[Nhcoll-l] Biodiversity Crisis - We need your input

Tue Feb 11 17:58:56 EST 2020

Peter

My comments were addressing the reasoning behind why these two items were not expressly voiced in the survey (because one is already being extensively tackled and one is outside of our scope) and not meant to indicate that these two issues were not important in any way.  These are exactly the issues that we hoped people would raise in their responses.’

FYI – I do not have rights to post to ECN-L so these responses will not appear there.  Feel free to forward.

Thanks

Andy
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Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard<x-apple-data-detectors://9>
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561<x-apple-data-detectors://9>
USA<x-apple-data-detectors://9>

Tel: (785) 864-3863<tel:%28785%29%20864-3863>
Fax: (785) 864-5335<tel:%28785%29%20864-5335>
Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>
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From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Peter A Rauch
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2020 4:44 PM
To: nhcoll <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>; ECN-L at LISTSERV.UNL.EDU
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Biodiversity Crisis - We need your input

Andy, Can you be more explicit about the scope of the term "taxonomic impediment" in the context of your response and Doug's comment.

I had a similar feeling about the questionnaire as Doug (and some others have) expressed.

The intro to the questionnaire asks:

"Are there ways we can focus our individual and collective efforts to effectively harness our resources and knowledge to address the biodiversity crisis? How should the natural history collections community and SPNHC respond to this call to action?"

One of the questions asks:

"Are there other actions you think SPNHC can and should take to address the biodiversity crisis?"

How does Doug's commentary (about "taxonomic impediments"?) not respond in a SPNHC-y way to those questions?

It's not to be picky, but to better understand what sideboards SPNHC (e.g., you, the questionnaire) is putting on the collections services world view that SPNCH is prepared / able to contemplate programmatically.

Peter

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 2:22 PM Bentley, Andrew Charles <abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>> wrote:
Hi Doug

Both very valid points.  The taxonomic impediment is however somewhat outside of the scope of what SPNHC as a collections organization can tackle.  I see this more as a research-based problem that is beyond our purview.  Granted, we can advocate for the increase in taxonomic expertize as it relates to identifying materials in collections to address the biodiversity crisis but funding such an endeavor is outside of our scope of work.

Digitization and data cleanup is foremost in everyone’s mind and at the heart of SPNHC’s mission at the moment and a number of recently released papers have highlighted this – BCoN, etc. It will also be a central tenant of the soon to be released National Academy and IWGSC reports.  I guess we were trying to explore OTHER ways in which SPNHC could tackle this crisis beyond the existing measures – not to say that this is not something that needs to continue to be at the bleeding edge of what we do.

Thanks for your input and we will definitely keep this in mind when collating results for dissemination.

Andy
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Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
USA

Tel: (785) 864-3863<tel:%28785%29%20864-3863>
Fax: (785) 864-5335<tel:%28785%29%20864-5335>
Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>
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From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> On Behalf Of Doug Yanega
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2020 12:19 PM
To: nhcoll <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>; ECN-L at LISTSERV.UNL.EDU<mailto:ECN-L at LISTSERV.UNL.EDU>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Biodiversity Crisis - We need your input

"We have developed a short online survey that we hope will capture the information we need to formulate a meaningful response.

https://tiny.cc/biocrisis"<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Furldefense.proofpoint.com%2Fv2%2Furl%3Fu%3Dhttps-3A__tiny.cc_biocrisis%26d%3DDwMFAg%26c%3DCu5g146wZdoqVuKpTNsYHeFX_rg6kWhlkLF8Eft-wwo%26r%3D-lUMCZ4RK28H4qvcd3vmEBuyVJHHG0OpDzFenR9wX-A%26m%3DsvMlQwGevn9uqNrpxRJ2yJpVdtCjQ3_9IKGzhmbqTyE%26s%3D_36g9gn3ccJQs7in_wF0OOyeADV7eZCMs9FLKvqkAEI%26e%3D&data=02%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C36cf25a1c8024c452bf108d7af43e7c9%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637170578512021628&sdata=LSF2ynLOXwZ3h1xmHrng1OcTNyuJRBujCx8zxfr46%2FM%3D&reserved=0>

Having just completed this survey, I'll note that among the agenda items we're asked to prioritize, two of them ask about the need for funding or leading conservation efforts, but none of them ask about the need for funding or leading curatorial efforts, such as training and supporting taxonomists to provide identifications for natural history collections, or capturing and mobilizing specimen data.

I think all of us in the community understand that you can't promote effective assessment or management of biodiversity if you don't know what the organisms are, or where they live, and while I don't doubt for a minute that the people in SPNHC are fully aware of this fundamental need, I do have to wonder why it does not appear anywhere in the survey, when it seems to me that it should be an integral part of the discussion. After all, it's not like this work has been completed, or is anywhere even close to complete - there isn't a natural history collection in the world that has all of its holdings databased, online, AND fully reviewed for accuracy (both accuracy of data, and accuracy of identification). Is this not one of the highest priorities we in the collections community need to address in terms of the biodiversity crisis? How useful are our millions upon millions of specimens if we don't know whether we can trust the data, or trust the IDs?

I'm not really looking for a public response, but I do want to encourage people taking the survey to make use of the comments towards the end to give feedback, and expand upon the very limited selection of agenda items in the survey, if you agree with me that there are some fundamental things missing.

Sincerely,

--

Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum

Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega

phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)

             https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https:%2F%2Ffaculty.ucr.edu%2F~heraty%2Fyanega.html&data=02%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C36cf25a1c8024c452bf108d7af43e7c9%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C1%7C637170578512021628&sdata=csD4EJC6nGORzz2yDj28o2YkxzSRkcvikvQRhcNZqhU%3D&reserved=0>

  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness

        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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