Federal Programmatic Collections in the National Museum of

Natural History

The MMS / IZ Partnership – 30 Years and Counting

The Geographic Diversity of the Invertebrate Zoology Collections

Cheryl Bright and William Moser, NMNH Department of Invertebrate Zoology

History of Federal Programmatic Collections In IZ20 U.S.C. § 50 Reception and Arrangement of Specimens and Objects of Art Whenever suitable arrangements can be made from time to time for their reception, all objects of art and of foreign and curious research, and all objects of natural history, plants, and geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United States, which may be in the city of Washington, in whosever custody they may be, shall be delivered to such persons as may be authorized by the Board of Regents to receive them, and shall be so arranged and classified in the building erected for the institution as best to facilitate the examination and study of them; and whenever new specimens in natural history, geology, or mineralogy are obtained for the museum of the institution, by exchange of duplicate specimens, which the Regents in their discretion make, or by donation, which they may receive, or otherwise, the Regents shall cause such new specimens to be appropriately classed and arranged. (R.S. §5586 derived from Act Aug. 10, 1846, ch. 178, § 6, 9 Stat. 105)

20 U.S.C. § 59 Collections of National Ocean Survey, United States Geological Survey, and Others Deposited in National Museum All collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history, archaeology, and ethnology, made by the National Ocean Survey, the United States Geological Survey, or by any other parties for the Government of the United States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress shall be deposited in the National Museum. (Mar. 3, 1879, ch. 182, § 1, 20 Stat. 394; 1965 Reorg. Plan No. 2, eff. July 13, 1965, 30 F.R. 8819, 79 Stat. 1318, 1970 Reorg. Plan No. 4, eff. Oct. 3, 1970, 35 F.R. 15627, 84 Stat. 2090; Nov. 13, 1991, Pub. L. 102-154, title I, 105 Stat. 1000).

Historical Programmatic Collections Include:1838 - 1842 US Exploring Expedition1883 - 1887 “Albatross” Collections US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries US Fish Commission

Current Programmatic Collections Include:1963 - Present US Antarctic Program (NSF)1979 - Present MMS Archiving Program1990 - Present NCI Natural Products Vouchers (NIH)

Considerations Associated with Acquiring Programmatic Collections

From the perspective of the archiving facility: - bulk or volume of the collection - presence and quantity of unprocessed samples - current level of curation - quality of the identifications - waste disposal costs - specimen quality (damage sustained during collecting and subsequent processing)

Considerations Associated with Acquiring Programmatic Collections

From the perspective of the collector or funding agency:- Long term financial stability of the archive

facility - Ability of the archive facility to

- store the collection- maintain the collection- lend the collection- accommodate visitor access to the

collection.- Archive facility’s ability to insure access to the specimen information (cataloging and WWW)

- Regional emphasis of the collection being archived

The Current MMS Collection Archiving ProjectNovember, 1979

The project began with a team of 6 Museum Technicians working under the direction of Invertebrate Zoology Curator, Dr. Meredith Jones.

The first collections to be accessioned into the Invertebrate Zoology collections from this project included:

SABP – South Atlantic Benchmark Program

CABP – Central Atlantic Benchmark Program

MAFLA – Mississippi, Alabama & Florida Survey

TodayThere are 2 full time and 1 half time

Museum Technicians funded by MMS who process these collections in collaboration with departmental collection management staff.

More than 350,000 lots of specimens from 23 MMS research programs have been accessioned into the Invertebrate Zoology collections.

The Current MMS Collection Archiving Project

Sites Sampled During Minerals Management Service Environmental Research Studies 1975-

2004

ASLAR: Atlantic Slope and Rise Program 250 - 8000 m: 1984-1985

BIMP: Georges Bank Benthic Infauna Monitoring Program 38 - 168 m: 1981-1984

CABP: Central Atlantic Benchmark Program 14 - 760 m: 1975-1977

CAMP: California Monitoring Program 25 - 930 m: 1983-1988

CARP: Central and Northern California Reconnaissance Program 60 - 607 m: 1987

CASPS: Canyon and Slope Processes Study 100 - 1800 m: 1979-1982

CGPS: Central Gulf Platform Study 6 - 98 m: 1978-1979

CHEMO: Chemosynthetic Ecosystem Study 500 – 1500 m; 1991-2001

DGoMB: Deepwater Program: Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental Slope Habitats and Benthic Ecology 300 - 3000 m: 2001-2002

