Collection of Scientific Specimens: Benefits for Biodiversity Sciences and Limited Impacts on Communities of Small Mammals

2017/11/27 by Andrew G Hope, Andrew G. Hope, Brett K Sandercock +3 · 13 citations
Environmental Science · #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation #Species Distribution and Climate Change #Ecology and biodiversity studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/biosci/bix141

Abstract

Despite increasing use of specimens from natural-history collections, continued field sampling has met with growing resistance attributable to changing societal values. Widespread perception persists that the removal of individuals from wild populations will affect the integrity of natural communities. Ecological studies often document the resilience of wildlife to sustainable removal and the negligible contributions to mortality of scientific collecting compared with those of other natural or anthropogenic-induced causes. Nevertheless, few studies have directly assessed the consequences of specimen removal on populations or communities. We present long-term ecological research data that suggest removal trapping has negligible impacts on the species richness, diversity, or abundance of small mammals. The maintenance and future growth of natural-history archives for integrated biodiversity sciences may hinge on increased dedication to specimen vouchering across ecological and evolutionary disciplines and wider acceptance by regulatory authorities and funding agencies. The effects of low-intensity collecting should be investigated for other taxa and across biomes.

Citations

• Natural History Museums in a Postbiodiversity Era
• The Value of Museum Collections for Research and Society

Cited by

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• Phylogenomic Analysis of Wide‐Ranging Least Shrews Refines Conservation Priorities and Supports a Paradigm for Evolution of Biota Spanning Eastern North America and Mesoamerica
• Museum specimens of terrestrial vertebrates are sensitive indicators of environmental change in the Anthropocene. [europepmc]
• A Review of Sampling and Monitoring Methods for Beneficial Arthropods in Agroecosystems. [europepmc]
• Preserve a Voucher Specimen! The Critical Need for Integrating Natural History Collections in Infectious Disease Studies. [europepmc]
• Saving collections: taxonomic revision of the herpetological collection of the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Lisbon (Portugal) with a protocol to rescue abandoned collections. [europepmc]
• Hidden Diversity in a Narrow Valley: Description of New Endemic Palearctic Rock Lizard Darevskia (Squamata: Lacertidae) Species from Northeastern Turkey. [europepmc]
• Going, Going, Gone The Diminishing Capacity of Museum Specimen Collections to Address Global Change Research: A Case Study on Urban Reptiles. [europepmc]
• A chromosome-level genome assembly for the Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta). [europepmc]
• Irregularly regulated collecting markets: antiquities, fossils, and wildlife. [europepmc]
• Phylogenomic Analysis of Wide-Ranging Least Shrews Refines Conservation Priorities and Supports a Paradigm for Evolution of Biota Spanning Eastern North America and Mesoamerica. [europepmc]

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