Collaborative Research: A Workshop for Evaluating the Value and Scope of a Biological Repository of Antarctic Specimens

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This workshop will bring together Antarctic marine freshwater and terrestrial biologists, students, and experts in specimen curation to assess the value of, need for, and scope of a biological repository of Antarctic specimens, including tissue samples. Currently, some US collected Antarctic specimen collections are housed in various museums, repositories, and labs. These collections are not easily discoverable on the internet, and how well they represent the biodiversity of Antarctica is largely unknown. The workshop coordinators will advertise the conference broadly and recruit underrepresented groups to participate. Participants will assess current repositories and determine how to make Antarctica biological samples more accessible in a unified location (or through better coordination). This effort will benefit the broader community of biologists working with Antarctic organisms by providing opportunities to conduct Antarctic science by investigators and their students that might otherwise not be possible due to the logistical and budget challenges for deployments. Following workshop activities, a final report will be published on the outcomes of the efforts.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.