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Marine biological collections in the 21st century
Author(s) -
Rainbow Philip S.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
zoologica scripta
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.204
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1463-6409
pISSN - 0300-3256
DOI - 10.1111/j.1463-6409.2007.00313.x
Subject(s) - biodiversity , digitization , biology , taxon , period (music) , marine life , marine biodiversity , marine species , ecology , computer science , physics , acoustics , computer vision
From the time of Linnaeus forward, it has been appreciated that collections, not least marine biological collections, are fundamental to the understanding of the biodiversity of life on earth, especially when they contain type specimens which define individual species. Historical collections are particularly rich in types and also represent a model of the biodiversity of marine life at the time of the collection, often centuries ago. The taxonomic and systematic importance of collections is well appreciated, as is the significance of time series of data in this period of anthropogenic environmental change. The application of new techniques increases the value of collected material even further, for example, molecular biology techniques allowing the recognition of new (often cryptic) taxa and their distributions, and stable isotope analyses releasing information on past and present ontogenies, geographical distributions and diets. Moreover the new era of information technology with associated digitization enables the release of the information stored in the collections to the scientists of the world.