Museum Improvements Project (NSF DBI-0847924)

Our NSF BRC proposal was (abstract) recently funded as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The project description portion of our proposal is reproduced below. If you have questions, suggestions, or other comments please contact us via e-mail (ncsuinsects@gmail.com) or phone (+1 919 515 3595).

History and Significance of the NC State University Insect Museum

The NC State University Insect Museum began as an array of personal research collections, including those of F. Sherman, C. S. Brimley, T. B. Mitchell, C. S. Smith, and Z. P. Metcalf, housed at the University and then in the Department of Entomology as far back as 1900. In 1952, Zeno P. Metcalf, who headed the Department of Entomology, incorporated these disparate collections into a world-class departmental reference and voucher collection – the Entomology Museum. This entity, since renamed the Insect Museum, has grown into an internationally recognized resource of critical importance (Deitz 1984). We care for the largest insect collection in North Carolina, with just under 1.4 million prepared insect and mite specimens – more than an order of magnitude over the next largest collection in North Carolina (the Schiele Museum of Natural History near Charlotte, which holds 50,000 specimens) and larger than any insect collection south of the Smithsonian and north of the Florida State Collection of Arthropods (Gainesville), west to Texas (Texas A & M University). The taxonomic breadth of our research collection is outlined in Table 1, though this excludes details regarding the rarity and importance of some of our holdings (e.g., we have 18 Nicrophorus americanus (Coleoptera: Silphidae) from NC, where it is now extirpated).

Table 1. Taxonomic holdings of the NCSU Insect Museum Research Collection
taxon preparation prepared specimens types geographic coverage notable
Coleoptera pinned 300,000 5 holotypes, 423 paratypes worldwide, emphasizing NC J. F. Cornell and Tom Daggy collections
Collembola slides, vials 13,516 34 paratypes eastern USA David Wray collection
Dictyoptera pinned, vials 2,500 20 paratypes worldwide  
Diptera pinned >90,000 3 holotypes, 244 paratypes worldwide, emphasizing NC includes K.L. Knight and R.C. Axtell specimens; we are home for Tabanidae PEET
Hemiptera (minus Heteroptera) pinned, slides, vials 400,000 431 holotypes, 8,097 paratypes worldwide our strongest collection, grown by 3 generations of homopterists
Heteroptera pinned 50,000 3 holotypes, 13 paratypes strongest in eastern USA specimens B. Blinn, is growing this collection, especially for Miridae and Reduviidae
Hymenoptera pinned 85,000 18 holotypes, 1804 paratypes worldwide Historic contributions from T. B. Mitchell, H. K. Townes, and slated for massive expansion by A. R. Deans, the current director
Lepidoptera pinned 350 drawers 240 paratypes worldwide, emphasis on eastern USA H. H. Neunzig collection
Mecoptera pinned, slides 4 drawers, 5,095 slides 15 paratypes eastern USA A.D. Shaftesbury flea collection
Odonata pinned, vials 50 drawers, >400 vials 1 paratype NC  
Orthoptera pinned >12,400 79 paratypes eastern USA B. B. Fulton collection
Plecoptera pinned, vials 1,000 57 paratypes eastern USA  
remainder pinned, vials, slides 300,000 1 paratype worldwide includes Acari slides

Our specimens span more than 100 years of collecting, with our oldest insect collected in 1890. The Insect Museum serves as the main voucher repository for entomological research executed at NCSU, and through these accessions, the efforts of Entomology graduate students, and the acquisition of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture (NCDA) collection in 2000 (described in section I below) we have built the largest, most comprehensive and historic representation of North Carolina’s insect fauna in existence.