IXTOC: IXTOC Oil Spill Assessment Study 5 - 55 m: 1979-1980

LMRS: South Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf Living Marine Resources Study 15 - 79 m: 1980-1981

LOPH: Deepwater Program: Characterization of Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Hard Bottom Communities with Emphasis on Lophelia coral (Lophelia study) 310 - 686 m: 2004

MAFLA: Mississippi, Alabama, Florida Survey 10 - 189 m: 1975-1978

MAMES: Mississippi-Alabama Marine Ecosystem Study 20 - 200 m: 1987-1989

MAPTEM: Mississippi/Alabama Pinnacle Trend Ecosystem Monitoring 60 - 110 m: 1996-1999

NEEB: New England Environmental Benchmark Program 38 - 290 m: 1977

NGOMCS: Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental Slope Study 291 - 2935 m: 1983-1984

POSP: Panama Oil Spill Program 0 - 1 m: 1986-1987

SABP: South Atlantic Benchmark Program 8 - 520 m: 1977

SOCAL: Southern California Baseline Study intertidal: 1975-1978

SOFLA: Southwest Florida Shelf Ecosystem Study 10 - 160 m: 1980-1981

STOCS: South Texas Outer Continental Shelf Study 15 - 182 m: 1975-1977

WRECK: Deepwater Program: Archaeological and Biological Analysis of WWII Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico: A Pilot Study of the Artificial Reef Effect in Deep Water (Deep Wrecks) 85 - 146 m: 2004

Why Are Programmatic Collections Important?

1 – typically have excellent data

2 – typically result from intensive and extensive collecting

3 – are usually taxonomically and geographically redundant (this provides a large number of specimens of the same species of various age classes and sizes collected at various times, from across

the species distribution range)

4 – often support a large body of scientific literature

5 –serve as the basis for environment and resource management decisions

Platyhelminthes

Nemertea

Bryozoa

Sipuncula

Meiofauna

Chordata

Porifera

Cnidaria

Echinodermata

Annelida

Mollusca

Arthropoda

0 50000 100000 150000 200000 250000

MMS lots Total IZ lots

Mollusca: Conus spurious Gmelin, USNM 834433, SOFLA, photo by K. Ahlfeld

Crustacea: Glyptoxanthus erosus (Stimpson), USNM 214943, LMRS, photo by K. Ahlfeld

MMS Specimens are a Significant Component of the Cataloged Invertebrate Zoology Collection

Annelida: Hesiocaeca methanicola Desbruyères & Toulmond, photo by NOAA Staff

Cnidaria: Javania cailleti (Duchassaing & Michelotti), USNM 1011311, MAPTEM, photo by K. Ahlfeld

New Species Described Total: 298

175 - Annelida 87 - Arthropoda 2 - Chordata 11 - Cnidaria 6 - Echinodermata 8 - Mollusca 9 - Porifera

Almost 300 New Species Have Been Described From MMS Collections

SOFLALMRSSABP

NGOMCSASLAR

CGPSBIMPCABP

MAFLANEEBCARP

SOCALPOSP

STOCSCAMP

DGOMBMAPTEM

IXTOCCASPSLOPH

MAMESWRECKCHEMO

0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 45,000 50,000

LOTS CATALOGED

SOFLA

LMRS

SABP

NGOMCS

ASLAR

CGPS

BIMP

CABP

MAFLA

NEEB

CARP

SOCAL

POSP

STOCS

CAMP

DGOMB

MAPTEM

IXTOC

CASPS

LOPH

MAMES

WRECK

CHEMO

0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500

# of UNIQUE TAXA

Size and Diversity of the MMS Collections

- Confirm/re-evaluate previous identifications - Provide evidence in the event of legal challenges to management

decisions- Documenting biodiversity- Inferring the possible absence of taxa in a given area at a given time- Identifying and locating ecosystems and ecological associations- Documenting changes in populations (structure, dynamics, size)- Documenting environmental change and degradation- Documenting climatic changes- Pollution analyses- Documenting predator-prey and trophic relationships - Documenting host-parasite relationships- Documenting ecological and geographical distributions of

organisms- Inferring the presence of diseases and disease causing

organisms through forensic studies- Documenting intraspecific variability- Documenting physiological and morphological adaptations- Documenting evolutionary trends- Documenting the variability of DNA

How Are The Collections Used?

How are the Collections Used?

