At the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne we acquire specimens in order to have a resource for future researchers.  A critical component of this is time series analysis and an analysis of our collection shows under collecting for a significant period between 1920s and 1970s that makes time series ana.lysis difficult.  the important thing however is that the specimens are of high enough quality that they can be redetermined if the taxonomy changes.  This means specimens need to ideally have flowers and fruits.  the biggest problem with "ecological collections" is the quality of the specimens.  Eco-scraps that lack diagnostic features will never serve the purpose of being adequate specimens into the future.  Our biggest problem is now around developing an understanding amongst researchers in ecology or population biology what makes an adequate voucher specimen.  the other area is in bar-coding where we get material that is not adeqaute and we will simply not accept it as it does not meet the guidelines for accessioning.

In my opinion, they should, but given contraints on size, perhaps museums can make agreements on who stores what so that the load is shared. That would also include agreements on access and benefit sharing. In many cases museums could also opt to store parts of tissue. For a larger species photos and or other forms of datastorage can be considered. For the smaller species storage room is less of an issue. Further DNA collections can and should be added as well, so that the genetic resourses are also safely stored (unless of course a sure fire and cheap way of keeping tissue preserved for long term storage with the quality of DNA intact). I hope this helps a bit.

I think that, given limited storage space, maintaining large series of common species depends on a several factors. Probably one of the major factors is size of the organism, as it is a lot easier to store a series of say mosquitoes or beetles than large fish. Certainly such series can be very important in population studies.  For large common animals DNA should be considered, along with photographs, videos, and other documentation, along with a few representative specimens. I thus pretty much agree with the earlier posts.

Note: I was curator of the Arthropod Museum at New Mexico State University until 2011, so I am well aware of space problems, even for an arthropod collection.

As Jennifer states, it is not just ecological studies that need data on a series; phylogenetic studies ideally require such series.  However we usually have to deal with what is available - I know that well, having borrowed specimens from several large collections for taxonomic research. 

Working in the ichthyological collection of CICIMAR-IPN in La Paz, BCS, Mexico and we believe it is important to safeguarding the common species and even more rare or unusual species. Of course we have problems of space, then we do ... large species (Regalecus spp) photography is taken, measurements, tissue samples and only keep the head. This is where the use of related collections (eg photography, bones, DNA, etc.) plays a key role.

Who is asking the question? Certainly, they are not preserved and kept in the collection for no purpose. These collections are preserved for scientific purpose as the introductory note on the question and following commentary described, as they are getting more important than ever because of chronic biodiversity loss and destruction of habitats along with scarcity of species and population threat of many species of animals and plants.

Scientific collecting is vital to museums and a common or a rare species do the same under this point of view.  Certainly museum curators have to balance the necessity of collecting for research purpose and the often limited room available in their museum's storage rooms, the necessity of keeping these specimens in the best condition and the often numerically limited technical personnel involved in the preparation phase,  all conditions that limit - togheter with funding -  the "collecting potential" of a museum. Do not forget that collections are not an end in themselves and that collecting has meaning only if finalized to investigation. A collection of specimens of a common species should follow a scientific criterion and bring to a potential scientific result, without resulting in a carnage, in the respect of ethics, deontology and conservation issues. On the other hand, I agree that keeping a single specimen of a common species, or a sex or an age biased series is not worh the effort. Too many times visiting researchers have to waste their time travelling from a museum to another in order to obtain a statistically significant sample size and even if it can be acceptable for a rare species, this is frustratring when dealing with a common one.

Collections of common species from a same locality or a same region are not only useful for researchs in evolution and ecology but also for people who are concerned by morphometrics analysis of shape and size. By offering large series of individuals at different stages of development museums allow us to learn much upon ontogeny and allometry during growth or at specific level,  a field in full development with the new approaches in genomics and gene expression (evo-devo studies).

