CSBR Ownership Transfer: Saving an ecologically data-rich collection: adding the Geological Survey of Alabama Fish Collection to The University of Alabama Ichthyological Collection

授予亚拉巴马-塔斯卡卢萨大学一个奖项，以获得亚拉巴马地质调查局（GSA）的鱼类收藏。 来自全州的超过45万份淡水鱼标本的收集，提供了田纳西州和移动的河流域这些物种的发生，分布和生态的无与伦比的记录，将被转移到亚拉巴马大学鱼类学收藏（UAIC）。 此次转移将确保UAIC的收集，并确保这些宝贵标本的长期护理，以及通过UAIC门户网站（specifyweb.as.ua.edu）和项目合作伙伴（GBIF，FishNet 2，VertNet和iDigBio）提供更多的标本和相关生态数据。 密集的采样工作，导致在GSA收集，使其特别重要的研究界，包括其在学生培训和研究中的使用。该项目将GSA鱼类收藏的所有权转移到UAIC，为大量淡水鱼类和相关生态数据提供即时的管理干预，否则这些数据将丢失给科学界。 将这些标本添加到UAIC增加和补充了目前在UAIC的标本数量和相关收集和生态数据的研究社区的价值。 GSA收集代表了整个亚拉巴马和周围排水系统的密集采样，并可能为系统学，地理学，分类学，生活史和生态学研究提供信息。 与大部分标本相关的环境数据提供了可供保护生物学家，生态学家和土地管理人员使用的时间序列信息，以记录人类对亚拉巴马淡水水生生态系统的影响和环境变化。 GSA的收集也大大增加了UAIC对亚拉巴马特有的受威胁和濒危物种的持有量，并通过提供对这些珍贵标本的电子访问来促进对这些分类群的未来研究。 通过将这些收集的资料合并起来，并通过几个生物多样性信息门户网站提供相关的实地数据，为培训和研究提供了一个记录亚拉巴马和美国东南部淡水鱼生物多样性的宝贵资源。

An award is made to the University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa to acquire the fish collection of the Geological Survey of Alabama (GSA). This collection of over 450,000 specimens of freshwater fishes from throughout the State, provides an unparalleled record of the occurrence, distribution, and ecology of these species in the Tennessee and Mobile River basins, will be transferred to the University of Alabama Ichthyological Collection (UAIC). The transfer will secure the collection at UAIC and ensure the long-term care of these valuable specimens, as well as providing increased access to the specimens and associated ecological data through the UAIC web portal (specifyweb.as.ua.edu) and those of project partners (GBIF, FishNet2, VertNet, and iDigBio). The intensive sampling effort that resulted in the GSA collection makes it of particular importance to the research community including its use in student training and research. This project transfers ownership of the GSA fish collection into UAIC, providing immediate curatorial intervention to a very large collection of freshwater fishes and associated ecological data that would otherwise be lost to the scientific community. Addition of these specimens into UAIC augments and supplements the material currently in UAIC in both the number of specimens and the value of the associated collection and ecological data to the research community. The GSA collection represents intensive sampling throughout Alabama and surrounding drainages and potentially informs systematics, biogeography, taxonomy, life-history, and ecological studies. The environmental data associated with a large portion of the specimens provide time-series information usable by conservation biologists, ecologists and land managers to document human impacts and environmental changes across freshwater aquatic ecosystems in Alabama. The GSA collection also greatly increases UAIC's holdings of threatened and endangered species endemic to Alabama, and facilitates future research on these taxa by providing electronic access to these valuable specimens. By uniting these collections and providing access to associated field data through several biodiversity information portals an invaluable resource documenting freshwater fish biodiversity in Alabama and the southeastern United States is made available for training and research.