继续受益于收集方面的改进。这个集合支持研究，教学和推广。此外，它还可以对生物多样性进行分类。几乎在每一个科学学科、医学和教学领域，自然历史收藏越来越多地被不同的用户群体所使用。对TCWC爬虫类馆藏的改进将继续发挥这些重要功能，并为本科生和研究生参与自然史馆藏特别是爬虫类馆藏的利用和发展提供宝贵的机会。

A grant has been awarded to the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station under the direction of Dr. Lee Fitzgerald for partial support of the geo-referencing of the herpetology division of the Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collections (TCWC). The herpetology collection was established in 1938, contains one of the most extensive holdings of Latin American and Texas specimens to be found anywhere in the world, including specimens from locations where collection activities have since become difficult or, in some cases, impossible. In recent years the collection has been electronically cataloged for on-line use, been used increasingly for research, teaching, and public outreach, and been partially geo-referenced through active participation in the NSF sponsored HerpNET National Database Project. Biological collections are a foundation for advancing understanding of complex ecological changes over space and time. Given the critical need to address environmental and social problems related to biodiversity, ecological processes, and environmental change, it is important to preserve, expand, and improve existing natural history collections. The geo-referencing activities of this project will allow researchers from around the world to better utilize the collections of the TCWC. Improvements made now to the TCWC herpetology collection will support research on biodiversity and organismal biology; those research activities and the scientific questions they address will continue to benefit from collection improvements long after the life of this project.This collection supports research, teaching, and outreach. In addition, it serves to catalog biodiversity. Natural history collections are increasingly used by diverse user groups in almost every scientific discipline, medicine, and teaching. Improvements to the TCWC herpetology collection will continue those important functions, as well as provide valuable opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to participate in the use and development of natural history collections, specifically herpetology collections.