Moreover, it is well known that in tropical  regions there is high biodiversity and  many cryptic species have been discovered. In some cases the use of different methods of size and shape analysis allow to reach distinction between these very morphologically close species. In all cases to get statistically significant results we need good samples (min 30 individuals) . Sometimes we observe sexual dimorphism in rodents or shrews which was never recognized before and which may have some importance in recognition and populations evolutions.

Museums must continue to collect large samples for all evolutionary biology and integrative taxonomy studies as well as for all studies at population level.

Yes, if the museum wants its collections to be as useful as possible.

For pretty much any research purpose you need a decent sample size of specimens. The question should be 'how many is enough?' which is harder to answer. Some people might say 20, in order to meet the most basic needs for calculating an uncorrected standard error, others might say 6 an be happy with applying corrections, others might say it will depend on the size and variability (genetic, spatial and temporal) of the population being sampled (for instance, you may want a sample of 20 from 1890, 20 from 1940, 20 from 1990, etc if you are comparing populations over time and a similar situation may arise for sampling specific localities, distinct populations, etc.).

in order to try to ensure that we have good temporal coverage of taxa we have a policy in place that every taxon within our region should be represented by a specimen no older than 10 years.  This means we aim to collect even the common things every ten years.  Ideally of course we would have a greater frequency distribution but it is a matter of balancing resources available to develop the collection.  Interestingly our recent analysis of taxic distribution through time does support the notion that rare taxa are over represented and common taxa are simply not collected.

As a matter of philosophical justification and a self-defense strategy, today it may seem all the more important that natural history collection professionals could ensure that whatever large series of common species, that are legally, ethically and carefully collected according to a well defined scope of the collection under their care and also following their institution's curatorial and collection development plans, would eventually be backed up with scientific publications, other forms of tangible outcomes and positive impacts back to the larger community produced in a reasonable time span in the future (in several decades to a century?) because it may be harder for administrators, funders, supporters, and the general public to understand and fully appreciate the merit and justification behind amassing and maintaining “redundant" specimens of relatively common species that necessarily demand a significant portion of the storage space as well as resources for long-term maintenance at a cost, unless those external stakeholders are absolutely convinced of reasonable “investment returns” of generating and giving good care to such unique ecological and systematic series.

I have worked mainly with tree sprecies from Southeast Asia and it would be good to have more specimens available from the same species as many of the species I described were base on the holotype only!

I was impressed with Mariko's answer: need a ..."philosophical justification and a self-defense strategy..."

In my country we DO NOT have a national Natural History Museum*.

WE have a good private initiative that is supported by the state (The Goulandris NHM), we have dusty, dirty and degraded collections at the universities and archives at our national research centers, but we have little "philosophical justification" that is supported by societal interests or political awareness. Natural history is dead here. As a result we are plagued by "hordes" of European collectors who come and take material away (Greek scients despise them...). As an ichthyophil naturalist I fully support the initiatives of these traditional museums and I work with them - I believe we need their help.  What I propose is a better NETWORKING among academia, education, awareness initiatives and museums in order to build and freely share work. And greater initiatives to publish and promote. And to better "advertize" the "philosophical justifications" for Natural History....

If we do not work cooperatively and effectively toward justifying the "collecting", our science will also die under various reasonings related to "economic" crises...

Stam Zogaris, Athens Greece

*..what a disgrace, in Greece, no Natural History museum...

Putting specimens in herbaria is useless, till someone need them for any reason. But then it is too late, or too time- and money-consuming to fill gaps in due time. In my opinion it is the mission of public herbaria to ensure that researchers have what they need to feed their researches, and  updating a well-documented herbarium with as many well-documented collections as possible is the cheapest and safest way for that I think. Best regards, Pierre-Arthur Moreau

In forensic sense  dead specimens are ecological and genetic evidence of a species that stopped evolution of that population, as common species tend to be rapidly evolving at specific habitats/environment (ref. Kim, K.C. & B.A. McPherson (EDS).1993. Evolution of Insect Pests: Patterns of Variation. NY: John Wiley & Sons). Duplicate specimens of common species are invaluable materials for taxonomic, ecological, evolutionary and genetic studies.  Isn't it what we want for specimens in the collections, not just for show?

