This project will dramatically increase our knowledge of the ecology, biodiversity, and phylogeny of the phylum tardigrada through new undergraduate research programs at Baker University, Fresno City College, and Brigham Young University. The teams will conduct a biotic survey of North America by collecting tardigrades at the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites. Student researchers will be trained to collect, identify, sequence, and report on tardigrades. Their results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and available over the internet on the Tardigrade Reference Center (TRC) at the Academy of Natural Sciences with keys, descriptions, images, DNA sequences, and distribution maps.
The project will discover new species, expand the continental diversity, and link DNA sequences to voucher specimens, in order to ascertain species associations, distributional patterns, and genetic variation of the tardigrades. The TRC will target scientists, educators and hobbyists who use the Internet to find data, facts, and teaching activities. The project models the collaboration between the undergraduate, research, and museum communities. It also fosters communication among specialists, and demonstrates the blending of morphological and molecular approaches to species identification. The project will expose many students to scientific inquiry such that they will be prepared for careers in science, education, and government.
This part of a collaborative project provided support for database and web development and provision of collection housing in a museum environment for the research project focusing on North American Tardigrada. Tardigrades , or water bears, are microscopic invertebrates found in marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats and are best known for their ability to withstand periods of extreme dryness, heat and cold by undergoing cryptobiosis (a process stopping all metabolic procedures indefinitely). This project, led by Dr. William Miller of Baker University, and with research carried out also at Brigham Young University and Fresno City College, investigated the diversity of North American tardigrades, focusing on those habitats at Long Term Environmental Research (LTER) sites in the USA. It was important that the specimens obtained and studied during this research project be housed in a museum that would protect the slide mounted specimens from degradation and make them available to the scientific community for study. The Academy of Natural Sciences purchased free standing Eberbach cabinets to house the majority of the Tardigrada slides that will be received from this project’s research activities. These cabinets integrate well with the existing slide storage in the Department of Entomology. We purchased cabinets with a 25,000 microscope slide capacity. We purchased platforms which were modified to provide for placement of the cabinets above the floor, allowing cleaning of the floor underneath the cabinets. These cabinets were placed under the working counters in the lower compactor collection area in the entomology department, allowing free access to researchers, but not taking up floor space elsewhere in the department. We also bought 500 additional slide boxes as an additional storage option for slides. In total we have the capacity for 30,000 Tardigrada microscope slides. In addition, through the funding of another project, this area where the slides are to be stored will in Fall 2012 have a renovated HVAC system providing climate controlled storage conditions. In addition, the Academy of Natural Sciences provided a server to house the Tardigrade Reference Center and database and developed an underlying foundation for this web reference center and database. These are also consistent with other collection and research databases that the Academy maintains.
