NSF COLLECTIONS IMPROVEMENT GRANT
1ST YEAR'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In the first phase of our museum renovation, we replaced 28 insect cabinets holding 1,344 drawers with 56 new cabinets and 3,000 new drawers in the same floor space. Thus, we have more than doubled the space available to the Diptera (flies) and Hemiptera (true bugs) collections. The old drawers will be recycled to other parts of the collection (Lepidoptera and Odonata), thus also increasing their curation space. Expansion of curation space will soon facilitate taxonomic research on specimens of these groups which have been held in storage and largely inaccessible to the scientific community.
Over 180,000 stored Diptera and Hemiptera specimens that previously had been stored haphazardly due to space limitations were consolidated by taxa (if previously identified to some level) or geographic region (the remaining unsorted specimens) and transferred to unit trays and new drawers. Significant curation (inventory and incorporation of identified material into drawers at curation levels 6 and 7, on a scale of 1-7) was accomplished for a further 5,500 specimens in seven families of Diptera. The museum reorganization prompted the processing of orphaned Hemiptera loans, and several thousand specimens were returned to over 30 different museums. In the Lepidoptera, about 6,000 specimens of Noctuidae were curated into species trays in the main collection, and about 4,000 specimens from the Taiwan Lepidoptera Project were sorted to genera and species.
Over 7,500 records were added to the entomology identification database, which includes full label data for all specimens added to the FSCA from material submitted for identification to the Division of Plant Industry. A subset of the latter database (ca. 50,000 records in total) is available and searchable from the FSCA web site. About 500 hours of staff time were devoted to web site development and management. Considerable effort this year went into making accessible to the public over 4,500 pages of published scientific taxonomic journals associated with the FSCA (Insecta Mundi, Arthropods of Florida, and Occasional Papers of the FSCA).
Instruction in museum practices was provided to five student assistants who logged a total of 1,785 hours in project-related activities. They collectively handled tens of thousands of pinned insect specimens, learned to interpret labels and specimen histories, prepared new labels as needed, sorted specimens to family level, organized specimens by taxa and/or geographic region, took inventories of taxa, processed loaned specimens, and generated databases of select label data. They engaged in some high level curation activities by incorporating identified material into drawers at curation levels 6 and 7. Much of our student help originates from the Entomology Department of The University of Florida. Two of these students are already committed to insect taxonomy dissertations, and this project has afforded them a great opportunity to enhance their experience in a field in which work opportunities are frequently scarce. In total, 3,260 hours of FSCA staff time (both NSF-funded and cost-sharing) were dedicated to the project during the 1st year of funding.
Taxonomy is an ‘enabling science' that provides important data for use by other scientists. Museum infrastructure improvement is fundamental and necessary to build and develop the collections upon which intellectual advances in systematics are based. The FSCA is a major reference and voucher collection that organizes and stores such data. Facilities improvement to the FSCA allows us to partner with projects such as the All Taxon Biological Inventory (ATBI) being conducted by the U.S. National Park Service in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, ecological studies of insectivorous primates in Suriname, and a program of biological control of Melaleuca in the Florida Everglades being conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Partnership involves service identifications and museum storage space for voucher specimens generated by such projects from outside disciplines. The FSCA staff provided 6,948 identifications in year 2001 to numerous constituents, such as the University of Florida, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Florida agribusiness, Florida homeowners, and others. The FSCA is among the top 10 arthropod collections in North America and the largest and most productive such collection in the southeastern U.S.A. The total number of prepared specimens exceeds 8.18 million and the yearly acquisition rate exceeds 100,000 specimens. Annually, on average, we host 80+ visitors to the museum to conduct collections based research, provide over 12,000 specimens on loan, which, together with our own research activity, manifests itself in about 60 scientific publications yearly. The current NSF infrastructure improvement funding will allow us to at least maintain and likely improve this level of public service.