Natural History Collection » Biodiversity in Focus Blog

Collections Under Fire – Royal British Columbia Museum

Biology, Entomology, For a Good Cause 4 Responses »

Jan 062015

Natural History Collections are the Libraries of biology. They collect, protect, and maintain the specimens that allow us to understand how the natural world works, and then they make them available for people to use, study and enjoy, usually for free. Every specimen is irreplaceable, a priceless first edition that allows us to explore, interpret and compare the unique ways in which evolution, ecology, and the environment have shaped not only the species we share this planet with, but also ourselves.

Imagine a library without a librarian. What do you suppose would happen? For one, there wouldn’t be any new books added for you to borrow, enjoy, or learn from, so you better like the classics and not be interested in keeping up with the New York Times Bestseller List. That’s assuming of course you can even find the books you’re interested in, because without someone to make sure they’re kept in their proper spot and order maintained, shelves will devolve into chaos, and it won’t be long until insects, microbes, and the environment begin to decompose the entire collection into piles of poorly organized dust.

The same is true for biological collections, only the librarians are called curators. Without a curator, a natural history collection is nothing more than a poorly organized pile of dust in waiting. No museum in their right mind would allow the very core of their existence decompose like this, would they?

The Royal British Columbia Museum is thinking about it. The CEO of the museum, Professor Jack Lohman, is of the mind that the Entomology Collection no longer needs a paid curator, and that the money earmarked for employing one could be better spent elsewhere in the museum. He couldn’t be more wrong.

The last entomology curator, Dr. Robert Cannings (who happens to be a dipterist who did his PhD at the very lab bench that I’m doing mine at now) retired in 2012 after a 32 year career as Curator of Entomology. He has stayed on as Curator Emeritus, but the museum has yet to hire his replacement, and has now publicly stated that they likely won’t.

Let’s return to our library metaphor again for a moment to illustrate how poor, and unprofessional, the decision to let the RBCM entomology collection go without a curator is. According to their website and this information sheet put together by the collection staff (PDF), the entomology collection at the RBCM was established in 1886, and now holds roughly 600,000 specimens. Compare that to the Canadian Library of Parliament, the most prestigious library in Canada that is attached to our Parliament Buildings and which serves as the official repository and resource for our government. It was founded a mere 10 years before the RBCM entomology collection, in 1876, and also houses 600,000 items today. The difference is that Library of Parliament employs 300 people to keep it running and functional, while the Royal British Columbia Museum Entomology Collection currently employs 1 collection manager, and has been deemed undeserving of a curator to maintain its esteemed history.

That is unacceptable.

But it’s not too late. Professor Lohman has agreed to hear arguments for why the entomology curatorship position should be filled, and will delay making a final decision until January 22, 2015.

Natural History Collections matter. Entomology matters. Curators matter. Please join me in letting Professor Lohman know that this is not an issue that should even be negotiated, never mind cut outright. Write him a letter (his address & email are below). Tweet at him using @RoyalBCMuseum and share why museums and the collections they maintain matter to you; tweets including the museum’s Twitter handle seem to go directly onto the front page of the museum website for all to see!

Stand up for entomology research in Canada. Don’t let 129 years of natural heritage turn to dust.

—

Write to:

Prof. Jack Lohman

Chief Executive Officer

Royal British Columbia Museum

675 Belleville St,

Victoria, BC V8W 9W2

JLohman@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca

And send a copy to:

Peter Ord: Vice President, Archives, Collections, and Knowledge

POrd@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca

The One That (Almost) Got Away

Entomology, Fun Stuff No Responses »

Jul 022014

Even though all specimens in a natural history collection (should) have a label explaining where, when & how they were captured, sometimes that doesn’t include the full story behind how a specimen came to rest in the collection. Consider the following.

