9318044 Burke Funds will be used for improvement of the Insect Collection of the Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University. This collection of approximately 1,290,000 specimens has grown rapidly in recent years and is particularly rich in material from the southwestern United States and Mexico. It is the major insect collection in the area. There is a need to reorganize portions of the collection, sort material to loanable units, raise the curatorial level of selected groups, rehouse and integrate important donated materials, and continue basic computerization activities. Funds are specifically needed to (1) employ students on a part-time basis to assist in curation and name-capture and (2) purchase cabinets and drawers for storage of the increasing numbers of specimens generated by inventory and research projects, donations and other acquisitions. The addition of the Roy O. and Conway A. Kendall Collection of Lepidoptera of approximately 100,000 specimens with extensive associated biological data is in progress. Cabinets and drawers will be purchased to rehouse this collection in TAMU. The visiting specialist program has been very successful in the past in getting material sorted for use in research projects and obtaining identifications; this program will be continued. A strong commitment of new funds ($79,910) has been made to the proposed project by the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. The requested support will allow continued development of the collection as a major regional resource for insect systematics.