Found a typo: "McPherson" should have been "McPheron." Please make correction.

Having long series of common species always result in benefits asocociados to various types of research. The problem at least in tropical countries falls to low or no budgets of museums to keep even discrete collections in number.

in Lepidoptera and indeed, many other insect groups, new taxonomic methods often result in the discovery that a 'common' species is actually a species complex. An old book on Indian butterflies recommends 8 pairs per taxon, for a private collection. Unfortunately, in India, we have less than 40% of the estimated 13000 species of Lepidoptera in collections, and those too, mostly represented by a single pair. There is a need to collect and properly preserve large numbers of insect specimens throughout the tropics and subtropics.

Regarding the ethical aspects, I have grown hoarse trying to convince 'nature lovers' that while the conservation of vertebrates is based on individuals, in insects and smaller life forms, it is the habitat that is crucial, not the, say, butterfly, which will be dead and converted to ant food in a week or fortnight. If specimens are taken for future research, it has little effect on the population, unlike in vertebrates.

In the context of preserving specimens, it is increasingly becoming a challenge, since the latest method is to deep freeze infected specimens. Earlier, naphthalene, camphor or some similar chemical would be used. The  discontinuation of carcinogenic insect repellants like naphthalene resulted in waiting until some specimens are destroyed before discovering the infection and then deep freezing the specimens to get rid of the infection.  However, some specimens are destroyed every time. Therefore, it needs little imagination to see that large numbers of specimens of each taxon are needed, so that the attrition caused by letting a few individual specimens get destroyed in order to discover an infection each time will only be balanced by having lots of specimens, regardless whether the species is rare or common!

Let me ask a question to the systematic taxonomists and scientists. This complement to your question.

Should Scientisc keep in biology or Researcher series of species in critical status of IUCN? the idea is that your point is so strong to think and not be common species on  habitat need to collect everything some body see.

In Colombia, one of the countries with more diversity of life on the planet ..... there are some researchers who are postulating their importance in most record keeping  in alcohol ....... no matter if it is the latter one. this makes me think ..... what kleptomaniac of coin collectors, estamplillas, artwork etc but speaking of nature the living world is in danger in front of these molecular super-scientific articles or authors of new species by collecting points for a salary in their workplaces.

jajajajaaaa.... What is science in biology landscape?

Fernando, I think that we have to be very careful here.  Some species should not be collected in series because of conservation concerns.  Also, from an ecological perspective it is the commonest species that are important. Obviously we need some representation of rare species in collections in order to identify them and place them in a taxonomic and ecological context. Collecting for collecting sake is not what we, as responsible field biologists, should espouse in my opinion.  Where the cut line is between common, less common, rare, threatened and endangered is, I think, slowly being worked out, although it is a moving target. For the rarest species, photos, DNA samples, and other documentation may work.  We already see this in most terrestrial vertebrate species and are slowly getting there in butterflies, dragonflies and a few other invertebrate types.

In essence we need to promote ethical and legal sampling, with more emphasis on common species that could give us more extensive data on evolutionary and environmental changes, thus serving as marker species. Unfortunately we don't even have names published for numerous organisms, especially in the tropics, such as in Colombia.  In these areas we are now seeing more and more cooperation between scientists based in several countries and I hope that this eventually leads to a shared data base of the taxa so that we all can address the numerous problems associated with our biosphere. 

One can accept this well-founded argument, another thing is that not always have that level of consciousness even make that decision. Deen that species be removed from their natural space? few of them? who does? (The idea with this questions isto explain how  arriving several groups of "researchers" at the same place a year and several others. The series is not the researcher, but of several researchers over time) for example I have places where I arrive in a year 7 universities with teaching research groups; each group has the ability to obtain a sample that represents the group effort in instruction and information who heads the practice, this a number of papers and associate director translates, so the collected specimens are to be a center of legal interest or dark places where no one has more access than who illegally collects these specimens. 