While enjoying a few cold beverages on a hot summer’s evening on the porch of a friend’s cottage, our conversation was interrupted by the *thud* of a beetle bouncing off the siding. Attracted to the lights of the cottage, a Lucanus stag beetle found itself suddenly the highlight of the evening, and I quickly scooped it up and placed it into an inflated Ziploc bag, intending to photograph it once I got home the next day.

Things got busy though, and I ended up stashing the baggy & live beetle in my backpack to take into the lab and photograph instead. The next morning I walked to work, told my lab mate about my great beetle find, and pulled the Ziploc bag out to proudly display my specimen. Rather than a glorious reveal however, and all I had in hand was an empty Ziploc; apparently the beetle had had enough of waiting around and had chewed its way to freedom!

I proceeded to empty my backpack, searching every crack & crevice in search of the missing stag, only to conclude it had not only escaped its plastic cell, but also my zippered backpack as well! As I sat and wondered where it may have made its dramatic escape (perhaps the greeting card store in the mall I had stopped at on my way in to work, a scenario that I couldn’t help but giggle over) and cursed my beer-induced logic that a Ziploc bag was sufficient to imprison a two-inch beetle with formidable jaws, I resigned myself to the fact that I had been outsmarted by the Houdini of the beetle world.

A few nights later, while sitting on the couch at home watching late-night TV, I heard what sounded like plastic shooting across the laminate floor, emanating from where where our cat, Callie, was playing across the room. When I got up to see what trouble she was getting into, low and behold there was my missing stag, skittering across the floor after a playful thwack from the cat! While certainly dead, considerably dried up, and covered in an embarrassingly thick coating of dust from spending time under the furniture, it was also miraculously complete, not even missing its lamellate antennae or fragile tarsi.

Callie, Stag Hunter

A week soaking in ethanol on my desk (out of reach of the cat, who was unimpressed with me confiscating her new toy) to rehydrate, and voila, a perfectly good specimen ready to become a part of the scientific record! It’s impossible to predict how this specimen may contribute to our understanding of biodiversity and stag beetle biology in the future, and while its official label data will provide future researchers the necessary context to use this specimen as a data point, the full story of how this beetle wound up in our collection is yours.

It just goes to show that there’s more to a specimen than meets the eye, or the label.

The escaped Lucanus stag beetle (Lucanidae), pinned, labelled, and ready for science.

Moron Journalist Finds New Way to Embarass His Blog Network

Biology, Blogosphere, Natural History, Rant, Review, Taxonomy 12 Responses »

Dec 062011

The Victim - Spinops sternbergorum (artistic reconstruction by Dmitry Bogdanov, image from Science 2.0 story)

I don’t use this blog as a platform to rant very often, but a story published on Gawker this afternoon has me all riled up.

In “Moron Paleontologists Find New Species of Dinosaur in Their Own Museum“, author Max Read decides he’s fully qualified to judge how paleontology and taxonomy in general should be done, and criticizes a team of paleontologists for doing something every taxonomist does; study material housed in a museum. That’s right, Mr. Read snidely mocks the authors, who described a very cool new dinosaur species, for not undertaking a grand expedition to parts unknown to find this new species, instead discovering the species while re-examining specimens housed in the British Natural History Museum’s basement collections.

Nevermind the function of a museum is not just to provide a place for ignoramuses like Mr. Read to potentially learn something about natural history and gawk at fantastic displays, but also to actually house the raw data of biology; specimens. Or that people studying specimens in museums would much rather be exploring exotic new localities but are handcuffed by a critical lack of monetary support for taxonomy, which cuts our ability search for new specimens (which are then brought back to the museum and ultimately stored, although I guess that fact never occurred to Mr. Read either). Or indeed that the process of taxonomy is not as straightforward as looking at a single specimen (or pieces of a specimen as is the case in much of paleontology) and instantly recognizing it as unique and in need of a new name.

The true shame of all this is the fact that the blog network Mr. Read writes for is composed of a number of blogs which routinely write well-versed and well-researched pieces on science and technology (io9 & Gizmodo to be precise). How this fascinating story was forwarded onto Mr. Read and not to authors in those other fine networks who I’m sure could have done it justice is almost as outrageous as Mr. Read’s story itself.

