In 1994 the specimens of the former George M. Gray Museum of the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole, MA) were transferred to the Yale Peabody Museum. Included in this material were the large collections of New England region invertebrates amassed by the Systematic Ecology Program (1962-1972). Although safely stored in the museum's Environmental Science Center, much of the collection is uncataloged and in need of complete curatorial upgrade. This material comprises 20,000 fluid-preserved specimen lots accompanied by detailed collection data. The primary goal of this project is to recurate and electronically catalog these specimens, with the resulting dataset made available via the internet to a global audience of scientists, educators, and students.
In addition to upgrading the utility of the former Gray Museum collection, this project is an opportunity to introduce undergraduate student assistants to museum best practices as they complete the curatorial tasks. Furthermore, a component of this project will be to develop an image gallery of New England invertebrates; these images will supplement an existing identification manual for this region. To enhance understanding of the utility of museum collections for the study of biodiversity, ecology and evolution, a workshop for science teachers will be developed and hosted by the Peabody Museum; the primary specimen resource for this workshop will be the collections that are the subject of this grant.
