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

阿拉巴马大学塔斯卡卢萨分校获得了阿拉巴马州地质调查局（GSA）的鱼类收藏。这个来自全州的超过45万淡水鱼标本的收藏，为这些物种在田纳西和莫比尔河流域的发生、分布和生态提供了无与伦比的记录，将被转移到阿拉巴马大学鱼类学收藏（UAIC）。此次转移将确保UAIC的藏品安全，并确保这些宝贵标本得到长期保护，同时通过UAIC门户网站（www.indeyweb.as.ua.edu）和项目合作伙伴（GBIF、FishNet2、VertNet和iDigBio）提供更多的标本和相关生态数据访问。密集的抽样工作导致了GSA的收集，这使得它对研究界特别重要，包括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，为大量淡水鱼和相关生态数据提供了即时的管理干预，否则这些数据将丢失给科学界。将这些标本添加到UAIC中，在标本数量以及相关收集和生态数据对研究界的价值方面，增加和补充了UAIC中目前的材料。GSA的收集代表了整个阿拉巴马州和周围流域的密集采样，并有可能为系统学、生物地理学、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为保护生物学家、生态学家和土地管理者提供了可用的时间序列信息，以记录人类对阿拉巴马州淡水水生生态系统的影响和环境变化。GSA的收藏还大大增加了UAIC对阿拉巴马州特有的受威胁和濒危物种的收藏，并通过提供这些珍贵标本的电子访问，促进了对这些分类群的未来研究。通过联合这些收集并通过几个生物多样性信息门户提供相关的实地数据，可以获得记录阿拉巴马州和美国东南部淡水鱼生物多样性的宝贵资源，用于培训和研究。

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.