NSF Award
2423775
Natural history collections are a record of the biodiversity of our planet. These specimens enable us to track the movement of organisms across space and time, which informs conservation efforts at regional, national, and international levels, thus supporting the maintenance of critical ecosystem services that are essential for human life. Despite their importance, natural history collections are being defunded at a rapid rate, resulting in these historic and irreplaceable specimens needing to be rescued from loss. The East Tennessee State University (ETSU) no longer has the capacity to house their plant collections (herbarium). This collection contains around 35,000 specimens and represents an important resource documenting a region of exceptional biological diversity, comprising eastern Tennessee and the southern Appalachian Mountains. This project includes moving the ETSU herbarium to the University of Tennessee – Knoxville (UTK), integrating the collections, and mobilizing ETSU specimen information online via public databases, such as the Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (www.sernecportal.org) and the Consortium of Bryophyte Herbaria (www.bryophyteportal.org). Transferring the collection will enable these specimens and their data to be accessed worldwide by researchers, government agencies, and members of the public into the future.<br/><br/>Located at Tennessee’s flagship public university, the UTK herbarium is the largest botanical natural history collection in the state and the third largest in the southeastern United States. The UTK herbarium serves as a major hub for research focusing on the ecosystems of the southern Appalachian Mountains and thus is an ideal institution to house and care for the ETSU specimens. This project will include relocating ETSU’s 35,000 specimens from Johnson City to Knoxville. In order to accommodate the specimens, a mobile storage system will be purchased and installed, consisting of compactor carriages and additional herbarium cabinets. UTK staff and students will also barcode and digitize the ETSU specimens, as needed. Following specimen digitization, the physical specimens will be integrated into the UTK collection. Finally, the label information from the imaged specimens will be transcribed and the locality information georeferenced, so that the digital data for these specimens is complete and can be shared online. As part of this project the UTK herbarium will engage members of the public, who live in Tennessee, in the process of specimen curation by including the ETSU specimens in the WeDigBio online transcription events over the next year. During these events curators, faculty, and students will train members of the public in the process of specimen label transcription.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
