scholarly journals The Global Museum: natural history collections and the future of evolutionary science and public education

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e8225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freek T. Bakker ◽  
Alexandre Antonelli ◽  
Julia A. Clarke ◽  
Joseph A. Cook ◽  
Scott V. Edwards ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Long Term Storage ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Museum Data

Natural history museums are unique spaces for interdisciplinary research and educational innovation. Through extensive exhibits and public programming and by hosting rich communities of amateurs, students, and researchers at all stages of their careers, they can provide a place-based window to focus on integration of science and discovery, as well as a locus for community engagement. At the same time, like a synthesis radio telescope, when joined together through emerging digital resources, the global community of museums (the ‘Global Museum’) is more than the sum of its parts, allowing insights and answers to diverse biological, environmental, and societal questions at the global scale, across eons of time, and spanning vast diversity across the Tree of Life. We argue that, whereas natural history collections and museums began with a focus on describing the diversity and peculiarities of species on Earth, they are now increasingly leveraged in new ways that significantly expand their impact and relevance. These new directions include the possibility to ask new, often interdisciplinary questions in basic and applied science, such as in biomimetic design, and by contributing to solutions to climate change, global health and food security challenges. As institutions, they have long been incubators for cutting-edge research in biology while simultaneously providing core infrastructure for research on present and future societal needs. Here we explore how the intersection between pressing issues in environmental and human health and rapid technological innovation have reinforced the relevance of museum collections. We do this by providing examples as food for thought for both the broader academic community and museum scientists on the evolving role of museums. We also identify challenges to the realization of the full potential of natural history collections and the Global Museum to science and society and discuss the critical need to grow these collections. We then focus on mapping and modelling of museum data (including place-based approaches and discovery), and explore the main projects, platforms and databases enabling this growth. Finally, we aim to improve relevant protocols for the long-term storage of specimens and tissues, ensuring proper connection with tomorrow’s technologies and hence further increasing the relevance of natural history museums.

scholarly journals The Global Museum: natural history collections and the future of evolutionary biology and public education

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freek T. Bakker ◽  
Alexandre Antonelli ◽  
Julia Clarke ◽  
Joseph A Cook ◽  
Scott V Edwards ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Long Term Storage ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Natural History Collections

Natural history museums are unique spaces for interdisciplinary research and for educational innovation. Through extensive exhibits and public programming and by hosting rich communities of amateurs, students, and researchers at all stages of their careers, they provide a place-based window to focus on integration of science and discovery, as well as a locus for community engagement. At the same time, like a synthesis radio telescope, when joined together through emerging digital resources, the global community of museums (the ‘Global Museum’) is more than the sum of its parts, allowing insights and answers to diverse biological, environmental, and societal questions at the global scale, across eons of time, and spanning vast diversity across the Tree of Life. We argue that, whereas natural history collections and museums began with a focus on describing the diversity and peculiarities of species on Earth, they are now increasingly leveraged in new ways that significantly expand their impact and relevance. These new directions include the possibility to ask new, often interdisciplinary questions in basic and applied science; inform biomimetic design; and even provide solutions to climate change, global health and food security challenges. As institutions, they are incubators for cutting-edge research in biology and simultaneously protect core infrastructure for present and future societal needs. In this perspective, we discuss challenges to the realization of the full potential of natural history collections and museums to serve society. After reviewing collections and types of museums, including local and global efforts, we discuss the value of specimens and the importance of observations. We then focus on mapping and modelling of museum data (including place-based approaches and discovery), and explore the main projects, platforms and databases enabling this. We also explore ways in which improved infrastructure will allow higher quality science and increased opportunities for interdisciplinary research and communication, as well as new uses of collections. Finally, we aim to improve relevant protocols for the long-term storage of specimens and tissues, ensuring proper connection with tomorrow’s technologies and hence further increasing the relevance of natural history museums.

scholarly journals The Global Museum: natural history collections and the future of evolutionary biology and public education

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freek T. Bakker ◽  
Alexandre Antonelli ◽  
Julia Clarke ◽  
Joseph A Cook ◽  
Scott V Edwards ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Long Term Storage ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Natural History Collections

Natural history museums are unique spaces for interdisciplinary research and for educational innovation. Through extensive exhibits and public programming and by hosting rich communities of amateurs, students, and researchers at all stages of their careers, they provide a place-based window to focus on integration of science and discovery, as well as a locus for community engagement. At the same time, like a synthesis radio telescope, when joined together through emerging digital resources, the global community of museums (the ‘Global Museum’) is more than the sum of its parts, allowing insights and answers to diverse biological, environmental, and societal questions at the global scale, across eons of time, and spanning vast diversity across the Tree of Life. We argue that, whereas natural history collections and museums began with a focus on describing the diversity and peculiarities of species on Earth, they are now increasingly leveraged in new ways that significantly expand their impact and relevance. These new directions include the possibility to ask new, often interdisciplinary questions in basic and applied science; inform biomimetic design; and even provide solutions to climate change, global health and food security challenges. As institutions, they are incubators for cutting-edge research in biology and simultaneously protect core infrastructure for present and future societal needs. In this perspective, we discuss challenges to the realization of the full potential of natural history collections and museums to serve society. After reviewing collections and types of museums, including local and global efforts, we discuss the value of specimens and the importance of observations. We then focus on mapping and modelling of museum data (including place-based approaches and discovery), and explore the main projects, platforms and databases enabling this. We also explore ways in which improved infrastructure will allow higher quality science and increased opportunities for interdisciplinary research and communication, as well as new uses of collections. Finally, we aim to improve relevant protocols for the long-term storage of specimens and tissues, ensuring proper connection with tomorrow’s technologies and hence further increasing the relevance of natural history museums.

