Federal Programmatic Collections in the National Museum of Natural Hi

1. The MMS / IZ Partnership – 30 Years and Counting Federal Programmatic Collections in the National Museum of Natural History Cheryl Bright and William Moser, NMNH Department of Invertebrate Zoology The Geographic Diversity of the Invertebrate Zoology Collections

2. History of Federal Programmatic Collections In IZ 20 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).

3. Historical Programmatic Collections Include: 1838 - 1842 US Exploring Expedition 1883 - 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 Program 1990 - Present NCI Natural Products Vouchers (NIH)

4. 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)

5. 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

6. The Current MMS Collection Archiving Project November, 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

7. The Current MMS Collection Archiving Project Today There 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.

8. Sites Sampled During Minerals Management Service Environmental Research Studies 1975-2004

9. 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 Lopheliacoral (Lopheliastudy) 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

10. 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

11. Annelida: HesiocaecamethanicolaDesbruyères & Toulmond, photo by NOAA Staff MMS Specimens are a Significant Component of the Cataloged Invertebrate Zoology Collection Crustacea: Glyptoxanthuserosus (Stimpson), USNM 214943, LMRS, photo by K. Ahlfeld Cnidaria: Javaniacailleti (Duchassaing & Michelotti), USNM 1011311, MAPTEM, photo by K. Ahlfeld Mollusca: Conus spuriousGmelin, USNM 834433, SOFLA, photo by K. Ahlfeld

12. Almost 300 New Species Have Been Described From MMS Collections New Species Described Total: 298 175 - Annelida 87 - Arthropoda 2 - Chordata 11 - Cnidaria 6 - Echinodermata 8 - Mollusca 9 - Porifera

14. How Are The Collections Used? • 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

15. How are the Collections Used? “North Atlantic Ocean” Records in IZ Catalog Database Records - 437,771 of 908,824 = 48% Unique Taxa – 26,144 of 79,000+/- = 33% Albatross 1883 - 1887 MMS 1975 - 1990s

16. 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?

17. 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 CarpoporuspapulosusStimpson, 1871 to stabilize a species name.

18. Minerals Management Service People 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 Architeuthisdux, USNM # 1130046

19. The “ICE WORM” A new species collected in 1997 from gas hydrates in the Gulf of Mexico

20. 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

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

22. The Role of IZ Collection Management in Our MMS Collaboration The usefulness of any collection depends on the accessibility of the specimens AND the information about them - Physical Access arrangement, level of sorting, level of identification and preservation - Electronic Access digitization of specimens and images - Information Access Availability of inventories, data bases, web access ACCESS is the service we provide to MMS

23. MMS Holding Area in Pod-5 Note the detailed storage unit labels and finding aids

24. Fully Curated MMS Specimens Stored in the IZ General Reference Collection

25. Collection Infrastructure at NMNH The new fluid collection storage facility provides the equipment to safely store, handle and examine very large specimens

26. 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

27. IZ’s Collection Data Access via the Web 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

28. Future Focus COLLECTION ACQUISITION CATALOGING COLLECTION SORTING IDENTIFICATION DATA MANAGEMENT

29. National Museum of Natural History, Department of Invertebrate Zoology (IZ) Home Page http://invertebrates.si.edu/

30. 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)

32. BIMP Station Map BIMP Technical Report BIMP Station Data

33. Download Station Data Drill-down for full station record

35. Search IZ Collections Basic Search OR Detailed Search

36. Download images Download pdfs

37. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) – NMNH IZ collection data http://www.gbif.org/ drill down to specific records

38. Smithsonian cataloging software (Emu) – collection mapper

39. Query bounding-box for specific records Drill down to full catalog record

40. Google Earth – CGPS taxon records

41. Google Earth – MMS NEEB stations

42. Google Earth – NMNH-IZ/MMS map layer

43. Google Earth – NMNH-IZ/MMS map layer

44. 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“