ICBR Capacity: Biological Collections: Infrastructure improvement and data preservation of the Tetrapods Collection at the Ohio State University Museum of Biological Diversity.

Animal populations in North America have been declining over the last 50-years due to rapid changes in their natural habitat. Natural history museum specimens have become increasingly valuable to biodiversity and conservation research because they provide a historical record of species distribution and changes in genetic and anatomical characteristics.

Since its founding as a land-grant university in 1870, one of the main missions of The Ohio State University has been preserving natural resources and biodiversity. The Museum of Biological Diversity Tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds) Collection was established in 1870s and is the oldest and most diverse collection of its kind in Ohio.

This project will provide a much-needed infrastructure upgrade to protect over 35,000 historically and biologically valuable specimens and to enhance accessibility to the specimens and their associated data. This increased accessibility will provide meaningful information to researchers, conservation managers, and governmental policymakers. Undergraduate and graduate students from diverse disciplines and backgrounds will play a key role in the transformation of the OSU Tetrapods Collection, and help to inspire the next generation of museum and conservation scientists.

Students with an interest in museum-related careers, including Natural History Collection Club members, will serve vital leadership roles in outreach and engagement with the local media and community members as well as with museum communities through professional conferences.

This project will replace all the obsolete metal and wooden cabinets purchased in the 1900s–1960s with steel cabinets. This rehousing will provide the mammal and bird collections proper protection from possible damage caused by pests and other harmful elements and more efficient storage for expansion, and greatly improve organization and accessibility by staff and visitors.

Other objectives of this project include: (1) rectifying the data quality issues of the current database by inventorying all cataloged specimens and validating data in the database with specimen labels, (2) imaging and preserving deteriorating specimen labels and egg cards and adding un-transcribed data to the database, and (3) transitioning the current database to a robust platform for long-term sustainability. All data resulting from this project will be publicly shared with data aggregators such as GBIF (https://www.gbif.org), VertNet (http://vertnet.org), and iDigBio (https://www.idigbio.org/).

The increased value of the collection would be promoted by newly trained student advocates and outreach activities, which further boosts the use of the collection by the research community and maximizes the future collaborative opportunities.

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.