Two points:

1. Digital technology is a top  a this moment with many solutions. How you assestm to a species identifcation?   why no reasearchers use a cam with minimal charasteristics. Take the 80 characteristics and let animals in its habitats?

2. Why not use digital technology, a camera with mid-range, very high resolution and collect 80 carateristicas that are a key to identification of species in a lab? no more vaouchers species carried in the alcohol field in a museum. is good or better take 100 photos including 80 features and with them build a vaoucher to say that if an animal is seen in nature.

Well one can differentiate an exuvia and a body that does not have that exuvia and cycle depends on a fairly stressful reproductive effort.

This is a review with much respect for people who read it, it is a thought and a look at the critical situation of many species. I tend to not need to know how many species can have the world, if not to see how we protect ecosystems and the planet as we perpetuity. Who has more species in their territory is no longer a figure that exceeds the environmental crisis, current.

my respectful for readers.

This is a question that always should be at the forefront of collecting institutions and it relates to the purpose of the collections.  If a collection's main purpose is for teaching then continual revision is required in a way that will attempt to predict changing pedagogy.  Similarly with research changing funding priorities and research methodologies should also spur continual reassessment.  Darwin changed the way natural history institutions collected forcing the collection of variation within species rather than collections of one of everything.  Some neglected natural history collections are now finding new uses in research because of new molecular techniques.

If it is possible to collect widely, there is something of a buffer against these changes but there are always space and resource constraints.  Whether a species is common, less common, rare, threatened or endangered ads an additional level of complexity for strategic collecting programs.  I think the connectivity of new communications technologies provides the most hopeful avenue for the future enabling sharing of resources and information between collections.

My experience comes as a field biologist interested in faunistics/biogeography and the study of visible variation in land snails. I depend heavily on museum collections when working in unfamiliar places.

There is no doubt that large collections of shells alone are useful, and for common species should be encouraged. I have noticed that some early large collections contain several currently recognised species under one name, and this can give extra distributional data when the collection is re-examined. Where there are no ID problems and the locality is exact, it is possible to use repeat samples to look for trends in morphological variation. What is perhaps more important is that where a lot of sites have been searched, specimens of all species found in each are available should there be later taxonomic revisions or doubts about ID.. This is a very demanding requirement for any museum, especially if such samples are to be made readily accessible. I have not found a good answer to this one. It must be even more of a problem for many entomological studies.

I have to say that when I am surveying, large, easily identified species are usually counted and left in the field. As with studying polymorphism (below) there are both practical and ethical reasons for this.

There are some problems with historical collections when it comes to looking at colour variation, as I have done for Cepaea snails. In the old days, workers tended to keep whole samples, killing the live specimens and cleaning out the shells. While this is a valuable resource for some purposes, re-investigation of these samples showed that even when kept in the dark, colours faded to the extent that scoring had become unreliable. Although not very big (the shells are about 20 mm wide), large collections take up quite a lot of space (surveys may involve 100s of populations). 

Nowadays, although I may keep empty shells found in the samples, I score variation in the field and return living animals to the habitat. This is both a matter of convenience (preparing samples for dry storage is time-consuming) but I also see no need to kill lots of animals when the preserved shells will not be usable for some purposes in a few decades time. What is important are the scores and a very accurate sample location, now easy with GPS. Large collections become less useful with time.

Keeping large series of common species is important for natural history museums for several reasons. Sample sizes sufficient for taxonomic purposes often are not large enough for statistical significance in ecological studies. For example, the thousands of specimens of Nucella lapillus that H. S. Colton collected on islands in the Gulf of Maine are preserved at my institution. They seemed excessive--until Fisher et al. (2009, linked) used them to show a significant size increase over since the 1920s. We also have the Crampton collection of Partula, vouchers for his evolutionary studies, in some cases with hundreds of specimens per species. At the time we accessioned them, the species were common; now some are extinct and cannot be studied without museum collections. And, as has been pointed out above in this thread, common species sometimes turn out to be species complexes.By preserving large series, museums allow questions to be addressed that were not anticipated at the time the specimens were preserved.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40455174

Why not, if there is a space to keep them. Later, one will be able to study variation within the species.

