The MMS / IZ Partnership – 30 Years and Counting
Federal Programmatic Collections in the
National Museum of Natural History
Cheryl Bright and William Moser, NMNH Department of Invertebrate Zoology
The Geographic Diversity of the Invertebrate Zoology Collections
History of Federal Programmatic Collections In IZ
20 U.S.C. § 50 Reception and Arrangement of Specimens and Objects of Art
Whenever suitable arrangements can be made from time to time for their reception, all objects of art and of
foreign and curious research, and all objects of natural history, plants, and geological and mineralogical
specimens belonging to the United States, which may be in the city of Washington, in whosever custody they
may be, shall be delivered to such persons as may be authorized by the Board of Regents to receive them, and
shall be so arranged and classified in the building erected for the institution as best to facilitate the examination
and study of them; and whenever new specimens in natural history, geology, or mineralogy are obtained for the
museum of the institution, by exchange of duplicate specimens, which the Regents in their discretion make, or
by donation, which they may receive, or otherwise, the Regents shall cause such new specimens to be
appropriately classed and arranged.
(R.S. §5586 derived from Act Aug. 10, 1846, ch. 178, § 6, 9 Stat. 105)
20 U.S.C. § 59 Collections of National Ocean Survey, United States Geological
Survey, and Others Deposited in National Museum
All collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history, archaeology, and ethnology, made
by the National Ocean Survey, the United States Geological Survey, or by any other parties for the Government
of the United States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress shall be deposited in the National
Museum.
(Mar. 3, 1879, ch. 182, § 1, 20 Stat. 394; 1965 Reorg. Plan No. 2, eff. July 13, 1965, 30 F.R. 8819, 79 Stat. 1318, 1970 Reorg. Plan No. 4, eff. Oct. 3,
1970, 35 F.R. 15627, 84 Stat. 2090; Nov. 13, 1991, Pub.
L. 102-154, title I, 105 Stat. 1000).
Historical Programmatic Collections Include:
1838 - 1842
1883 - 1887
US Exploring Expedition
“Albatross” Collections
US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries
US Fish Commission
Current Programmatic Collections Include:
1963 - Present
1979 - Present
1990 - Present
US Antarctic Program (NSF)
MMS Archiving Program
NCI Natural Products Vouchers (NIH)
Considerations Associated with Acquiring
Programmatic Collections
From the perspective of the archiving facility:
- bulk or volume of the collection
- presence and quantity of unprocessed samples
- current level of curation
- quality of the identifications
- waste disposal costs
- specimen quality (damage sustained during
collecting and subsequent processing)
Considerations Associated with Acquiring
Programmatic Collections
From the perspective of the collector or funding agency:
- Long term financial stability of the archive facility
- Ability of the archive facility to
- store the collection
- maintain the collection
- lend the collection
- accommodate visitor access to the collection.
- Archive facility’s ability to insure access to the
specimen information (cataloging and WWW)
- Regional emphasis of the collection being archived
The Current MMS Collection Archiving Project
November, 1979
The project began with a team of 6 Museum
Technicians working under the direction of Invertebrate
Zoology Curator, Dr. Meredith Jones.
The first collections to be accessioned into the
Invertebrate Zoology collections from this project
included:
SABP – South Atlantic Benchmark Program
CABP – Central Atlantic Benchmark Program
MAFLA – Mississippi, Alabama & Florida Survey
The Current MMS Collection Archiving Project
Today
There are 2 full time and 1 half time Museum
Technicians funded by MMS who process these
collections in collaboration with departmental
collection management staff.
More than 350,000 lots of specimens from 23
MMS research programs have been accessioned into
the Invertebrate Zoology collections.
