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Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

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Page 1: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European

and Global Perspective

Fredrik Ronquist

Swedish Museum of Natural History

Stockholm

Page 2: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Natural History Collections

• Research – collections – exhibits• Large collections (millions of biological and

geological specimens), rapidly growing• Invaluable archive: diversity and evolution of life

on earth, geological history, environmental changes

• Strong research tradition: cradle of natural science

• Much of research still tied to collections• Outreach, play major role in promoting public

understanding of science

Page 3: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Modern collections …

• Observation databases

• Image databases

• DNA Archives

• …

Page 4: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

The Species Gateway (www.artportalen.se)

• Web Repository for Observational Data

• Used by amateur and professional biologists

• Developed and hosted by Swedish Species Information Centre and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency

• Collaboration with Amateur Societies

• 14 M observations in total (1.4 M digitized museum specimens)

• 4.5 M observations 2008

Page 5: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Do we still need collections of biological and geological specimens?

Page 6: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Wood White Réal’s Wood White

Page 7: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Dept. Contaminant Research

• 1960s: bird and seal populations decreasing; egg-shell thinning

• Baltic Sea and feeding rivers: among the world’s most polluted waters

• Existing collections of eggs, bones and skin allowed tracing of historical trends and identification of contaminant sources (chlorinated toxins and heavy metals)

• Started systematic collection of frozen tissue samples

• Environmental Specimen Bank now holds about 260,000 samples

• The world’s longest time series of biological samples of this kind

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Page 8: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Current Trends

• The biodiversity revolution: Charting and monitoring changes in biological diversity on the planet

• The cyber-revolution: information technology transforming the way we work with natural history collections

Page 9: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Charting Biological Diversity

• Only 10-20 % of species of life on earth described• 50 % of species extinct or critically endangered by 2100

due to human impact• Climate change alone estimated to cause extinction of

25 % of species in the next 50 years• Few species known well enough to judge whether they

are threatened by extinction (15 % US, 33 % Sweden)• 2010 biodiversity target (significant reduction in loss)

difficult to reach• Loss of diversity and ecosystem services threat to the

survival of humankind• Completing the inventory of life on earth should be a top

scientific and societal priority• With extra funding and technology advances could be

done in 20-25 years

Page 10: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

National Science Foundation

Focus on World fauna of individual groups

Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET)

Assembling the Tree of Life (AToL) Revisionary Synthesis in Systematics

(REVSYS) Planetary Biodiversity Inventories (PBI)

Page 11: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Swedish Taxonomy Initiative

All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) Within 20 years, all Swedish multicellular species

will be scientifically described and documented All species that can be identified without

advanced technical methodology (appr. 35,000) will be presented in Swedish in a well-illustrated Swedish Flora and Fauna Encyclopaedia

There will be keys to all species and the distribution, biology, and conservation of each species will be summarized

A collaborative project coordinated by the Swedish Species Information Centre (ArtDatabanken)

Page 12: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Swedish Taxonomy Initiative

3.0 M Euro/year for the core activities, Biodiversity Encyclopedia, inventories, etc.

1.5 M Euro/year to support taxonomic research on poorly known organisms

2.0 M Euro/year to support natural history museums

130 M Euro over 20 years(LHC 3,200 – 6,400 M Euro)

To date about 2,000 new speciesrecorded, about 600 new to science

Page 13: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Other Nordic Countries The Norwegian Biodiversity Information

Centre awarded 2.3 M Euro to launch Norwegian TaxonomyInitiative in 2009

Finnish PUTTE project finished in 2008; continued as Taxonomy Initiative?

Nordic Taxonomic Research Council? Amateur biologists are crucial in

inventorying and monitoring

Page 14: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Information Technology

• Specimen-based research is becoming an e-science

• Rational collection management relies more and more on information technology

• Virtual experience crucial part of exhibits

Page 15: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Information Technology

• Major push to digitize museum specimens (NHRS 15 years)

• Development of novel, partly automated digitization techniques (robots, image-based, OCR, web annotation)

• Specimen data through common data portal (GBIF, www.gbif.org; > 150 M specimens)

• High-resolution images (Morphbank; www.morphbank.net)

• Digitization of older literature (Biodiversity Heritage Library; www.biodiversitylibrary.org)

• Publishing of hyperlinked species descriptions online (ZooTaxa; www.mapress.com/zootaxa)

• Mandatory registration of new species names in open web repositories (ZooBank; www.zoobank.org)

Page 16: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm
Page 17: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm
Page 18: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Information Technology cont’d

• Scratchpads – collaborative tools for building web sites

• Encyclopedia of Life – aggregating information for all known species

Vince Smith

E O Wilson

Page 19: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

The European Scene• Research:

– EU funding gradually becomes more important– Competition among institutions across Europe for best scientists and for

EU funding– Biodiversity invontories and monitoring– Programmes for integrating amateur biologists– E-science

• Collections:– Standardization across Europe of storage – More cost-effective– Avoidance of pesticides – New & better storage facilities– Aggregation of collections – More cost-effective– Information technology for collection management

• Exhibits:– Local presence more important than ever– Virtual museums– Exhibits on tour

Page 20: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Major Research Infrastructures

• Natural History Collections are MRIs (cf. Large Hadron Collider; EMBL)

• Collections: storage facilities, pest management, personnel, information technology

• Labs: DNA labs, geological analysis• European competition will result in fewer top research

institutions • Well coordinated, distributed set of collections: (The

Netherlands)• Centralized: UK (The Natural History Museum),

Denmark (Statens Naturhistoriske Museer), Sweden (Naturhistoriska riksmuseet)

Page 21: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

• Synthesys I and II: Synthesis of Systematic Resources (EU 6th and 7th framework programme; 2004-2009, 2009-2015, www.synthesys.info)– Transnational access to CETAF facilities– Networking activities– Joint research

• EDIT: Towards a European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (Centre of Excellence, EU 6th Framework Programme, 2006-2011, www.e-taxonomy.eu)– Integrate taxonomic effort within Europe– Build world-leading capacity– Create virtual centre of excellence (EDIT)– Increase scientific basis and capacity for conservation

Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities

www.cetaf.org

Page 22: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

CETAF-related projects or initiatives:• ENBI: European Network for Biodiversity Information• ENHSIN: European Natural History Specimen

Information Network• BioCASE: A Biological Collection Access Service for

Europe• Fauna Europaea: Database of the names of all known

European animal species• Euro + Med PlantBase: Database of vascular plants of

Europe and the Mediterranean region• LifeWatch: e-science and technology infrastructure for

biodiversity data and observatories

Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities

www.cetaf.org

Page 23: Importance and Use of Natural History Collections – European and Global Perspective Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm

Good Advice (?)

• Coordinate or centralize the resources• Think long-term (50-100 years)• Cut corners by using emerging information technology• Specialize; aim to be best in Europe in some areas• Be a good European and international player: participate

in joint projects, cut out a role for yourselves as leaders of some initiatives

• Join CETAF, EDIT• Prepare for major biodiversity inventorying and

monitoring initiatives• Contribute to development of information technology?• Build collaborations with amateur biologists