scholarly journals SYNTHESYS+ Virtual Access - Report on the Ideas Call (October to November 2019)

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Hardy ◽  
Sandra Knapp ◽  
E. Louise Allan ◽  
Frederik Berger ◽  
Katherine Dixey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Access Programme ◽  
Physical Access ◽  
First Time

The SYNTHESYS consortium has been operational since 2004, and has facilitated physical access by individual researchers to European natural history collections through its Transnational Access programme (TA). For the first time, SYNTHESYS+ will be offering virtual access to collections through digitisation, with two calls for the programme, the first in 2020 and the second in 2021. The Virtual Access (VA) programme is not a direct digital parallel of Transnational Access - proposals for collections digitisation will be prioritised and carried out based on community demand, and data must be made openly available immediately. A key feature of Virtual Access is that, unlike TA, it does not select the researchers to whom access is provided. Because Virtual Access in this way is new to the community and to the collections-holding institutions, the SYNTHESYS+ consortium invited ideas through an Ideas Call, that opened on 7th October 2019 and closed on 22nd November 2019, in order to assess interest and to trial procedures. This report is intended to provide feedback to those who participated in the Ideas Call and to help all applicants to the first SYNTHESYS+Virtual Access Call that will be launched on 20th of February 2020.

scholarly journals Access to Natural History Collections – from SYNTHESYS to DiSSCo

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Knapp ◽  
Sarah Vincent ◽  
Christos Arvanitidis ◽  
Katherine Dixey ◽  
Patricia Mergen
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Community Change ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Access Programme ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Physical Access

Any one collection of objects never tells the whole story. Enabling access to natural history collections by users external to a given institution, has a long history–even that great stay-at-home, Linnaeus, relied on specimens in the hands of others. Neglecting collections outside one’s institution results in duplication and inefficiency, as can be seen in the history of synonymy. Physical access had always been the norm, but difficult for the single individual. A student in the late 20th century had to decide if money were better spent going to one collection or another, or if the sometimes rather fuzzy photographs really represented the taxon she was working with. Loans between institutions were a way to provide access, but came with their own risks. The very individualised–to users as well as institutions–system of access provisioning still operates today but has fundamentally changed in several respects. The SYNTHESYS (Synthesis of Systematic Resources) projects brought a set of European institutions into a consortium with one aim: to provide access to natural history collections in order to stimulate their use across communities. The SYNTHESYS Transnational Access (TA) programme provided access not only to the collections of participating institutions, but also to infrastructures such as laboratories and analytical facilities. The trajectory of TA has led to a change in thinking about natural history collections, along with access to them. Because access has been subsidised at both the individual and institutional levels, participating institutions began to function more as a collective; one infrastructure, albeit loosely dispersed. In the most recent iteration of the SYNTHESYS programme, SYNTHESYS+, access has changed yet again with the times. Technological advances in imaging permit high-quality surrogates of natural history specimens to be exchanged more freely, and Virtual Access (VA) forms an integral part of the SYNTHESYS+ access programme, alongside TA. Virtual access has been operating for some time in the natural history collections community, but like TA, with individual scientists requesting images/sequences/scans from individual institutions or curators. VA, as a centralised service, will be piloted in SYNTHESYS+ in order to establish the basis for community change in access provisioning. But what next? Will we continue to need physical access to specimens and facilities as VA becomes increasingly feasible? As European collections-based institutions coalesce into the DiSSCo (Distributed System of Systematics Collections) infrastructure, will the model established in SYNTHESYS+ continue to function in the absence of centralised funding? In this talk, we will explore the trajectory of access through SYNTHESYS and provide some scenarios for how access to natural history collections–both physical and virtual–may change as we transition to the broader infrastructure that DiSSCo represents.

scholarly journals SYNTHESYS+ Abridged Grant Proposal

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Smith ◽  
Kristina Gorman ◽  
Wouter Addink ◽  
Christos Arvanitidis ◽  
Ana Casino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Critical Infrastructure ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Geological Processes ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Access Programme ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
Scientific Collections ◽  
First Time