Sites Sampled During Minerals Management Service
Environmental Research Studies 1975-2004
ASLAR: Atlantic Slope and Rise Program
250 - 8000 m: 1984-1985
MAFLA: Mississippi, Alabama, Florida Survey
10 - 189 m: 1975-1978
BIMP: Georges Bank Benthic Infauna Monitoring Program
38 - 168 m: 1981-1984
MAMES: Mississippi-Alabama Marine Ecosystem Study
20 - 200 m: 1987-1989
CABP: Central Atlantic Benchmark Program
14 - 760 m: 1975-1977
MAPTEM: Mississippi/Alabama Pinnacle Trend Ecosystem
Monitoring
60 - 110 m: 1996-1999
CAMP: California Monitoring Program
25 - 930 m: 1983-1988
CARP: Central and Northern California Reconnaissance Program
60 - 607 m: 1987
CASPS: Canyon and Slope Processes Study
100 - 1800 m: 1979-1982
CGPS: Central Gulf Platform Study
6 - 98 m: 1978-1979
CHEMO: Chemosynthetic Ecosystem Study
500 – 1500 m; 1991-2001
NEEB: New England Environmental Benchmark Program
38 - 290 m: 1977
NGOMCS: Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental Slope Study
291 - 2935 m: 1983-1984
POSP: Panama Oil Spill Program
0 - 1 m: 1986-1987
SABP: South Atlantic Benchmark Program
8 - 520 m: 1977
SOCAL: Southern California Baseline Study
intertidal: 1975-1978
DGoMB: Deepwater Program: Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental
Slope Habitats and Benthic Ecology
300 - 3000 m: 2001-2002
SOFLA: Southwest Florida Shelf Ecosystem Study
10 - 160 m: 1980-1981
IXTOC: IXTOC Oil Spill Assessment Study
5 - 55 m: 1979-1980
STOCS: South Texas Outer Continental Shelf Study
15 - 182 m: 1975-1977
LMRS: South Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf Living Marine
Resources Study
15 - 79 m: 1980-1981
WRECK: Deepwater Program: Archaeological and Biological
Analysis of WWII Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico: A Pilot
Study of the Artificial Reef Effect in Deep Water (Deep
Wrecks)
85 - 146 m: 2004
LOPH: Deepwater Program: Characterization of Gulf of Mexico
Deepwater Hard Bottom Communities with Emphasis on
Lophelia coral (Lophelia study)
310 - 686 m: 2004
Why Are Programmatic Collections Important?
1 – typically have excellent data
2 – typically result from intensive and extensive collecting
3 – are usually taxonomically and geographically redundant
(this provides a large number of specimens
of the same species of various age classes
and sizes collected at various times, from across
the species distribution range)
4 – often support a large body of scientific literature
5 –serve as the basis for environment and resource management decisions
MMS Specimens are a Significant Component of the
Cataloged Invertebrate Zoology Collection
Arthropoda
Mollusca
Crustacea: Glyptoxanthus erosus (Stimpson),
USNM 214943, LMRS, photo by K. Ahlfeld
Annelida
Echinodermata
Cnidaria
Porifera
Chordata
Meiofauna
Cnidaria: Javania cailleti
(Duchassaing & Michelotti),
USNM 1011311, MAPTEM,
photo by K. Ahlfeld
Sipuncula
Mollusca: Conus spurious Gmelin, USNM 834433,
SOFLA, photo by K. Ahlfeld
Bryozoa
Annelida: Hesiocaeca methanicola
Desbruyères & Toulmond, photo by NOAA
Staff
Nemertea
Platyhelminthes
0
50000
100000
MMS lots
150000
Total IZ lots
200000
250000
Almost 300 New Species Have Been Described From
MMS Collections
New Species Described
Total: 298
175
87
2
11
6
8
9
-
Annelida
Arthropoda
Chordata
Cnidaria
Echinodermata
Mollusca
Porifera
Size and Diversity of the MMS Collections
CHEMO
WRECK
CHEMO
WRECK
MAMES
LOPH
CASPS
IXTOC
MAPTEM
DGOMB
CAMP
STOCS
POSP
SOCAL
CARP
NEEB
MAFLA
CABP
BIMP
CGPS
ASLAR
NGOMCS
SABP
LMRS
SOFLA
MAMES
LOPH
CASPS
# of UNIQUE TAXA
IXTOC
MAPTEM
DGOMB
CAMP
STOCS
POSP
SOCAL
CARP
NEEB
MAFLA
CABP
BIMP
CGPS
ASLAR
NGOMCS
LOTS CATALOGED
0
SABP
5,000
10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 45,000 50,000
LMRS
SOFLA
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
How Are The Collections Used?
-Confirm/re-evaluate previous identifications
- Provide evidence in the event of legal challenges to management decisions
- Documenting biodiversity
- Inferring the possible absence of taxa in a given area at a given time
- Identifying and locating ecosystems and ecological associations
- Documenting changes in populations (structure, dynamics, size)
- Documenting environmental change and degradation
- Documenting climatic changes
- Pollution analyses
- Documenting predator-prey and trophic relationships
- Documenting host-parasite relationships
- Documenting ecological and geographical distributions of organisms
- Inferring the presence of diseases and disease causing organisms
through forensic studies
- Documenting intraspecific variability
- Documenting physiological and morphological adaptations
- Documenting evolutionary trends
- Documenting the variability of DNA
How are the Collections Used?
