[Nhcoll-l] Wooden storage cabinets

Thu Oct 7 12:12:09 EDT 2021

Doug et al.,

I've also often wondered why the insect world persists with wooden cases. It may be because there are few calcitic structures in most insects - my limited understanding of them is that they are made mostly of protein and carbohydrates like chitin - so Byne's, which is specific to calcium carbonate (and perhaps calcium phosphate, mammalogy colleagues?) is less likely to rear its fuzzy head.

PC

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<mailto:prc44 at drexel.edu> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170

From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Douglas Yanega
Sent: Thursday, October 7, 2021 12:07 PM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Wooden storage cabinets

External.
While the earlier parts of the thread about cotton wool and such did not seem to be something that would ever concern me, the following does:

On 10/7/21 6:32 AM, Callomon,Paul wrote:
Tightly-sealed wood cabinets are nevertheless hazardous for Byne's because acetic and formic acids are volatile at room temperature, so they will migrate out of the wood and go in search of things to eat regardless of atmospheric conditions. Lower humidity within the cabinets mitigates this problem to some degree, but does not solve it, and some woods such as oak are known to exude a lot of acid. It may be possible to mitigate this with the equivalent of the "sacrificial anode" on a wooden ship (that is, place a tray of hygroscopic alkaline material in the cabinet that is more attractive to the acids than the specimens) but I have not seen this done.

I manage a very large insect collection, and ALL insect collections, without exception, use wooden drawers (though maybe not wooden *cabinets* any more); my collection has over 5500 wooden drawers, ranging in age from 1 to about 70 years. After over 20 years going to international meetings for insect collection curators (the Entomological Collections Network - ECN), I don't think I have ever heard anyone say that keeping insect specimens in wooden drawers was something that - in and of itself - was probably causing significant damage to them over time. If there are acidic volatiles produced by wood and paper, then insect collections ARE going to experience significant exposure, and there are certain things one gets familiar with in insect collections (black exoskeletons turning red/brown after a few decades, pins embedded in cork corroding where they contact the cork and getting stuck, etc.) that might be related to this, but not fully appreciated as to the cause.

That strikes me as an odd "disconnect", that a major part of the NH museum community that very much stands to be affected by this phenomenon would be so poorly-informed on the subject compared to other subsets of the community. Has any of the literature and research on this ever been performed by entomologists, or published in entomological journals, where it could get broader attention, and it's just being overlooked, or have we genuinely been left out of the proverbial loop? A fairly targeted Google search reveals essentially nothing in the entomological literature except a short note from 1992 (evidently by a colleague in my own department) suggesting that acid outgassing from wood might cause corrosion in insect pins.

If I'm not mistaken, then maybe one of you folks who is familiar with the risks of VOCs outgassing from wood would be willing and interested in contacting the program chairs for the impending annual ECN meeting, which is online this year, via https://ecnweb.net/ecn2021/meeting/<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fecnweb.net%2Fecn2021%2Fmeeting%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cprc44%40drexel.edu%7Cde638f9cafff404f66a008d989ac74dc%7C3664e6fa47bd45a696708c4f080f8ca6%7C0%7C0%7C637692196051893917%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=uq%2BmlxNd30VPwYq6qkYoncIjrchXdQwEpKKJ5Gi1K5Q%3D&reserved=0> - the meeting is in only a few weeks (Oct. 25-27), and most of the program is already set, but I have the impression that the organizers would do their best to find a time for such a potentially important presentation.

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)

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