European natural history collections are a critical infrastructure for meeting the most important challenge humans face over the next 30 years – creating a sustainable future for ourselves and the natural systems on which we depend – and for answering fundamental scientific questions about ecological, evolutionary, and geological processes. Since 2004 SYNTHESYS has been an essential instrument supporting this community, underpinning new ways to access and exploit collections, harmonising policy and providing significant new insights for thousands of researchers, while fostering the development of new approaches to face urgent societal challenges. SYNTHESYS+ is a fourth iteration of this programme, and represents a step change in the evolution of this community. For the first time SYNTHESYS+ brings together the European branches of the global natural science organisations (GBIF https://www.gbif.org/, TDWG https://www.tdwg.org/, GGBN http://www.ggbn.org/ggbn_portal/ and CETAF https://cetaf.org/) with an unprecedented number of collections, to integrate, innovate and internationalise our efforts within the global scientific collections community. Major new developments addressed by SYNTHESYS+ include the delivery of a new virtual access programme, providing digitisation on demand services to a significantly expanded user community; the construction of a European Loans and Visits System (ELViS) providing, for the first time, a unified gateway to accessing digital, physical and molecular collections; and a new data processing platform (the Specimen Data Refinery), applying cutting edge artificial intelligence to dramatically speed up the digital mobilisation of natural history collections. The activities of SYNTHESYS+ form a critical dependency for DiSSCo - the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (https://dissco.eu/), which is the European Research Infrastructure for natural science collections, under the ESFRI umbrella. DiSSCo will undertake the maintenance and sustainability of SYNTHESYS+ products at the end of the programme.

scholarly journals Taxonomic changes resulting from a review of the types of Australian Anoplognathini (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Rutelinae) housed in Swedish natural history collections

Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4908 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-238
Author(s):  
MATTHIAS SEIDEL ◽  
CHRIS A.M. REID
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Type Material ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
New Synonym ◽  
Senior Synonym ◽  
Taxonomic Changes ◽  
First Time ◽  
Total Type

The type material of Australian Anoplognathini (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Rutelinae) housed in Swedish natural history collections is reviewed, concerning three genera: Anoplognathus Leach, 1815, Amblyterus MacLeay, 1819, and Repsimus MacLeay, 1819. The species were described by G.J. Billberg, J.W. Dalman, L. Gyllenhal, C.J. Schönherr, O. Swartz, and C.P. Thunberg. The contemporary type material of W.S. MacLeay in the Macleay Museum, Sydney, is also examined as it has been overlooked by previous researchers. In total, type specimens for 12 species described between 1817 and 1822 were found in the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet in Stockholm the Evolutionsmuseet in Uppsala and the Macleay Museum. Five of these species are valid: Anoplognathus brunnipennis, (Gyllenhal, 1817); A. olivieri (Schönherr & Dalman, 1817); A. porosus (Dalman, 1817); Amblyterus cicatricosus (Gyllenhal, 1817); and Repsimus manicatus (Swartz, 1817). The other seven species are junior synonyms, as follows (senior synonym first): A. brunnipennis = Rutela chloropyga Thunberg, 1822 (new synonym); A. olivieri = Rutela lacunosa Thunberg, 1822 (new synonym); A. viridiaeneus (Donovan, 1805) = A. latreillei (Schönherr & Gyllenhal, 1817); A. viriditarsus Leach, 1815 = Rutela analis Dalman, 1817; and R. manicatus = Anoplognathus brownii W.J. MacLeay, 1819 = A. dytiscoides W. J. MacLeay, 1819 = Rutela ruficollis Thunberg, 1822 (new synonym). Authorship of A. latreillei and A. olivieri is corrected, as noted above. Anoplognathus brunnipennis has been misidentified for the last 60 years at least, leading to the synonymy noted above. Anoplognathus flavipennis Boisduval, 1835 (revised status), is reinstated as the oldest available name for the misidentified A. brunnipennis and the types of A. flavipennis in the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, are illustrated. Lectotypes are designated for: Anoplognathus brownii, A. flavipennis, A. dytiscoides, Melolontha cicatricosa, Rutela analis, R. brunnipennis, R. lacunosa, R. latreillei, R. manicata, R. olivieri, R. porosa, R. ruficollis, and R. chloropyga. Photographs of all type specimens examined are presented for the first time. 