Good question. I would give my support for the sake of historical ecology.  It would be  ideal if there is a good research question behind the collecting policy. On the other hand, musuem collections may unexpectedly help us to reconstruct historical baselines. Collections of extinct Lake Victoria cichlids (like those in Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden) give us much insight in their evolution and ecology before they became extinct as a result of the infamous nile perch introduction. At the time of collecting this extinction was not foreseen. Since we know that ecological disasters may occur, such collections increase in scientific value. Knowledge obtained from those collections can be applied to nature conservation. I think that overfishing, discards, and bycatch in fisheries is a much larger problem than the sampling for natural history collections, which happend at a much smaller scale in comparison because it is limited by sampling effort and collection space.  It very much depends on what is considered "a large collection", while there is also a PR problem in the collecting of life specimens from the field for the sake of science instead of consumption by humans, or by cattle and other cultivated animals.  

The traditional trend on museums has been the taxonomy. This has had some effect on the operational (not necessarily institutional policy) decisions to optimize the work effort, often in the pursuit of comprehensive inventories and finding new species. As a result, common species in the field are not as common in collections, or at least are not as abundant as proportionally less frequent in the field.

This has many implications for many disciplines, and paradoxically for taxonomy, when species considered as common and poorly sampled, became in two or more taxa as result of systematic reviews, molecular or morphological.

This is a topic that is being discussed or analyzed very little but with serious consequences.

Well, if you have the personal and structure to conserve it, yes, totally agree. When im working with insect pest in Mexico I can find limited records published and short number of specimens deposited in collections. You can say if one species is common if you have data and material conserved, but you need collected it first.

There is no doubt that large series of animals COMMON are important for museums. The question that arises is whether these long series of animals (which?) Such species are impacted or not a subtraction of that measure in their natural environment? Whoever said that is a common species, which is the limit? I imagine now how to change a pose that has many pressures and high risks for the diversity of life. Large expeditions and explorers of past centuries are not applicable for today in their ideas fieldwork efforts. However I believe that modern biologists and ecologists to think they have tools to work IN SITU is the best alternative; even though remote sensors for obtaining data. It's time to think of the planet and its life and not in museums and laboratories for studies EX SITU today in expansive empory.

You can take a million copepods but can not be 100 elephants; but even you can make a collection of 500 Rhimella marina but can not get out of their habitat 50 Oophaga lehmanni . The problem here is not the raw numbers but impact on reproductive effort inherent in every natural history and habitats.

I just remembered we were 10 years ago if not more, in the collections of the Smithsonian USA had a crisis, I think there is still a lack of space and money are the challenge to these institutions. Suppose if the case reaches Smithsonian collapse ....... which roads would take the living dead in Collections....  

Our challenge is how to apply high technology and artificial emulate to achieve and reach better interpret time in past centuries biological research intelligence.

Well, I would be careful with large scale application of modern technologies for collections its is actually some kind of sampling. A conservative approach is still the best solution in my opinion. If you have an image no molecular data could be received, if you have molecular data of one field measurement no other measurements of the same specimen are possible in future (repetition of measurements is not possible). Furthermore there could be new methods developed in future which will require real specimens. So, all of this argues for reasonable continual sampling of all organisms (continual record of biodiversity) and continual grow of collections. We need to argue using the above mentioned reasons to politicians and decision makers to explain that growing of museum collections requires more staff and space.

