[Nhcoll-l] Environmental Conditions for Insect Collections

[Mary Sollows]

Hello,

We are in the early stages of expanding our collections and research facility.  Our insect collection (~200,000 specimens) is currently stored at ambient temperatures, with no environmental controls in the building beyond the seasonal controls one would expect in any office building.  The collection is kept in a closed room and we are using some naphthalene in the cabinets to control pests.  There has been some suggestion that we might be better to store insects at lower temperature (12.5 C) and RH of 30-40%, and that this might help with pest control (not that we are currently having any real problems).  We would like to know what the latest feelings/standards are on storing insect collections in terms of environmental conditions.  What alternatives to pest control are recommended beyond good housekeeping.  Maintaining collections at lower temperatures would be one way to deal with potential pests, but it is much more expensive to maintain a specialized environment beyond that which one might maintain for collections generally (we are looking at 17 C in the winter, 19 C in the summer with a RH of 40%, which is considerably better than we have now).

Thank you,

Mary Sollows
New Brunswick Museum / Musée du Nouveau-Brunswick
277 Douglas Ave.
Saint John, New Brunswick
Canada  E2K 1E5

Mary.Sollows at nbm-mnb.ca<mailto:Mary.Sollows at nbm-mnb.ca>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20141114/b3da3908/attachment.html