Research Infrastructure: Moving and Improving the Florida Museum of Natural History Fish Collection

The collection of preserved fish specimens at the Florida Museum of Natural History is the second largest and one of the fastest growing in the U.S. It serves as a vital source of information on the diversity and distributions of fishes for national and international researchers, as well as local scholars, students, natural resource managers, and government agencies.

A new building on the University of Florida campus built to house the collection and associated scientists and students will provide state-of-the-art storage and research facilities. This award will support the movement of the collection to the new facilities and will provide the opportunity to make several improvements to collection management that will better serve the research and education communities.

Enhancements include reordering the massive collection into a more space-efficient container-size arrangement, rather than grouping specimens by type, and barcoding specimen containers so individual specimens are easier to locate. A large-scale imaging program will be conducted for improved online access to the collection. The enhancements to collection data and a more cost-efficient physical reorganization of one of the world's most important collections of fishes will serve as a model for future collection management.

The project also will improve the public interface of the Museum through increased opportunities for professional development of K-12 teachers. Teachers will be paired with project scientists through the Thompson Earth Systems Institute’s (TESI) flagship program, a Scientist in Every Florida School (SEFS), and a series of professional development opportunities on best practices in science communication will support teachers as they collaborate with scientists and prepare scientists for in-person or virtual classroom visits with students.

The new facilities and improved management will guarantee preservation and increased accessibility of specimens of exceptional value to science. Additionally, a more trouble-free replacement of problematic taxonomic and other data will allow researchers, staff, and other users to access specimens and information more easily. Ecology and evolutionary biology rely on natural history collections to provide resources for answers to questions of fundamental importance, and through this project more accurate and updated online specimen-based data will be linked to genomic and phenomic data, mapped to show distributions and changes over time, and contribute to analyses related to environmental change.

Upon completion of the project, the collection will share only current names for fishes with data aggregators, greatly improving the utility of the data. Locating individual specimen lots will be simplified, whether the work is done by staff or a visiting researcher. This project will assure the integrity of specimens and data, better serve the scientific community and public, and through its success, serve as a model for improvement of other large and important collections.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.