CSBR: Natural History: Enhancement of the Ethanol-Based Collections of the Texas A&M University Insect Collection

我们对地球上生命多样性的了解，其可验证的科学基础大多存在于自然历史收藏中。 这些藏品中长期信任的标本构成了当代和子孙后代科学家寻求回答当今生物学问题和未来未知问题的不可替代的资源。 得克萨斯州农工大学昆虫标本馆（TAMUIC）是陆地和淡水无脊椎动物的主要研究标本馆，在美国西南部和北方新热带地区的动物群中拥有约290万个标本和区域优势。 该收集是记录这些地区无脊椎动物生物多样性的物质基础设施的一个重要节点。 它支持美国系统昆虫学最活跃的教育和研究项目之一，并为美国和世界各地的科学家提供高质量的研究标本。 所支持的项目将在两个重要方面加强TAMUIC。 首先，它将允许TAMUIC收购并合并迪恩蜘蛛收藏，这是艾伦迪恩先生在40年的职业生涯中建立起来的一个全国性的重要蜘蛛收藏。 其次，收购迪恩收藏品为TAMUIC提供了一个合乎逻辑和及时的机会，可以对其整个酒精保存标本收藏进行全面的重新管理，并捕捉基本的分类学，地理学，为了使这些数据可用于许多科学学科的研究，从这两个收集的时间数据。越来越多的合作和跨学科，并越来越依赖于来自多个来源的材料和数据。 特别是对大规模问题的有意义的调查将取决于随时获得共享的相关数据集，这些数据集可以根据需要从多个数字来源汇集起来，并进行适当的分析。 该项目将收集并向研究界提供50 000多份关于陆地和淡水昆虫和蛛形纲动物的新的小瓶级数字记录。 重要的是，它还将有助于长期保存这些记录所依据的实物标本。 TAMUIC继续作为科学界高质量乙醇基材料来源的能力将通过该项目对涵盖TAMUIC所有乙醇材料的全面再处理工作的支持而得到加强，包括将收集从免费小瓶转换为双密封样品储存系统。 收藏品橱柜将升级，以符合适用的标准;策展材料将全面标准化，并升级到档案质量;乙醇收藏品将合并到一个单一的物理空间。 该项目是TAMUIC长期计划的一个组成部分，旨在将其资源升级到现代收藏社区标准。 作为该项目的一部分，数字化的样本数据将与iDigBio（iDigBio.org）共享。该奖项反映了NSF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。

The verifiable scientific basis for much of what we know about the diversity of life on Earth resides in natural history collections. The specimens held in long-term trust in these collections constitute an irreplaceable resource for current and future generations of scientists seeking to answer the biological questions of today, and the unknown questions of tomorrow. The Texas A&M University Insect Collection (TAMUIC) is a major research collection of terrestrial and freshwater invertebrates with approximately 2.9 million specimens and regional strengths in the faunas of the southwestern U.S. and northern neotropics. The collection is an important node in the physical infrastructure documenting invertebrate biodiversity throughout these regions. It supports one of the most active educational and research programs in systematic entomology in the U.S., and provides scientists across the U.S. and around the world with access to high-quality specimens for research. The supported project will enhance the TAMUIC in two significant ways. First, it will allow the TAMUIC to acquire and incorporate the Dean Araneae Collection, a nationally-important collection of spiders built up over the course of a 40-year career by Mr. Allen Dean. Second, the acquisition of the Dean collection presents a logical and timely opportunity for the TAMUIC to undertake a comprehensive recuration of its entire collection of alcohol-preserved specimens, and to capture fundamental taxonomic, geographic, and temporal data from both collections in order to make those data available for use in studies in many scientific disciplines.The search for scientific solutions to complex environmental problems has become increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary, and relies more and more on materials and data from multiple sources. Meaningful investigation of large-scale problems in particular will come to depend upon ready access to shared sets of relevant data that can be pooled on demand from multiple digital sources and subjected to appropriate analysis. This project will capture and make available to the research community more than 50,000 new, vial-level, digital records of terrestrial and freshwater insects and arachnids. Importantly, it will also facilitate the long-term preservation of the physical specimens upon which those records are based. The ability of the TAMUIC to continue to serve as a source of high-quality, ethanol-based materials for the scientific community will be enhanced by the project's support for a comprehensive re-curation effort covering all of the TAMUIC's alcohol materials, including conversion of the collection from a free-vial to a double containment specimen storage system. Collection cabinetry will be upgraded to meet applicable standards; curatorial materials will be standardized throughout and upgraded to archival quality; and ethanol collections will be consolidated into a single physical space. The project is an integral part of the TAMUIC's long-term plan to upgrade its resources to modern collections-community standards. Specimen data digitized as part of this project will be shared with iDigBio (iDigBio.org).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.