Improvements to the Royal D. Suttkus Fish Collection, including updates to its database management system

杜兰大学的鱼类收藏，以皇家D的荣誉命名。Suttkus收集了大部分的标本，是世界上最大的幼鱼（幼鱼到成年鱼）标本的研究收藏，目前在204，105个编目物种中拥有7，407，714个标本。 该收藏品在鱼类收藏品中是独一无二的，因为它在几十年内从同一地点采集了重复的样本，并且有大量的常见鱼类标本。 来自Suttkus鱼类收藏的标本支持广泛的已发表研究，从分类学描述到解剖学研究，入侵物种，社区生态学，保护，环境中的微塑料，考古学和基于机器学习的物种分类。在杜兰大学最近收购了路易斯安那大学门罗（乌尔姆）尼尔·H·门罗（Neil H. Monroe）的大部分标本后，收藏品将继续增长，在64,000个批次中增加90000个标本。道格拉斯鱼类收藏馆，杜兰在2017年领导了一项拯救行动。 拟议的项目将满足Suttkus和道格拉斯鱼类收藏的策展和数据库需求。 来自新奥尔良历史黑人学院和大学（HBCUs）的学生将被招募实习，这将使他们参与该项目，并向他们介绍生物多样性研究和收藏护理的职业生涯。 该项目将对Suttkus鱼类收藏进行重大改进，将收藏扩展到杜兰大学赫伯特中心校园的第三栋建筑，在掩体A-2中创建两个大型收藏储存区，并将罐子从收藏的其他两栋建筑转移到这些新的储存区。 为了进一步确保资源，策展的需要将得到解决的罐子地段，因为他们正在处理和标本和数据从尼尔H。道格拉斯（乌尔姆）鱼类收藏将被整合到萨特库斯鱼类收藏。 大型标本设施（掩体A-15）中由于贮体箱盖故障而导致酒精蒸发的问题将通过更换48个新的大型储存容器来解决。 此外，Suttkus鱼类收藏的数据库管理系统将进行更新，使其更加灵活、开放源码，并与现代数据访问和共享技术兼容。 该项目的成果将通过会议介绍、出版物和软件发布等方式传播给相关社区。收藏管理系统的设计将是灵活的，以便任何希望使用它的生物多样性收藏都可以采用它。（收集管理系统的代码、文件和基础设施细节）将与生物多样性收集社区公开共享，标本数据将与iDigBio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。

Tulane University’s fish collection, named in honor of Royal D. Suttkus, who collected most of its specimens, is the largest research collection of post-larval (juvenile to adult-sized) fish specimens in the world, presently housing 7,407,714 specimens in 204,105 cataloged species lots. The collection is unique among fish collections for having repetitive samples taken from the same sites over several decades and high numbers of lots with large numbers of specimens of common fish species. Specimens from the Suttkus Fish Collection support a wide breadth of published research, from taxonomic descriptions to studies of anatomy, invasive species, community ecology, conservation, microplastics in the environment, archaeology, and machine-learning based species classification. The collection will continue to grow by 900,000 additional specimens in 64,000 lots following Tulane’s recent acquisition of most of the specimens in the University of Louisiana Monroe’s (ULM) Neil H. Douglas Fish Collection, which Tulane led an effort to rescue in 2017. The proposed project will provide for curatorial and databasing needs of both the Suttkus and Douglas fish collections. Students from New Orleans Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) will be recruited for internships that will involve them in the project and introduce them to careers in biodiversity research and collections care. This project will make significant improvements to the Suttkus Fish Collection, expanding the collection to a third building on Tulane’s Hebert Center campus, creating two large collection storage areas in Bunker A-2 and moving jar lots from the collection’s other two buildings to these new storage areas. To further secure the resource, curatorial needs will be addressed for the jar lots as they are being handled and specimens and data from the Neil H. Douglas (ULM) fish collection will be integrated into the Suttkus Fish Collection. A problem in the large-specimen facility (Bunker A-15) with alcohol evaporation due to the bins’ faulty lids will be addressed by replacing these with the 48 large new storage containers. In addition, the Suttkus Fish Collection’s Database Management System will be updated to make it more flexible, open source and compatible with modern data access and sharing technology. The results of the project will be disseminated to communities of interest through conference presentations, publications, and software releases. Design of the collection management system will be flexible so that it can be adopted by any biodiversity collections that want to use it. All technology produced in the project (code, documentation and infrastructure details for the collection management system) will be shared openly with the biodiversity collections community, and specimen data will be shared with iDigBio (idigbio.org), increasing the accessibility of these data.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.