I think we should keep in mind that one of the key ways that collections serve science is as a data archive. They are repositories of evidence associated with scientific investigations, there for independent investigators to examine and concur with or refute. Publications based on specimens not deposited in collections can become impossible to follow up on, and so in a sense become scientifically dead. In my opinion, museums with a research mission should give priority to archiving such collections. In the context of structured ecological sampling studies, this may mean accessioning many individuals of some common species, but this is a reflection of real data collected according to some explicit, documented protocol. 

My previous points were exposed thinking Animalia (amphibia and reptilia) netropical status of species and the strong pressure on before collecting the data from these specimens.

I must say that what I have said is not shocking in other groups of beings as well as plants and others. Here if applicable studies EX SITU

Molecular data: IN SITU all existing protocols, supported by current and new technology that is being developed to be more reliable data

Ecological data: IN SITU with more demand protocols, data collection equipment.

Phenotypic data: IN SITU with all the digital technology developed and available to all researchers.

Genotypic data: IN SITU protoclos modern and high tech.

Behavioral data: IN SITU only possible in these conditions, captivity throw questionable data to natural conditions

The repeatability data: GPS technology to populations that researchers have labeled and which are under study IN SITU.

I apologize to all members who have been in the process of discussing this question. Reviews looking for a tendency to see more possibilities for life, knowledge, ways of preservation and enhancement of science and scientists They are

Thanks

What a dilemma - ideally everything should be kept, as eloquently explained above. However, such a policy will add to the mounting pressure on the physical and scientific curation of collections. 'lack of space and money' is a real problem, and likely to increase in future.

For fishes a clear yes. We should keep large series of commen species. Fish taxonomy is not at all resolved; often we found that assumed common and wellknown species consist of a group of two or more species. Some of our 'common' species are only locally distributed and do not even have a valid scientific name. And - commonness may be only temporal, and such species may become rare in time.

The answer is clearly "yes" , for many of the reasons stated above. Museum collections are becoming increasingly important in ecological, conservation and applied studies, not to mention the benefit of large sample sizes for systematic and evolutionary studies. And common species are interesting in their own right. Why is a species common? Was it always common? And so on. The major challenge, though, and one that we are struggling with at our own institution (California Academy of Sciences), is collections space. Space equals money, and therein lies the limiting factor. I would argue, however, that rare species have no a priori priority over common ones scientifically, and the decision thus comes down to logistics. I am an advocate of bulk samples for our paleontological collections. I worry about looming space issues, but I will have to solve those logistically, not on the basis of scientific priority. You simply cannot predict today what will be of value tomorrow, or at least predict reliably.

I think this question points to a much broader conceptual problem: does society (including users of museum-based collections and data, as well as funding agencies) recognize the need for museums to store large collection series? It seems to me that, while there is an increasing user base for such services, neither the museums nor their funders are catching up. The problem is exacerbated by certain conservationist movements which increasingly advocate a 'hands-off ' approach towards biodiversity research, contributing to a negative public perception of the modern role of museums.

The lack of resources and the need for trade-off is apparent. There also seems to be a growing understanding that there needs to be a paradigm shift in museum curatorial an collection management practices, as well as in field collecting approaches. However, technology seems to be advancing for data management but not so much for collections processing per se.

This seems to be a problem to be addressed on a case by case basis, depending on institutional aims and the taxa involved. There is a good taxonomic justification for collecting several reasonable series within sites, and additional collections across many sites, to characterise phenotypic diversity within species and species boundaries. On this basis many common species are undercollected - even without considering temporal sampling. Perhaps the best strategy for national natural history repositories is few specimens from many species across the geographical area of interest, with more intensive spatial and temporal collecting of common species that are accessible, can be stored, have informative phenotypic variation and are historically important or under active study. 

Large series, or if not large series, at least the continuation of collecting single specimens from different localities is useful, or may prove useful in the future:

- a current species may prove to be a complex, and when that is the case, we need specimens from all localities and decades to be able to interpret all data that was produced for this species/complex over the past centuries. Any previous report of that species that cannot be pinned down to one of the sibling species (either by a direct voucher, or by circumstantial evidence from other specimens from the same area and time) becomes worthless.