Joseph Sidebotham: vicissitudes of a Victorian collector

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence M. Cook
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Species Limits ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
As Species ◽  
Scientific World

Joseph Sidebotham (1824–1885) was a Manchester cotton baron whose natural history collections are now in the Manchester Museum. In addition to collecting he suggested a method for identifying and classifying Lepidoptera and investigated variation within species as well as species limits. With three close collaborators, he is credited with discovering many species new to Britain in both Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. A suspicion of fraud attaches to these claims. The evidence is not clear-cut in the Lepidoptera, but a possible reason is suggested why Sidebotham, as an amateur in the increasingly professional scientific world, might have engaged in deceit.

Edward Heron-Allen FRS (1861–1943): a review of his scientific career, with an annotated bibliography of his foraminiferal publications

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Hodgkinson ◽  
John E. Whittaker
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Annotated Bibliography ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Scientific Career ◽  
History Museum ◽  
First Time

ABSTRACT: In spite of his many other interests, Edward Heron-Allen also worked for nearly 50 years as a scientist on minute shelled protists, called foraminifera, much of it in an unpaid, unofficial capacity at The Natural History Museum, London, and notably in collaboration with Arthur Earland. During this career he published more than 70 papers and obtained several fellowships, culminating in 1919 in his election to the Royal Society. Subsequently, he bequeathed his foraminiferal collections and fine library to the Museum, and both are housed today in a room named in his honour. In this paper, for the first time, an assessment of his scientific accomplishments is given, together with a full annotated bibliography of his publications held in the Heron-Allen Library. This is part of a project to produce a bibliography of his complete publications, recently initiated by the Heron-Allen Society.

The Banksian natural history collections of the Endeavour voyage and their relevance to modern taxonomy

1981 ◽  
Vol 1981 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-70
Author(s):  
H. B. Carter ◽  
Judith A. Diment ◽  
C. J. Humphries ◽  
Alwyne Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Collections

Correspondence between Adolphe Brongniart and Robert Schomburgk: trading natural history collections for honours

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-336
Author(s):  
PIOTR DASZKIEWICZ ◽  
MICHEL JEGU
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
British Guiana ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
German Naturalist

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses some correspondence between Robert Schomburgk (1804–1865) and Adolphe Brongniart (1801–1876). Four letters survive, containing information about the history of Schomburgk's collection of fishes and plants from British Guiana, and his herbarium specimens from Dominican Republic and southeast Asia. A study of these letters has enabled us to confirm that Schomburgk supplied the collection of fishes from Guiana now in the Laboratoire d'Ichtyologie, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. The letters of the German naturalist are an interesting source of information concerning the practice of sale and exchange of natural history collections in the nineteenth century in return for honours.

First Records of Bufo luchunnicus (Yang et Rao, 2008) and Amolops wenshanensis Yuan, Jin, Li, Stuart et Wu, 2018 (Anura: Bufonidae, Ranidae) from Vietnam

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-86
Author(s):  
Cuong The Pham ◽  
Minh Duc Le ◽  
Chung Van Hoang ◽  
Anh Van Pham ◽  
Thomas Ziegler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Genetic Divergence ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Type Series ◽  
Lao Cai ◽  
First Time ◽  
Nd2 Gene ◽  
Quang Ninh

We record two species of amphibians for the first time from Vietnam: Bufo luchunnicus from Lao Cai and Son La provinces and Amolops wenshanensis from Quang Ninh Province. Morphologically, the Vietnamese representatives of B. luchunnicus resemble the type series from China. The specimen of A. wenshanensis from Vietnam slightly differs from the type series from China by having a smaller size (SVL 33.2 mm vs. 35.7 – 39.9 mm in males) and the presence of distinct transverse bands on the dorsal surfaces of limbs. Genetic divergence between the sequence of the Vietnamese specimen and those of A. wenshanensis from China available from GenBank is 1.2 – 1.6% (ND2 gene). In addition, morphological data and natural history notes of aforementioned species are provided from Vietnam.

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