BibTex format
@article{Garner:2024:10.3389/fevo.2024.1305931,
author = {Garner, BH and Creedy, TJ and Allan, EL and Crowther, R and Devenish, E and Kokkini, P and Livermore, L and Lohonya, K and Lowndes, N and Wing, P and Vogler, AP},
doi = {10.3389/fevo.2024.1305931},
journal = {Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution},
title = {The taxonomic composition and chronology of a museum collection of Coleoptera revealed through large-scale digitisation},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2024.1305931},
volume = {12},
year = {2024}
}
RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)
TY - JOUR
AB - Introduction: Historic museum collections hold a wealth of biodiversity data that are essential to our understanding of the rapidly changing natural world. Novel curatorial practices are needed to extract and digitise these data, especially for the innumerable pinned insects whose collecting information is held on small labels.Methods: We piloted semi-automated specimen imaging and digitisation of specimen labels for a collection of ~29,000 pinned insects of ground beetles (Carabidae: Lebiinae) held at the Natural History Museum, London. Raw transcription data were curated against literature sources and non-digital collection records. The primary data were subjected to statistical analyses to infer trends in collection activities and descriptive taxonomy over the past two centuries.Results: This work produced research-ready digitised records for 2,546 species (40% of known species of Lebiinae). Label information was available on geography in 91% of identified specimens, and the time of collection in 39.8% of specimens and could be approximated for nearly all specimens. Label data revealed the great age of this collection (average age 91.4 years) and the peak period of specimen acquisition between 1880 and 1930, with little differences among continents. Specimen acquisition declined greatly after about 1950. Early detected species generally were present in numerous specimens but were missing records from recent decades, while more recently acquired species (after 1950) were represented mostly by singleton specimens only. The slowing collection growth was mirrored by the decreasing rate of species description, which was affected by huge time lags of several decades to formal description after the initial specimen acquisition.Discussion: Historic label information provides a unique resource for assessing the state of biodiversity backwards to pre-industrial times. Many species held in historical collections especially from tropical super-diverse areas may not be discov
AU - Garner,BH
AU - Creedy,TJ
AU - Allan,EL
AU - Crowther,R
AU - Devenish,E
AU - Kokkini,P
AU - Livermore,L
AU - Lohonya,K
AU - Lowndes,N
AU - Wing,P
AU - Vogler,AP
DO - 10.3389/fevo.2024.1305931
PY - 2024///
SN - 2296-701X
TI - The taxonomic composition and chronology of a museum collection of Coleoptera revealed through large-scale digitisation
T2 - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2024.1305931
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/114025
VL - 12
ER -