“North Atlantic Ocean”
Records in IZ Catalog Database
Records - 437,771 of 908,824 = 48%
Unique Taxa – 26,144 of 79,000+/- = 33%
Albatross 1883 - 1887
MMS 1975 - 1990s
MMS Lobster Specimens
Examined During a
Study Funded by the
Department of Defense
The Research Question
Can the biomechanics of
the buoyancy mechanism
used by the lobster be
adapted for a robotic
underwater mine
detector?
A Serendipitous Discovery
PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore,
Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research discovered a
well-preserved specimen of a poorly known xanthid crab
(Decapoda: Brachyura) from the SOFLA program in our
collection. He expects to designate this MMS specimen as
the Neotype of Carpoporus papulosus Stimpson, 1871 to
stabilize a species name.
Minerals Management Service
People Promoting Energy, the Environment, and the Economy
News Release
Office of Public Affairs News Media Contact: September 21, 2009 Eileen Angelico, (504) 736-2595
Caryl Fagot, (504) 736-2590
MMS Study Positively Identifies Giant Squid Presence in Gulf of Mexico
Field Work for MMS Sperm Whale Prey Study Nets Giant Squid
Architeuthis dux, USNM # 1130046
The
“ICE WORM”
A new species
collected in
1997 from gas
hydrates in the
Gulf of Mexico
The Seven Volume Set of
Identification Keys, Species
Descriptions and Habitat Information
Prepared for the Polychaetes of the
Northern Gulf of Mexico, A Study
Funded by MMS
A Few of the MMS Collection-Based Publications Authored by NMNH Department
of Invertebrate Zoology Scientists
The Role of IZ Collection Management in Our
MMS Collaboration
The usefulness of any collection depends on the
accessibility of the specimens AND the information
about them
- Physical Access
arrangement, level of sorting, level of identification
and preservation
- Electronic Access
digitization of specimens and images
- Information Access
Availability of inventories, data bases, web access
ACCESS is the service we provide to MMS
MMS Holding Area in Pod-5
Note the detailed storage unit labels and
finding aids
Fully Curated MMS Specimens
Stored in the IZ General
Reference Collection
Collection
Infrastructure at NMNH
The new fluid collection
storage facility provides the
equipment to safely store,
handle and examine very large
specimens
Electronic Access
Digitization of specimen
data and images
Sample entry
screens for
multimedia files
and text data in our
EMu (Electronic
Museum) specimen
cataloging and data
management
application
IZ’s Collection Data
Access via the Web
The MMS specimen data is accessible to the
public through a variety of web-based tools
including EMu-Web from Invertebrate Zoology’s
home page.
http://invertebrates.si.edu
Future Focus
COLLECTION ACQUISITION
CATALOGING
COLLECTION
SORTING
IDENTIFICATION
DATA MANAGEMENT
National Museum of Natural History,
Department of Invertebrate Zoology
(IZ) Home Page
http://invertebrates.si.edu/
Minerals Management Service (MMS) –
NMNH, IZ Collaboration page
click on grey bar to expand content
History of NMNH-IZ and MMS
collaboration and
other documentation (pdf format)
BIMP Station Map
BIMP Station Data
BIMP Technical Report
Download Station Data
Drill-down for full station record
Search IZ
Collections
OR
Download images
Download pdfs
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) – NMNH IZ collection data
http://www.gbif.org/
drill down to specific records
Smithsonian cataloging software (Emu) – collection mapper
Query bounding-box for specific records
Drill down to full
catalog record
Google Earth – CGPS taxon records
Google Earth – MMS NEEB stations
Google Earth – NMNH-IZ/MMS map layer
Google Earth – NMNH-IZ/MMS map layer
The Take-Away Message:
1 – Taxpayers have spent tens of millions of dollars collecting these
specimens to support the original research effort (environmental
baseline surveys), but the value of the collections did not end with the
submission of the final technical report; MMS understood the on-going
value of these collections, sought a partner in NMNH-IZ to provide the
needed long-term curation, and were willing to provide NMNH-IZ with
the funds necessary to insure the professional management of these
collections for the benefit of the public
[I personally am not aware of a similar situation where a government organization responsible for the
creation of these large collections at taxpayers expense, also assumed much of the financial burden for
ensuring their long-term care and that they remain accessible to the research community; MMS
deserves recognition for taking this proactive approach]
2 - The current arrangement is cost effective for MMS because they are
able to insure the long-term stability of their vouchers and other
specimens without having to duplicate the collection management
expertise and collection infrastructure available from NMNH; and it
makes access to the specimens easier for researchers since
"everything is in one place“