An award has been made to the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) under the direction of Dr. Jacob Schaefer to consolidate two collections of fish from the university and from the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory so that curation and housing for the collections can be improved. This collection is used in research on biodiversity and conservation in the southeastern United States and is important in education programs at USM. Specimens of fish from the Mississippi River are well represented in the collections as well as specimens from marine habitats of the U.S., Mexico, and other areas worldwide. Approximately 68,000 collections lots stored in jars in alcohol will be relocated to new compact shelving in a renovated storage space. Labels in the jars contain valuable collection data, which will be copied and replaced with more durable tags. In addition, the geographical data for specimens will be captured in digital format and made available online to a broad community of researchers. The collections are used in undergraduate education programs and in outreach programs to K-12 schools and visiting groups. This funding will expand these programs through the participation of graduate students. The USM has a significant population of African American and other minority students, and the investigators for this project will continue their programs to recruit these students into research projects.
