This grant will fund an emergency expedition to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to retrieve a large collection of orphaned biological specimens that are currently at high risk of becoming unusable to the conservation and scientific communities. These specimens, presently under the control of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), are kept in an open area exposed to rain and sunlight. In some cases, morphological and genetic data are already severely compromised and may not be redeemable. In others, high-quality specimens are losing associated information as labels fade, disintegrate, or become dissociated, and without accurate geographic and collecting information such specimens lose much of their scientific value. WCS has no resources, facilities, or budget for the proper continuous maintenance of these specimens or for making them available to the research community. This grant will allow the personnel at the University of Alaska (UAM) to travel to Cambodia, sort, identify, and properly store the specimens, and transport the entire collection back to UAM, where it will be permanently archived, accessioned, and stored in accordance with approved collections management policies.
