[Nhcoll-l] vouchers

[Callomon,Paul]

If specimens are cited in a study, then they're vouchers for that study. Whether people later use different techniques to analyze them than were used in the original study (or no-one ever looks at them again) does not alter their status. The whole point of keeping vouchers is to allow reassessment of hypotheses that are based on them by reassembling the original evidence. The voucher sleeps until the hypothesis is reexamined (or, in Latourian terms, the "black box" is reopened).

To call DNA snips "vouchers" just because they allow a certain kind of analysis is a misnomer; if the specimen itself is a voucher for an expedition then the snip is part of that voucher. Otherwise, cutting the snip and keeping it frozen is just an alternate form of preservation, the same as keeping a shell in with the shells and its mounted radula in with the microscope slides.

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
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Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
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From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Lewis, Deborah A [EEOB]
Sent: Thursday, November 3, 2022 11:35 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] vouchers


External.
So do I understand correctly that (previously and newly collected) specimens assessed, cited in a monograph (or revision or Flora) and annotated as such are not "vouchers" for the study? (Yes, I know that they're typically listed in the monograph and on the annotation label as "specimen(s) examined" or similar, but I have considered them to be vouchers in that their measurements, DNA sequences, etc confirm the data presented in the descriptions in the monograph or other similar work.)
Deb

Deborah Q. Lewis, Curator
Ada Hayden Herbarium (ISC/IA)
Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology (EEOB) Department         Email: dlewis at iastate.edu<mailto:dlewis at iastate.edu>
319 Bessey Hall                                                                                                Phone:  515-294-9499
Iowa State University                                                                                     FAX:  515-294-1337
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  She/Her
    The Ada Hayden Herbarium:  Celebrating 150+ Years (1870-2020)
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