Albatross 1883 - 1887MMS 1975 - 1990s

“North Atlantic Ocean”Records in IZ Catalog Database Records - 437,771 of 908,824 = 48%

Unique Taxa – 26,144 of 79,000+/- = 33%

MMS Lobster Specimens Examined During a Study Funded by the Department of Defense

The Research Question

Can the biomechanics of the buoyancy mechanism used by the lobster be adapted for a robotic underwater mine detector?

A Serendipitous Discovery

PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore, Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research discovered a well-preserved specimen of a poorly known xanthid crab (Decapoda: Brachyura) from the SOFLA program in our collection. He expects to designate this MMS specimen as the Neotype of Carpoporus papulosus Stimpson, 1871 to stabilize a species name.

Minerals Management ServicePeople Promoting Energy, the Environment, and the Economy

News Release Office of Public Affairs News Media Contact: September 21, 2009 Eileen Angelico, (504) 736-2595

Caryl Fagot, (504) 736-2590

MMS Study Positively Identifies Giant Squid Presence in Gulf of Mexico Field Work for MMS Sperm Whale Prey Study Nets Giant Squid

Architeuthis dux, USNM # 1130046

The “ICE WORM”

A new species

collected in 1997 from

gas hydrates in the Gulf of

Mexico

The Seven Volume Set of Identification Keys, Species

Descriptions and Habitat Information Prepared for the Polychaetes of the Northern

Gulf of Mexico, A Study Funded by MMS

A Few of the MMS Collection-Based Publications Authored by NMNH Department of Invertebrate Zoology Scientists

The usefulness of any collection depends on the accessibility of the specimens AND the information about them

The Role of IZ Collection Management in Our MMS Collaboration

- Physical Accessarrangement, level of sorting, level of identification and preservation

- Electronic Accessdigitization of specimens and images

- Information Access Availability of inventories, data bases, web access

ACCESS is the service we provide to MMS

MMS Holding Area in Pod-5

Note the detailed storage unit labels and finding aids

Fully Curated MMS Specimens Stored in the IZ

General Reference Collection

Collection Infrastructure at

NMNH

The new fluid collection storage facility provides the equipment to safely

store, handle and examine very large specimens

Electronic Access

Digitization of specimen data and

images

Sample entry screens for

multimedia files and text data in

our EMu (Electronic Museum) specimen

cataloging and data

management application

The MMS specimen data is accessible to the public through a variety of web-based tools including EMu-Web from Invertebrate Zoology’s home page.

http://invertebrates.si.edu

IZ’s Collection DataAccess via the Web

COLLECTION ACQUISITION

CATALOGING

COLLECTION

SORTING

IDENTIFICATION

DATA MANAGEMENT

Future Focus

http://invertebrates.si.edu/

National Museum of Natural History,Department of Invertebrate Zoology (IZ) Home Page

Minerals Management Service (MMS) – NMNH, IZ Collaboration page

click on grey bar to expand content

History of NMNH-IZ and MMS collaboration and other documentation (pdf format)

BIMP Technical Report

BIMP Station Data

BIMP Station Map

Download Station Data

Drill-down for full station record

Basic Search

Search IZCollections

Detailed Search

OR

Download images

Download pdfs

drill down to specific records

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) – NMNH IZ collection datahttp://www.gbif.org/

Smithsonian cataloging software (Emu) – collection mapper

Query bounding-box for specific records

Drill down to full catalog record

Google Earth – CGPS taxon records

Google Earth – MMS NEEB stations

Google Earth – NMNH-IZ/MMS map layer

Google Earth – NMNH-IZ/MMS map layer

The Take-Away Message:

1 – Taxpayers have spent tens of millions of dollars collecting these specimens to support the original research effort (environmental baseline surveys), but the value of the collections did not end with the submission of the final technical report; MMS understood the on-going value of these collections, sought a partner in NMNH-IZ to provide the needed long-term curation, and were willing to provide NMNH-IZ with the funds necessary to insure the professional management of these collections for the benefit of the public [I personally am not aware of a similar situation where a government organization responsible for the creation of these large collections at taxpayers expense, also assumed much of the financial burden for ensuring their long-term care and that they remain accessible to the research community; MMS deserves recognition for taking this proactive approach] 2 - The current arrangement is cost effective for MMS because they are able to insure the long-term stability of their vouchers and other specimens without having to duplicate the collection management expertise and collection infrastructure available from NMNH; and it makes access to the specimens easier for researchers since "everything is in one place“