- large series might be useful for someone doing a population genetics study.

- a friend of mine once told me that my large and continuous series from the same place of the group he was studying were the first such series available, and made him understand he was dealing with different species that were temporally separated. Too often collectors just take one or two specimens and do not collect more if they find them in successive days or months.

- sometimes rare species go hidden in between larger series of common species, and only the specialist can tell them apart. I know of a guy that gives an apple pie for any 100 sampled flies (Tabanidae) because large series is the only way of getting the rarer ones collected as well (when you are not a specialist; but specialist cannot go everywhere themselves, so they too need to rely on others to collect in places they will not visit)

- the counter side of course is that keeping specimens does cost money, and of course 100 specimens of 100 rare species are more valuable and more worth keeping than 100 specimens of the same common species..... However, as long as we can keep costs in control we should try to keep both. But, the balance lies different with flies compared to elephants.

Dear all,

I compiled a short list of publications that coulbe relevant if you need more background information:

Drew J (2011) The role of natural history institutions and bioinformatics in conservation biology. Conservation Biology 25: 1250-252.

Hoeksema BW, van der Land J, van der Meij SET, van Ofwegen LP, Reijnen BT, van Soest RWM, de Voogd NJ (2011) Unforeseen importance of historical collections as baselines to determine biotic change of coral reefs: the Saba Bank case. Marine Ecology 32: 135-141.

Johnson KG, Brooks SJ, Fenberg PB, Glover AG, James KE, Lister AM, Michel E, Spencer M, Todd JA, Valsami-Jones E, Young JR, Stewart JR (2011) Climate change and biosphere response: unlocking the collections vault. BioScience 61 (2): 147-53.

Krell FT, Wheeler QD (2014) Specimen collection: plan for the future. Science 344: 815-816.

Lister AM, Climate Change Research Group (2011) Natural history collections as sources of long-term datasets. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26 (4): 153-154.

Pyke GH, Ehrlich PR (2010) Biological collections and ecological/environmental research: a review, some observations and a look to the future. Biological Reviews 85: 247–266.

Rainbow PS (2009) Marine biological collections in the 21st century. Zoologica Scripta 38 (Suppl. 1): 33–40.

Rocha L.A. et al. (2014) Specimen collection: an essential tool. Science 344: 814-815.

Wehi PM, Whaanga H, Trewick SA (2012) Artefacts, biology, and bias in museum collection research. Molecular Ecology 21: 3103-109.

Yes. Common species can be suitable model systems for variety of studies, and dataset with substantial number of individuals is often required for valid statistical results.

Large onthogenetic series, samples from different populations or samples collected over prolonged amount of time can be especially valuable.

On the other hand, preservation of large series is often costly and requires lots of space. For many organisms, there are ethical considerations of collecting a large sample.

If already present, large collections of common species should never be disposed. If there are no conditions to adequately store such sample, it should be donated to the institution which can provide adequate storing and care.

CORRECTION FOR MY CURRENT AFFILIATION:

Pennsylvania State University: Professor Emeritus, Founding Curator, Frost Entomological Museum and Founding Director Emeritus, Center for Biodiversity Research, PSIEE.

Museum collections are evolutionary jewels of living things that are indispensable for scientific research.  That we have to be very careful with collecting and curating them for the future of our science as needed.  Please double the effort and funding for the collections if we wish to understand how and what to do things with global biodiversity that is continually being lost by our blinded humanistic activities.

The answer, of course, is "Yes" as almost all of the contributors above have outlined, in order to serve a wide and growing range of scientific questions (see refs provided by Bert Hoeksema). An underlying issue that many institutions have yet to satisfactorily articulate is "What are natural history collections for?"  Many institutions are converting from a primary role as "temples of systematics" to "systematics + ", where the plus increasingly comprises global change research and an increasingly diverse array of evolutionary, conservation and biodiversity-based studies. It seems to me that the question, "How to best grow collections in response to today's and tomorrow's scientific challenges?" is perhaps the most important one that natural history collection holders urgently need to address.

