NSF Award
1561743
CSBR: Natural History: Development of the Arkansas Center for Biodiversity Collections to advance biodiversity research and education<br/><br/>Natural history collections have played a central role in research, education, and outreach at Arkansas State University (A-State) for nearly 70 years. Housing more than 500,000 specimens, the combined collections at A-State represent an important record of regional biodiversity from the Interior Highlands, Mississippi Alluvial Plain, and Crowley's Ridge ecoregions of the southeastern United States. These collections are threatened by overcrowding, resulting in inefficient and limited use, and specimen degradation in some cases. This project unifies the eight collections at A-State into common spaces with new shelving, cabinetry, and a singular database under the newly formed Arkansas Center for Biodiversity Collections (ACBC). Improved access to the ACBC will increase opportunities to engage students in understanding the importance and utility of natural history collections, as well as enhance research opportunities for A-State students and the broader scientific community. Additionally, students of the A-State Natural History Collections Curation Club (NHC3) will work with curators to develop natural history displays and K-12 class field trip tours including biodiversity and specimen workshops to educate the underserved student populations in the region. Through active undergraduate and graduate student involvement, the ACBC will link research-grade natural history collections to the general public, particularly K-12 students.<br/><br/>The ACBC mission is to provide a unified, accessible specimen repository and research center for the State of Arkansas, including the Interior Highlands, Upper Mississippi Alluvial Plain, and Crowley's Ridge ecoregions. This geographical region is a major center of endemism for numerous taxonomic groups in eastern North America, and one that has seen drastic landscape modifications over the past 100 years. A large proportion of the collections at A-State cover these unique and diverse ecosystems and represent long-term records that pre-date or document biota during habitat transforming activities or disease spread (e.g., white-nose syndrome in bats) in the region. These collections, therefore, serve as base-line data points for ongoing and future changing conditions. Additionally, this project will preserve and curate voucher specimens and make available important data to the scientific community for small- and large-scale research (e.g., ecological, taxonomic, biogeographic, or applied global change research). Specific project goals are to: 1) alleviate overcrowding and increase room for growth through installation of high-density storage systems and new cabinetry; 2) secure collections through improved storage media and labeling; 3) complete the digitization of specimen data and provide public access to all collection data; and 4) develop a significant outreach program by providing collections-based workshops and tours of ACBC displays and collections. Development of a website for the ACBC (acbc.astate.edu) will highlight collection activities and the current Specify web portal (specify.astate.edu) will be expanded to include ASUMZ specimen data in addition to updated herbarium specimen data. Finally, the complete ACBC database will be interfaced with iDigBio (www.idigbio.org) and other publicly accessible data portals (i.e., VertNet, SERNEC, and GBIF).
