[Nhcoll-l] Specimens vs assemblies

Tue Nov 16 09:46:45 EST 2021

Hi Paul,

Interesting problem. With reference to vertebrates I would say it is
potentially closest to when we deal with parasites. Those do live on and in
a vertebrate.

I would have a couple different things to think about on whether or not I
separate them:
1. Are you going to lose or damage one of them in the preparation process
of the main organism? For a bird, I probably would lose the internal
parasites when preparing a skin, so I remove them and save them separately.

2. If you keep them together as a group, will they be easy to find in your
collection? That is another reason to separate the parasites versus the
host in my museum. We do not have a reference system that tells people,
look in the bird skin collection if you are interested in parasites.
Doesn't mean we couldn't set it up that way, but it would involve some
thought process.

And Dirk is right that our databases now have great ways to record and
track these types of relationships.
Check out these examples from Arctos which use relationships to record the
type of data you are talking about:
https://arctos.database.museum/guid/DMNS:Bird:44431 (ate and host/parasite)
https://arctos.database.museum/guid/UAM:Ento:378955 (iNaturalist to museum
object)

Assemblages are something I haven't dealt with much in vertebrate
collections. I would be really interested to hear how other types of
collections use those.

cheers,
Beth Wommack

On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 7:07 AM Dirk Neumann <neumann at snsb.de> wrote:

> ◆ This message was sent from a non-UWYO address. Please exercise caution
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>
> Hi Paul,
>
> from a database perspective, would this not just be a separate storage
> collection that would need to be entered for the associated species in
> their respective taxon-based databases?
>
> In the case of some (Marine) parasites, it would also be very difficult to
> separate the different organisms, I think the key challenges from a
> collections management point of view are
> - knowing that these specimens are there
> - and where I could find them (if they are obviously not in the respective
> taxonomic collection, but still associated with the sea fan)
>
> Also - very classical solution - you could created dummy lots without
> contents for the respective collections so that there is a physical
> representation of "the jar", and the printed label says says where to find
> the object.
>
> Mixed samples (also: eDNA, soil samples) will be difficult to handle in
> taxon-based collections, but surely will increase (unsorted malaise traps
> returned from the field would in principle also belong into this category).
> We can handle this more easily now in our databases by setting respective
> references and internal linkages; this surely was more of a challenge back
> in the days of file cards and hand-written inventory book entries.
>
> By separating them, you definitely loose "information" - I would keep them
> together, unless a specific (research) question requires "disconnection".
>
> Hope this helps
> Dirk
>
>
> Am 16.11.2021 um 14:46 schrieb Callomon,Paul:
>
> Folks,
>
>
>
> I’m working with some interesting questions at the moment and thought I’d
> ask for colleagues’ input. Look on it as broader service to science or
> something.
>
>
>
>    1. I’m dealing today with a sea fan (Cnidaria: Alcyonacea) that bears
>    several wing oysters (Mollusca: Pteriidae) and barnacles (Crustacea:
>    Cirripeda) as well as a couple of tube worms (Annelida: Polychaeta) and
>    countless diatoms. As a collections manager, do I physically separate the
>    individual specimens and send them off to their respective collections
>    (General Invertebrates [Cnidaria], Mollusca and General Invertebrates
>    [Crustacea] and [Annelida]) or preserve the assemblage intact? If they were
>    tigers and snails collected at the same spot, for example, there would be
>    no problem doing this; but snails don’t live on tigers.
>    2. If I choose not to separate them (correctly, I think), then once I
>    catalog the individual taxa into their respective databases, into which
>    collection does the assemblage physically go? All four epibionts are
>    attached to the sea fan, so that would seem to have the best claim to
>    priority as it’s both a specimen in its own right and a substrate for the
>    others. The problem there is that our General Invertebrates collection is
>    not funded, whereas our mollusk collection is. Our neontological
>    “departments” are all taxon-based and each has its own community of
>    curators, managers, associates and researchers as well as its own demands
>    on space, infrastructure and support.
>    3. Most museums divide their Recent collections by taxon as above.
>    However, this contrasts with Vertebrate and Invertebrate Paleontology,
>    which are pan-taxonomical disciplines. Our Recent crabs, for example, go in
>    the Crustacea collection, away from their commensal mollusk chums, but
>    fossil crabs and mollusks both belong in a single Invertebrate Paleontology
>    collection, while fossil fishes and mammoths snuggle up in the Vertebrate
>    Paleontology collection.
>    4. How then does the existence and maintenance of neontological
>    taxon-based collections (Entomology, Malacology, Mammalogy etc) configure
>    science – does it encourage the emergence of museum entomologists,
>    malacologists and mammalogists over, say, benthic ecologists?
>
>
>
> Paul Callomon
>
> Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
> ------------------------------
>
> *Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University*
>
> 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
> *prc44 at drexel.edu* <prc44 at drexel.edu>* Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax
> 215-299-1170*
>
>
>
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> --
>
>
> Dirk Neumann
>
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> Fax: 089 / 8107-300
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> ---------
>
> Dirk Neumann
>
> Tel: +49-89-8107-111
> Fax: +49-89-8107-300
> neumann(a)snsb.de
>
> postal address:
>
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> The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
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>

-- 
Elizabeth Wommack, PhD
Curator and Collections Manager of Vertebrates
University of Wyoming Museum of Vertebrates
Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY 82071
ewommack@ <ewommack at berkeley.edu>uwyo.edu
www.uwymv. <http://www.uwymv.edu/>org
UWYMV Collection Use Policy
<http://www.uwymv.org/index.php/download_file/view/43/143/>
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