Scientific collection

A scientific collection is a collection of items that are preserved, catalogued, and managed for the purpose of scientific study.^[1]

Scientific collections dealing specifically with organisms

biological collections.^[2] The latter may contain either living stocks or preserved repositories of biodiversity specimens and materials.^[3]

Scientific collections hold a tangible portion of the cumulative evidence base in such fields as biology (especially taxonomy and evolutionary biology), geology, and archaeology.^[1] They may be stored and managed by governments, educational institutions (e.g. colleges and universities), private organizations (including museums), or individuals.

Prominent uses of scientific collections include the systematic description and identification of biological

annual rings), and the maintenance of teaching resources.^[1]^[4]

Seedbank

at the Western Regional Plant Introduction Station

Indexing

The indexing of the collections was historically made by directories, catalogs, index cards, today supplemented by or replaced by databases with information such as e.g. scientific description, including picture, name, location, find circumstances, fund age, scientific analysis, phylogenetic relationships, DNA and isotope analysis results, analysis of pollutants, references, condition of the property, owner changes and name changes.^[5]

Many organizations support the indexing and handling of their collections by specialist libraries.

Institutions

Research collections hold especially museums, notably natural history museums, botanical gardens, universities and other research institutions. There are also independent research collections, such as the Zoological State Collection Munich with over 20 million stuffed animals for research purposes. Public authorities such as national geological agencies or police units hold partly research collections too.

The

palaeontology and zoology

.

Largest German Natural History Museum is the

Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, with over 30 million objects, including 9 million beetles and 275,000 jars with preserved in alcohol animals.^[5]

Geology / Earth Sciences collections

Remarkable Earth Sciences collections:

In Germany the
deposits in the deposit collection,^[7] 16,000 rocks in the petrological collection,^[8] 114,000 macro - and almost a million micro-fossils in the fossil collection,^[9] 70,000 macro - and microfossils 12,000 and 15,000 lithostratigraphically or facies relevant rock samples and about 14,000 specimens and sections in the Stratigraphic collection,^[10] 30,000 pieces of evidence and 30,000 preparations and cuts in Fuel Geological Collection and 34,000 objects in the central body of evidence Lithothek.^[11]

The IODP/ODP - Kernlager / Bremen Core Repository (BCR) at the
drill core from the Ocean Drilling Program with 190,000 individual pieces, which are stored in a 1.100m ² large cold storage at 4 °C.^[12]

The
École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech) containing some 100,000 samples including 80,000 minerals, 15,000 rocks, 4,000 ores, 400 meteorites, 700 gems
, and 300 artificial minerals.

The most important geological collections in Europe include the
Museum of the Earth of Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw With more than 170,000 minerals, meteorites, fossil and an amber
collection.

Biological collections / Life Sciences collections

Typical collection objects biology are fossils of organisms, preserved samples of extant animals and plants (protected from decay by drying or preparation), but also live plants, animals, bacteria and active viruses.

Plant collections are referred to as

seedbanks, as well as e.g. algae from the Culture Collection of Algae Göttingen.^[13] Live animals are collected in zoos

and aquariums. The great Old Botanical Garden of the University of Göttingen e.g. represents about a collection of 17,000 species.[14]

Particularly well known in Germany are the major research collections of the

Frankfurt am Main

with over 22 million natural objects (Herbaria 1 Million). Senckenberg offers to open up his collection to the SESAM database.

The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal sounds. It includes more than 175,000 audio recordings covering 75 percent of the world's bird species. There are an ever increasing numbers of insect, fish, frog, and mammal recordings. The video archive includes over 50,000 clips, representing over 3,500 species.

An example for a special collection are the objects of the

Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen

(German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures).

Remarkable and big Biological collections (more than 1,000,000 specimens) in Europe are

in France:
Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
contains 4,000,000 specimens
in Russia:
St. Petersburg
contains 7,160,000 specimens,
in
British Museum of Natural History contains 80,000,000 specimens; Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh contains 2,000,000 specimens; University of Cambridge contains 1,000,000 specimens; University of Manchester
contains 1,000,000 specimens;

in Switzerland:

Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich

contains 1,500,000 specimens,

in Austria:

Universität Wien

contains 1,400,000 specimens,

in Sweden:

Göteborg University

contains 1,600,000 specimens,

in Netherlands: National Herbarium of the Netherlands (Nationaal Herbarium Nederland) contains 4,000,000 specimens
in Italy:
Università degli Studi di Torino
contains 1,000,000 specimens,
in Belgium:
National Botanic Garden of Belgium
contains 3,500,000 specimens,
in Germany: Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Zentraleinrichtung der Freien Universität Berlin contains 3,000,000 specimens, University of Jena contains 3,000,000 specimens; Botanische Staatssammlung München contains 2,500,000 specimens; Biozentrum Klein-Flottbek, Hamburg contains 1,400,000 specimens; Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart contains 1,000,000 specimens
in Finland: University of Helsinki contains 3,000,000 specimens,
in Denmark: University of Copenhagen contains 2,510,000 specimens,
in Norway: Botanical Museum, Oslo contains 1,800,000 specimens,

See more: List of herbaria in Europe

Remarkable and big Biological collections (more than 1,000,000 specimens) in the Americas are:

in United States:
Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Claremont contains 1,084,000 specimens; Plant Resources Center of University of Texas at Austin contains 1,006,000 specimens; Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Fort Worth
contains 1,000,000 specimens

in Canada: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Vascular Plant Herbarium contains 1,335,000 specimens,
in Mexico:
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City
contains 1,120,000 specimens.

See more: List of herbaria in North America

Remarkable and big Biological collections worldwide see: List of herbaria

History / Human Heritage collections

tree ring s of dendrochronological

art tree. Because of the specific growth of each tree species and regional differences of climate, such a table must always refer to a single species from the same region. Important tree chronologies are:

Hohenheimer Jahrringkalender (Hohenheim tree-ring calendar), complete 12,483 years back to 10,480 BC in the Younger Dryas
Aegean Dendrochronology Project to 1800 BC, Bronze Age
Belfast Chronology 5474 BC
English standard curve to 5,012 BC
White Mountains of California
)
Sequoiadendron giganteum Chronology

Remerkable History collections:

The National Numismatic Collection is the national coin cabinet of the United States. The collection is part of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. the collection contains over 1.6 million objects, including 450,000 coins, medals and decorations and 1.1 million pieces of paper money.^[15]
The Norwegian folk music series is a scientific collection of traditional Norwegian dance music.

Literature

Pamela Ebert Flattau (Project Leader), Margaret Boeckmann, Paul Lagassla, Nyema Mitchell, Darius Singpurwalla: Preliminary Findings from the NSF Survey of Object-Based Scientific Collections: 2008 (pdf)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c National Science and Technology Council, Committee on Science, Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections (2009). Scientific Collections: Mission-Critical Infrastructure of Federal Science Agencies (PDF). Washington, DC: Office of Science and Technology Policy.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
PMID 30011273
.

^ The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. "Biological Collections – Division on Earth and Life Studies". Retrieved 2019-11-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

ISSN 0006-3568
.

^ ^a ^b Die Sammlungen | Deutsche Naturwissenschaftliche Forschungssammlung

^ "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Mineralogische Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

^ "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Lagerstätten-Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

^ "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Petrologische Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

^ "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Paläontologische Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

^ "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Stratigrafische Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

^ "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Lithothek - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

^ IODP/ODP - Kernlager / Bremen Core Repository (BCR), Universität Bremen · Universitätssammlungen in Deutschland

^ "EPSAG". Archived from the original on 2012-09-01. Retrieved 2014-01-02.

^ Georg-August-Universität Göttingen - Alter Botanischer Garten

^ "The National Numismatic Collection". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved October 12, 2011.

Links

http://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.de/de/netzwerk/initiativen/

http://www.plastercastcollection.org/en/index.php

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientific_collection&oldid=1216298215"

[:0-1] National Science and Technology Council, Committee on Science, Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections (2009). Scientific Collections: Mission-Critical Infrastructure of Federal Science Agencies (PDF). Washington, DC: Office of Science and Technology Policy.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[2] PMID 30011273
.

[3] The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. "Biological Collections – Division on Earth and Life Studies". Retrieved 2019-11-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[4] ISSN 0006-3568
.

[autogenerated1-5] Die Sammlungen | Deutsche Naturwissenschaftliche Forschungssammlung

[6] "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Mineralogische Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

[7] "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Lagerstätten-Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

[8] "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Petrologische Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

[9] "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Paläontologische Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

[10] "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Stratigrafische Sammlung - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

[11] "Geowissenschaftliche Sammlungen Lithothek - TU Bergakademie Freiberg". Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2014-01-04.

[12] IODP/ODP - Kernlager / Bremen Core Repository (BCR), Universität Bremen · Universitätssammlungen in Deutschland

[13] "EPSAG". Archived from the original on 2012-09-01. Retrieved 2014-01-02.

[14] Georg-August-Universität Göttingen - Alter Botanischer Garten

[15] "The National Numismatic Collection". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved October 12, 2011.

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