I couldn't agree more, and share the view of all other respondents. I have a small addition: 'common' should be seen in the broadest view possible, and in my view include invasive species. Eradication campaign specimens are sometimes kept, with fine details about the specimens and the collection itself, but sometimes these collections are expelled after some decades, as they are not considered valuable. Now, with the rise of conservation biology issues, they are gold mines. Cynical side remark: Problem with any collection, whatever field, is that you'll never know what will be important later. This includes old computers, calibers, field tools and stuff, whatever, so you might wonder, where is the end? As a collector myself, I see no end, but governments have a different view (which may change every four or so years).

I am glad to see a broad interest on zoological collections. It is difficult for me to accept arguments on the issues of common species.  There are a lot of interesting questions on collections of infraspecific populations of common species concerning population level evolution and effect of regional or temporal changes in ecology of diverse population of common species. That cannot be done without good collections of different populations of common species.

Correction: I am no longer active in academic campus.  Thus, my formal address should be changed to: Ke Chung Kim, Professor Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University: Founding Curator, Frost Entomological Museum and Former Director, Center for Biodiversity Research, PSIEE,  Thanks. K. C. Kim

Collections are key resources that should be developed on an ongoing basis, although focuses may change or develop over time due to economic, social and other needs. Today's collections are tomorrow's historic data banks.

At Iziko, some 30 years ago we moved on from mammalian skeletal specimens that were primarily only skulls to the collection of whole individuals. This was a response to the advancing requirements of palaeontological and archaeozoological research and, more recently, as baselines in biodiversity assessments. Increasingly isotopic and molecular studies are drawing on the historic wealth of the entomological, marine and comparative osteological and study skin collections; with strict protocols to protect the integrity of collections when material could be readily accessed in other ways. Collaboration with members of the public, university ecological projects, State marine surveys and nature conservation authorities have led to significant additions to the collections. Staff, visiting scientists and students add value to the knowledge stored in these resources.

Space is unfortunately a serious issue. Sadly some administrators simply say "no", rather than embarking on proactive planning to provide additional space. This reminds me of a very positive discussion I once had with my Museum's Director -- his response to my query about space was "It's your responsibility to grow the collections, mine to provide adequate storage for them". In a current building programme, Iziko, with strong support from the State Department we fall under, is well on its way to achieving this; at the same time collections will be made more visible and, thereby, relevant to our taxpayers and visitors.

Usually, at the time of sampling, the intraspecific variation is not well known. Collections are tools that allow us to compare specimens and to define diagnostic characters. Sampling of common species for this purpose is easiest logistically and the least harmful to populations.

I am presently working on a large collection of corals from the Great Barrier Reef dating from the 1970s, which enables me to study latitudinal diversity patterns. The highest diversity is found in an area that is difficult to access and also understudied from a biodiversity perspective. I am grateful to the colleagues who sampled, to those who curated the specimens and also granted access for further study.  

Common species may be kept for time series analysis

Sampling common species is not the least harmful to populations, as many common species are declining nowadays. Conversely, we regret that museums do not have more specimens of these common species, which would have halped to better understand the state of conservation of the current populations...

The short answer is yes. Museum collections are increasingly used as reference resources in molecular, ecological, archaeological and palaeontological studies -- I'm sure there are others. Time/age/sexed series and representative samples and assemblages from ecological assessments provide important comparative resources and baseline information that are/will be increasingly useful in understanding current, future and past change. In additio to our own projects we successfully encourage other institutions, students and researchers to lodge material in our natural history collections, which include comparative osteology and skins, wet and dry marine and entomological material and prey of mammals and raptors for taphonomic study. Road kills and nature conservation confiscations also provide material. Space issues should not be an excuse for not fulfilling the 'evolving' roles of museum collections.