CSBR: Natural History: Critical Access and Storage For a Unique Collection of Mistletoes at University of California, Berkeley

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The University and Jepson Herbaria (UC/JEPS) at the University of California, Berkeley with approximately 2,250,000 specimens is the largest collection west of the Missouri Botanical Garden and the largest at a public university in the USA. It is a widely used and growing collection representing all plant groups across all continents. This project will enable the consolidation and proper housing of three important collections that were developed over the research career of four specialists on mistletoes (parasitic plants that live on host branches). This consolidation of approximately 20,000 specimens, including 1,200 haustoria (connections between host and parasite), will result in the largest and most comprehensive collection of mistletoes in the world and will provide a unique resource that is not available elsewhere. Securing these collections is urgent because they are currently stored in non-archival conditions and are not easily available for study. Mistletoes are considered keystone forest species that are central to studies on ecology, biodiversity, and species interactions in forested environments. Undergraduate students from the research apprenticeship program at the University of California, Berkeley will be trained in museum curation and work-study students will be trained in databasing and digitization of natural history collections. To accommodate these collections, compactors with 44 new cabinets will be installed and archival boxes purchased to house haustoria. Specimens will be imaged and label information will be captured for incorporation into the UC/JEPS herbarium portal (http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/specimens/) and will be shared with GBIF (https://www.gbif.org/) and iDigBio (https://www.idigbio.org/), making these collections accessible to the public and researchers across several platforms. More information about the UC/JEPS Herbaria and this project is available at: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.