We receive and fulfill about 16 loans (Table 2) and 15 data requests per year and welcome an average of 44 visitors per year (policies included in Supplementary Documentation). The Insect Museum houses two permanent staff, the director (A. R. Deans) and collection manager (Bob Blinn), and facilitates research by 15 active affiliates (Table 3). Ongoing research focuses on the systematics of numerous, distantly related insect taxa – Empoasca (Hemiptera:Cicadellidae), Tabanidae (Diptera), Evanioidea and Ceraphronoidea (Hymenoptera), Miridae and Reduviidae (Heteroptera), Membracoidea (Hemiptera), Pyraloidea (Lepidoptera) – and results in an average of four publications per year (1-8 per year since 1997; exemplars include Deans & Kawada 2008, Bertone et al. 2008, Winterton et al. 2007, Albertson & Dietrich 2006, Cryan et al. 2004).

Table 2. Specimen loans, growth rate, and publications. In 2000 we acquired the NCDA insect collection (136,400)
year # loans specimens loaned specimens acquired publications
2000 11 1,275 187,905 7
2001 8 962 11,161 3
2002 22 1,052 2,051 5
2003 13 476 10,478 2
2004 16 738 3,684 4
2005 16 3,513 8,227 5
2006 13 539 8,660 4
2007 21 1,788 10,631 6
2008 14 481 4,300 6

The Insect Museum, comprised of the Research Collection (the focal point for our systematics program), Teaching Collection, and Outreach Collection, also stands as a resource for other kinds of research and educational exercises, as we have local colleagues using our data for niche modeling (see Dunn letter), our displays for outreach (244 times since 2000, averaging 30 outreach actions per year; these efforts are coordinated through the Entomology Graduate Students Association), and our specimens as references for teaching students how to identify insects (graduate students in ENT 502, Insect Biodiversity and Evolution). The level of departmental support (both financial and emotional) for this resource is vigorous (see Harper letter), testament to the Museum’s dynamism, persistence, and value.

Though the Insect Museum exists as an outstanding asset, protecting a wealth of crucial and unique data, we have virtually no public presence (e.g., the most frequent comment I hear from new visitors: "I didn’t know we had an insect museum here") and remain essentially a resource frozen in time due to a severe paucity of cabinet space.

Urgent Needs for the NCSU Research Collection

The equipment, infrastructure, databasing, training, and research proposed herein will facilitate the transformation of the Insect Museum from a specialized resource for researchers in Entomology and a handful of systematists worldwide, into a regional focal point for biodiversity research and conservation, public education and outreach, broad-based graduate student training, and dissemination of natural history information. Our proposal has four specific aims that culminate in this new vision for the role that the Insect Museum plays in North Carolina and in biodiversity research more broadly:

  1. Safeguarding a treasure. We need to preserve the long-term safety and legacy of an irreplaceable and historically important recent acquisition: the NCDA Insect Collection. While this growth has increased our value as a museum it also prevented us from surplusing substandard cabinets (impractical and improperly sealed, these old cases require massive use of naphthalene to repel pests), and we cannot allow this susceptibility to persist.
  2. Relief from critical space and fumigant problems. Our research collection needs to be relieved of its crippling space shortage. We are at 96% capacity, due in large part to the addition of the NCDA collection and the acquisition of several large and regionally significant personal collections. The near unavailability of cabinets and drawers currently prevents us from accepting more collections, which is an unacceptable situation given the importance of the Museum as a regional resource.
  3. Database infrastructure and data exposure. We maintain the largest collection of North Carolina insects in the world, as well as one of the three most important and diverse “Homoptera” collections (Deitz, in litt.; Wilson & Turner 2007). The data associated with these specimens are critically important for niche modelers, population geneticists, and ecologists focusing on the decline or range expansion of key insect species and for monitoring environmental change associated with the increasing urbanization of North Carolina. We intend to establish the architecture, based on accepted standards (e.g., TDWG), and refined workflow to eventually expose all of these data via the World Wide Web.
  4. Increasing our community exposure. By establishing a public face at one of our sister institutions, the Yates Mill Pond County Park, and by rebuilding displays outside the Insect Museum we expand our footprint in the Raleigh area. A persistent and consistent Web presence (blog, database portal, etc.) also allows us to see our vision of an expanded mission – as an interactive, community resource.

