Partnership to the Fossil Insect Collaborative for Collections at the University of California Museum of Paleontology

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The University of California, Berkeley Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) will join the Fossil Insect Thematic Collections Network (TCN) dedicated to understanding the impacts of environmental change on insect diversity and evolution using paleontological data. The project will expand the TCN's current geographic coverage providing researchers and the public with web-accessible digitized images and specimen records of approximately 4,900 Cenozoic insects that lived during times of significant climate change. These specimens include insects in amber, a rare insect assemblage from the Great Basin, and Ice Age insects from southern California's Rancho La Brea and McKittrick tarpits.Addition of these specimens to the Fossil Insect TCN will enhance datasets for analyzing how these climatically-sensitive organisms have responded to abrupt environmental changes throughout Earth history, and the implications of climatic warming on present-day biodiversity. Students at UC Berkeley will perform the digitization while learning about the value of natural history collections and their relevance to science. Project data will enhance UCMP's K-16 teacher-student science education programs, global public outreach, and Internet resources. Input from local communities will assist in developing "DigIt", a mobile application for researchers, teachers and students, members of industry, government agencies, and the public. This award is made as part of the National Resource for Digitization of Biological Collections through the Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program and all data resulting from this award will be available through the national resource (iDigBio.org).