TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF INSECT COLLECTIONS IN THE U.S. THROUGH THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP

自然历史收藏是地球生物多样性的档案，让我们了解地球和影响社会的生态相互作用。最近的全球生物馆藏数字化倡议已经改变了这些生物库为综合生物学研究做出贡献的范围和规模。对集合及其数据的兴趣正在增加，然而大部分的工作能力保持不变。昆虫学收藏尤其重要，因为昆虫代表了最多样化和最丰富的动物群体，已知物种超过100万种。昆虫在我们的日常生活中无处不在，是大多数生态系统的重要组成部分。它们对人类健康也很重要，因为大多数植物传粉者、疾病媒介和农业害虫都是昆虫。藏品只有通过博物馆工作人员的专业知识和经验来组织和维护，通常是直接从一代传给下一代，因为在整个社区都没有正式的项目来做这件事。这种代际知识转移在人员有限的小型标本中尤为重要，这些标本约占美国所有昆虫标本的70%。尽管这些藏品规模庞大，但由于其强大的地区收藏，这些藏品往往非常有价值。这一努力将产生一个全面的项目，为馆藏人员提供面对面和在线的正式最佳实践培训，并为各个职业阶段和机构的馆藏工作人员提供急需的交流机会，以便与更广泛的馆藏社区分享他们的知识和经验。该奖项支持昆虫收藏管理研讨会系列的进步，包括虚拟参与和材料，由昆虫收藏网络（ECN）和美国昆虫学会（ESA）的系统学、进化和生物多样性（SysEB）部门共同主办。这些研讨会计划于2022年至2024年夏季每年举行一次，在耶鲁皮博迪自然历史博物馆、克利夫兰自然历史博物馆和亚利桑那州立大学之间轮流举办。该研讨会将发展为虚拟和面对面的混合活动。在为期3-4天的研讨会中，与会者将接受有关昆虫馆藏管理的培训，内容涵盖广泛的主题，包括政策、标本处理、策展、保存和数字化。该项目将鼓励与小型馆藏相关的馆藏管理人员和学生的参与，因为他们用于培训和馆藏发展的资源往往比较有限。该研讨会还将资助学生和早期职业研究人员的参与，他们是馆藏管理社区中规模最大、最多样化（就性别、种族和社会经济背景而言）的群体。本工作坊提供的专业发展机会，将造就一支技能更高超、更整合的馆藏管理人员队伍。本次研讨会的虚拟内容将通过ECN网站分享给更广泛的社区，现场研讨会的结果也将在ECN年会上展示。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Natural history collections are an archive of Earth's biodiversity, informing our understanding of the planet and ecological interactions that impact society. Recent global initiatives to digitize biological collections have transformed the scope and scale of how these biorepositories contribute to integrative biological research. Interest in collections and their data is increasing, however much of the workforce capacity remains the same. Entomological collections are especially important because insects represent the most diverse and abundant group of animals with over one million known species. Insects are ubiquitous in our everyday lives and an essential part of most ecosystems. They are also important to human health, as the majority of plant pollinators, disease vectors, and agricultural pests are insects. Collections are organized and maintained only through the specialized knowledge and experience of museum personnel, generally passed directly from one generation to the next, as no formal program has existed to do this across the community. This generational knowledge transfer has been especially important in smaller collections with limited staff, which represent ~70% of all U.S. insect collections. Despite their size, these collections are often extremely valuable due to their strong regional holdings. This effort will produce a comprehensive program to provide formal best-practices training, both in-person and online, to collections personnel, as well as providing much-needed networking opportunities for collections workers across career stages and institutions to share their knowledge and experience with the broader collections' community.This award supports the progressive advancement of the Entomological Collections Management Workshop Series, including virtual participation and material, co-sponsored by the Entomological Collections Network (ECN) and the Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (SysEB) Section of the Entomological Society of America (ESA). The workshops are scheduled to take place annually in summer 2022 to 2024, with hosting rotating between the Yale Peabody Natural History Museum, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and Arizona State University. The workshop will be developed as a hybrid virtual and in-person event. During the 3-4 day workshop, participants will receive training in entomological collections management covering a wide range of topics, various topics including policies, specimen handling, curation, conservation, and digitization. This project will encourage the participation of collections staff managers and students associated with smaller collections, as they often have with more limited resources for training and collection development. This workshop will also help fund participation by students and early career researchers, the largest and most diverse (in terms of gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic background) segment of the collections management community. The professional development opportunities provided by this workshop will thus lead to a more highly skilled and integrative community of collections management personnel. The virtual components of this workshop will be shared to the broader community through the ECN website, with the results of in-person workshops also presented at the ECN annual meetings.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.