Natural history collections are one of the most valuable resources we have as a society, providing a link to the world around us, and to believe that people shouldn’t be studying the material contained within them is like believing that libraries shouldn’t be used for fact checking. Oh, wait…

(If you want to see how science journalism SHOULD be done, I encourage you to read Science 2.0’s version of the story)

Hidden Treasures

Cool Science, Entomology, Natural History, Publication 6 Responses »

Jun 082011

With new identification aids, entomological collections begin to give up all manner of hidden treasures. The “Miscellaneous” drawers are no longer out of reach, and determining the species found in your own backyard (sometimes literally) can result in surprising finds.

Rhagoletis meigenii

Rhagoletis meigenii is an introduced species from Europe which infests fruits of European barberry (Barberis vulgaris) as larvae. This species had previously been recorded in North America as early as 1986, but after examining specimens from the Lyman Entomological Museum and here at the University of Guelph Insect Collection, I found specimens collected as early as 1956 in Montreal, Quebec and 1977 in Oakville, Ontario! This indicates that it had made it’s way to North America much earlier than previously thought, and either spread extremely rapidly across eastern North America, or had multiple introduction events! Luckily this species isn’t of economic concern (European barberry fruits are eaten and used in jams in Europe, but the plant harbours wheat rust and is considered noxious in North America), but it indicates how easily a non-native species can slip into a new area unnoticed by scientists and society.

Urophora affinis

Not all fruit flies enter North America “illegally” though. All three species of Urophora found in Ontario are native to Europe, but were intentionally introduced to help control unwanted, invasive knapweed species. Two of the species introduced became established and quickly spread through southern Ontario (Urophora cardui and Urophora quadrifasciata) while one species didn’t appear to survive. Urophora affinis was experimentally introduced in western Canada where it seemed to thrive, but after release in the early 1980’s at a research plot in Hastings County it failed to be found the next few years, leading the researcher to assume the population hadn’t survived the winter. But, a fly collected 250 km away and more than 20 years later in Simcoe County made it through the curatorial stream, and low-and-behold it was Urophora affinis! Apparently this species did in fact survive the winter, and managed to spread at low population density across central Ontario.

Rhagoletotrypeta rohweri

Finding flies thought to be gone is unfortunately not as unlikely as it may seem. Rhagoletotrypeta rohweri is a rarely collected species that hadn’t been seen since 1962. Or at least it hadn’t been thought to have been seen since then! The University of Guelph Insect Collection actually has 4 specimens collected between 1978 and 1985 around Point Pelee National Park. Hopefully this is evidence that this species is still clinging to existence in small pockets of eastern North America!

Rhagoletis chionanthi

To round out some of the important species uncovered during this study, here’s Rhagoletis chionanthi. This species had previously only been recorded from North Carolina and Florida, making it’s presence in Ontario a significant expansion of its natural range! Of course this also begs the question as to what it’s using for a larval habitat; the only recorded host plant for R. chionanthi is Chionanthus virginicus (see what they did there, naming the species after its host? Crafty taxonomists…), a plant species which hasn’t been recorded from Canada yet! So what may be happening here? Has the plant expanded it’s range into Canada, bringing it’s pest with it? Or does Rhagoletis chionanthi have multiple hosts? Of course, the apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella, actually underwent a host-shift from hawthorn to apples when the latter were cultivated in North America, so perhaps Rhagoletis chionanthi has undergone a similar host-shift which we aren’t aware of!

Of course none of these records would have been possible without the entomological collections housed at universities or under provincial or federal care. At a time when taxonomy and natural history collections are devastatingly under funded (or threatened with military take-over), their intrinsic value is made clear through faunistic studies such as this. Who knows what other treasures are awaiting discovery in entomological collections, both large and small? New species await description, rare species make surprise appearances, and the dynamics between species and geography are unfolding with every study!