An award has been made to the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (ANSP) to renovate ANSP Diatom Herbarium and to provide on-line access to its resources. This Herbarium is the largest in North America and second largest in the World collection of diatoms, microscopic algae that play key role in biosphere?s carbon and silica cycles and are important environmental indicators. The Herbarium houses approximately 210,000 diatom slides, 30,000 samples, and 5000 types of diatom species. This project will make the Herbarium easily accessible to researchers worldwide: the updated Herbarium database and images of type specimens will be available on-line, data for 25,000 samples will be digitized, and several important collections will be incorporated into Herbarium. Approximately 5,000 samples will be re-housed in new cabinets.
Better access to the resources of the ANSP Diatom Herbarium will support research in taxonomy, systematics, biogeography, and ecology of diatoms and increase public awareness of environmental change and biodiversity conservation. Curatorial assistants and students involved in this project will be trained in collection management and diatom taxonomy. Diatom Herbarium website will serve educational purposes and will be useful for biology students, teachers, and general public as an information source on diatoms and ecology of aquatic systems.
Diatoms are microscopic algae that play a prominent role in marine and fresh waters and are important environmental indicators. Siliceous skeletons of diatoms accumulate in lake and ocean sediments and are useful for providing sediment chronology, reconstructing ocean and lake history, studying climate change, and for assessing environmental quality of lakes, rivers, wetlands, estuaries, and coastal areas. Both fundamental and applied diatom research relies heavily on collections, such as the one stored at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP). The ANSP Diatom Herbarium is the largest diatom collection in North America and the second largest in the World. It houses approximately 120,000 permanent diatom slides, 40,000 diatom samples, and 5000 types, which are specimens to which scientific names of the diatom species are formally attached. Some of the materials are of special historical value. The collections include recent and fossil, marine and freshwater diatoms from all over the World. The strength of the Herbarium is diatom collections from numerous river surveys conducted mostly in North America by Academy staff and by federal and state environmental agencies. The goal of this project was to renovate the ANSP Diatom and to provide on-line access to its resources. The main outcomes of this renovation are: 1) The Herbarium database was updated according to the current standards for biological collections data and made available online at http://clade.ansp.org/diatoms. This enhances the use of Herbarium resources by taxonomists and creates new opportunities for all kinds of users to retrieve information on water quality in the U.S. Modernization of the database increased the time-efficiency of data entry, loan tracking, and collection objects retrieval. 2) The previously computerized data on approximately 75,000 permanent diatom slides and 600,000 taxa records were migrated to the new Herbarium database from other ANSP databases. Information on ~30,000 samples was entered into database and linked to their corresponding slide records, which greatly facilitates the use of Herbarium materials. 3) Geographical location data from ~10,000 index cards were digitized and sampling locations were georeferenced, which creates novel opportunities for studying species distributions and biogeography of diatoms. 4) Approximately 600 images of type specimens were taken and are now available online at http://clade.ansp.org/diatoms/collections/imggallery.php. This effort already led to discovery of several diatom species new to science and to taxonomic revisions, and created an important resource for diatom researchers. It is now unnecessary to send fragile slides to diatom researchers through the mail, which minimizes the risk of loss of valuable materials. 5) Sample storage facilities were renovated. 6) Several important uncataloged collections were incorporated into the Herbarium. 7) Approximately 3,000 diatom samples were freeze-dried or stored in glycerin, which ensures their long-term preservation. Renovation of the ANSP Diatom Herbarium is a considerable help to scientists developing the online diatom flora of the U.S. (http://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/about/project/1806/renovation_and_computerization_of_ansp_diatom_herbarium) and other researchers in the U.S and worldwide. Nineteen students and three volunteers involved in this project were exposed to diatom research and learned databasing, microscopy, and collection management skills. The PI and Herbarium manager communicated to museum visitors and school groups the importance of the Diatom Herbarium, and natural history collections in general for understanding of biodiversity, evolution, and environmental change. The holdings of ANSP Diatom Herbarium are historically important as they document the effects of pollution, and the restoration of aquatic systems. Better access to the Herbarium created new opportunities for all kinds of users to retrieve information on water quality in the U.S.
