Biological collections whether from the recent or geologic past provide a unique tool to investigate the changing patterns of diversity and responses to global changes, such as climate change. This project will protect and provide open access to a rare collection for both research and education. It is a series of historic recent and fossil collections held in the Non-vertebrate paleontology repository of the Texas Natural Science Center. Many of these specimens are fragile, currently located in unsuitable storage conditions with much of their related data written on deteriorating paper labels. This project will conserve and relocate that material. Key specimens will be digitally imaged along with related labels, field notes or diagrams. All information about the specimens, including collection localities, will added to an NSF-sponsored open source database and be made accessible via the web, where the user can view all or query for specific groups or time frames, and map their selections on Google Earth against today's geography or that of the relevant time frame in geologic history.
Specimens of recent age, such as freshwater mussels and snails, and terrestrial snails, collected in the late 19th century are keys to patterns of change occurring today, markers against which modern surveys can be compared. Shell chemistries are potential future resources for environmental indicators. Older fossil specimens come from other periods of climate change, such as 55 million years ago at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary; these specimens are invaluable resources for scientists examining the current climate changes. The data gathered will be used as an integral educational resource developed on both popular and open source mobile media platforms. Collaboration with skilled information scientists and their students will help the development of digital field trips, fossil keys and other interactive tools to excite and inform students and members of the public. For many minority groups a phone is their only access to the internet.
This 3-year grant to the Non-vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory (NPL) at the University of Texas at Austin has allowed us to conserve and digitize much of our historic collections; specimens gathered during the mid to late 19th century and early 20th century. Many of these rare and valuable collections have been relocated to improved conditions and a large number imaged. Data has been entered into a relational database, Specify 6, which is widely used for natural history collections at other museums and in other countries. An example of data entry with image attachments is shown in Figure 1. The type specimens found during this project have been imaged at high resolution. Type specimens are the reference specimens that are used by paleontologists to describe and illustrate new fossil organisms from various time intervals in the fossil record. Most of these fossils have become extinct, and are not represented in the present day fauna or flora, so that fossil remains are the only record of the existence of these organisms in the past. The sample shown in Figure 2 was collected in 1891. Additional type materials were discovered during the digitization of the historic collection and are being added to our online web portal, www.paleocentral.org. Historic collections of non-fossils such as those in the J. A. Singley mussel collection are equally important providing data to monitor current diversity changes possibly the result of pollution or climate change. The collection sites are georeferenced for the best possible accuracy. Historic data may lack the precision details available for modern collections. Despite that fact they remain unique records indicating the presence or absence of a species in a particular river basin. An example of such locality tracking is shown in Figure 3. The entire georeferenced mussel occurrence records for Texas provided a valuable dataset in the recent study of diverse aquatic ecosystems for the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC), illustrated and referenced in Figure 4. This project included broader impacts in several areas. A highly important aspect was the training of numerous students and volunteers in techniques of digital curation. These covered inventory and data entry into Specify 6, taking images of specimens at various qualities using a range of cameras and software, creating figures and plates for talks or publications, and using several methods to find georeferences from verbal locality descriptions. It also included extensive conservation techniques, the use of archival materials and experiments to test removal of shellac from some of these historic specimens. Shellac, and similar consolidants, were in common use in the past and have led to yellowing and disintegration as the chemical aged often obscuring and damaging the specimen. Removal of such material is possible but it is time consuming and is currently restricted to the test environment. Students were also able to present their collaborative work at professional meetings. A wider educative outreach was achieved through the development of two mobile applications ‘apps’. Collaboration with the Information School involved a graduate student and a graduate student volunteer working together with the PIs to produce two products on two platforms. The first was an interactive field guide reliving one of the earliest geological surveys down the Colorado River in Texas. It is called GeoTrek and is available free on iTunes for iPhone and iPad. The experience was offered as a field trip for the South Central section of the Geological Society of America. The second, Fossil Roulette, is aimed at a broader audience. This is available for the Android platform and may be downloaded from our web site. The continued development of this engaging introduction to fossils based upon samples in the collection is now available on the tumblr platform http://fossilroulette.tumblr.com/about and, where relevant, links to the new paleobio platform http://paleobiodb.org/navigator/#/1ef1495d . In this environment the user can see other instances of similar specimens mapped to a version of the geologic plates for the relevant time. Publications based on the activities of this grant include 14 talks with published abstracts, 3 journal papers, 1 published report, 2 book chapters and 5 web/internet /mobile app sites.
