‘Treasure house’ reno

“KU has the second-largest university-based mammal collection in the Americas,” Colella says, “and it is the fifth-largest collection in the Americas overall.”

Colella’s team includes ecology and Evolutionary Biology and museum studies graduate students along with retired curator of mammals Robert Timm, who now serves as a research affiliate at the BI.

“We have a small fleet of museum studies students, museum interns, and undergraduate and graduate students, both paid and as volunteers that are helping make this whole transition possible,” Colella says. “Right now, we are physically moving cases, using our womanly strength; literally, because our team is mostly women. Next, we’ll transcribe data.”

Throughout the transfer process, Colella and her team are digitizing data about each specimen as well as filling in gaps in data that may have been omitted by previous generations of researchers. Students will verify and record information from specimen tags into the Specify museum database, which links to the broader scientific research community through GBIF, iDigBio, BISON and VertNet.

Colella says the mammal collection was a treasure house for researchers who used specimens to understand evolutionary biology and the process of diversification of species.

“It’s easy to observe things as they are right now, but it’s hard to measure change without physical documentation of the past,” Colella says. “Scientifically, that’s one of the best things that we get from collections—an objective means of measuring change over time. And as change accelerates, we’re able to look at how rates have changed, which allows us to make informed predictions and decisions moving forward.”

Because tissues from specimens collected many decades ago still can be genetically analyzed, preserving them well for future analysis can even have implications for fighting potential disease outbreaks in people, as well as tracking the spread of invasive species.

“Until recently, no one had really looked to museums for public health research. I think a lot of people don’t realize there’s this whole back end to museums that’s involved in really cutting-edge research. That aspect of our work is less appreciated by the public because they don’t see it,” Colella says. “For example, mammal tissues can contain viruses that can infect humans. For public health purposes, developing screening methods that allow us to access those data are becoming increasingly possible and that’s part of my research program—each mammal has parasites and pathogens that also factor into our understanding of diseases that impact human health.”

As part of the project, the importance of scientific collections will be the subject of a new public exhibition now being conceived and planned by BI students and exhibit staff. Displays will highlight research stories that illustrate how collections are critical for solving problems of societal interest, including recognizing emerging pathogens, tracing the origins of invasive species and conserving species through genetic management.