Museums of natural history—do we need their collections in the time of molecular biology?

1993 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-328
Author(s):  
Sven Mathiasson
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
The World

All over the world natural history museums act as storehouses. Billions of creatures are preserved. Most museum visitors never see these collections; they only meet the limited specimens presented in public exhibitions. Most people seem to know little about the value of these collections and how they are used. This article presents some aspects of natural history collections and their value in scientific and other contexts.

scholarly journals Den naturhistoriske samling og forskningen

1970 ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Niels P. Kristensen
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Biological Information ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Biological Systematics ◽  
Phylogenetic Affinities

Natural history collections and research Among the research activities linked to natural history collections, biological systematics stands out for the topicality conferred upon it by growing concern over the biodiversity crisis. Systematic biologists, most of whom work in natural history museums, are faced with the task of naming and describing/redescribing millions of undescribed or poorly described organisms from rapidly dwindling natural habitats, and of classifying the known organisms according to their phylogenetic affinities, so that all kinds of biological information on all kinds of organisms may be pieced together into coherent patterns. 

Best practices for genetic resources associated with natural history collections: Recommendations for practical implementation

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 77-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Breda M Zimkus ◽  
Linda S Ford
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Genetic Resources ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Best Practice Guidelines ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Traditional Natural

Abstract Researchers associated with natural history museums have made the collection of genetic resources a priority due to their importance in molecular studies, but often the long-term curation of these collections is difficult due to decentralized curation over multiple storage locations and lack of community best practice guidelines for their stewardship. Unlike traditional natural history specimens, the research utility of genetic samples increases with lower storage temperatures and fewer freeze–thaw events and, in addition, their use is consumptive. Collection managers must, therefore, maximize the research potential of each sample by carefully considering use on a case-by-case basis. This paper presents standardized guidelines accumulated for the management of genetic collections associated with natural history collections. These recommended practices are informed by general standards for biorepositories and augmented by information unique to natural history collections with the goal of providing a foundation for those curating genetic samples. Information pertains to all aspects of genetic sample curation and will assist those in making decisions regarding how to collect, store, track, process, and distribute genetic specimen samples. These guidelines also will allow users to make informed decisions regarding how to apply and improve the curation of their collection given their institution's goals and available resources.

Fund natural-history museums, not de-extinction

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 598 (7879) ◽  
pp. 32-32
Author(s):  
Corrie S. Moreau ◽  
Jessica L. Ware
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museums

scholarly journals NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-28
Author(s):  
Dimítri De Araújo Costa ◽  
Nuno Gomes ◽  
Harold Cantallo ◽  
Carlos Antunes
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Local Fauna ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The World ◽  
Object Of Study

Society in general is distant from scientific culture, it is required to bring scientific knowledge closer to the population. In this context, an effective and attractive way for scientific dissemination is the establishment of natural history museums, which are institutions of knowledge, displaying the past. Natural history museums have the natural world as their object of study; and their collections may contain the most diverse types of materials (local and/or from various parts of the world), such as zoological, botanical, geological, archaeological, among others. Scientific collections are the largest and most important source of authoritative biodiversity data, contributing to studies of biodiversity composition, evolutionary (morphological and genetic), biogeographical, phenological, as well as geological. The materials present in these collections may serve for temporal comparison, being useful to produce predictive models. Likewise, they have a fundamental role in safeguarding type specimens, i.e. the first organisms identified to describe and name a new species. In addition, there is the component available to visitors in general, in order to raise public awareness on the preservation of the local fauna and flora and of other places in the world. In this way, the museums serve both the academic-scientific public and visitors who come to these sites for recreational purposes. It is intended to promote, in Vila Nova de Cerveira, the Natural History Museum of the Iberian Peninsula - NatMIP (“Museu de História Natural da Península Ibérica”), which intends to collect materials for scientific purposes, mainly Iberian.

scholarly journals Gender, Museums and Science: Wanda Hanke’s Ethnological Collections (1933–1958)

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana M. O. Sombrio
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
South America ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Extensive Data ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Medicine And Philosophy ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Female Scientists

Abstract This paper will explore the significance of the expeditions under- taken by Wanda Hanke (1893-1958) in South America, of the networks she established in the region, as well as of her contributions to ethnological studies, in particular her compilation of extensive data and collections. Through Hanke's experience, it is possible to elucidate aspects of the history of ethnology and that of the history of museums in Brazil, as well as to emphasize the status of female participation in these areas. Wanda Hanke spent 25 years of her life studying the indigenous groups of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay and collecting ethnological objects for natural history museums. Trained in medicine and philosophy, she began to dedicate herself to ethnological studies in her forties, and she travelled alone, an uncommon characteristic among female scientists in the 1940s, in Brazil.

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