Safeguarding a Treasure

In 2000 the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services determined that the people of this state and the science of entomology would best be served by the transfer of their insect collection (136,400 specimens collected between 1900 and the 1970’s, with the majority of specimens collected prior to 1950) to the NCSU Insect Museum (see Dickerson letter). This acquisition is an absolute treasure, broadening our historic holdings for the state’s fauna (most specimens predate the founding of the Museum), adding substantial value and representation (a 10% increase of our holdings) to the Insect Museum. The NCDA’s historic value also lies in its use by Brimley in writing the Insects of North Carolina (1938).

The specimens were tagged with labels that indicate their origin, and they were fully integrated with the Museum’s research collection. Unfortunately, the incorporation of these specimens also eliminated the free space created by our last BRC grant (DEB-9709141, in 1997) and prevented us from surplusing substandard cabinetry (see part II below). Through our proposed infrastructure improvements (new cabinets) we seek to safeguard this treasure as per our 2000 agreement with NCDA: “NCSU [will provide] the necessary resources for all aspects of this collection, including [adequate] housing, curation, and management.” (Dickerson letter)

Relief from Critical Space and Fumigant Problems

The cabinets that comprise our pinned collection house 2,726 drawers, most of which are full (i.e., no empty unit trays) or have only one or two small unit trays of empty space (Fig.1A). By our calculations we have approximately 125 drawers worth of empty space, and most of this buffer is located at the end of the collection – i.e., the empty drawers are not fully integrated into the collection. In essence we are functionally FULL (D. Kavanaugh, in litt.) with respect to pinned specimens, in that more time is spent shuffling unit trays between drawers and drawers between cabinets to make room for extra specimens than is actually spent curating, databasing, imaging, and doing research.

Another critical issue for us is our historically heavy use of naphthalene, which has a repulsive odor, can sublimate onto specimens, and has clearly been shown to have carcinogenic activity (IARC 2002) and to cause hemolytic anemia and cataracts (USDHHS 2005). Our naphthalene levels were measured on 07/09/2008 (see supplementary email) as between 0.5 ppm (ambient) and 0.8 ppm (cabinet open). Though these levels are well below OSHA’s time-weighted average permissible exposure (TWA-PEL) limit of 10.0 ppm (for 8 hours of exposure; see USDHHS 2005), they are much higher than the most recently recommended TWA-PEL of 0.3 ppm (Preuss et al. 2003) based on ambient monitoring studies and an increased understanding of metabolic pathways involved in naphthalene absorption. We estimate that our research collection holds 39-65 Kg of naphthalene (we measured 15-25 g in each drawer with specimens) distributed across its 1,888 ft2, and the odor is so strong that the entire fourth floor in the south wing of Gardner Hall can smell it (and our families can smell it at home), despite two exhaust fans that vent the fumes to the outside.

A major culprit in this predicament is our array of 56 outdated and unsealed cabinets (Fig. 1B), which passively vent sublimated naphthalene. These cabinets also offer increased risk to our specimens by potentially allowing access to pests and by interfering with drawer removal when the door is not opened 180º (Fig. 1C; naive users often slam the drawer against the door edge as they try to remove it, thus jarring the specimens and opening up the possibility of breakage, especially of appendages).


Figs. 1A-D. Critical infrastructure issues in the research collection. A) expansion is difficult, as the addition of even a single specimen for some taxa requires excessive shuffling of unit trays and drawers (orange box = maxed out space for one species; we cannot add even one specimen without substantial investment of time); B) older cabinets do not seal, leaving specimens open for potential pest damage; C) older cabinets to not allow drawer removal easily, leading to frequent banging of drawers against metal and jarring of specimens upon attempted removal (door must be open almost 180º to allow drawer removal); D) light blue squares highlight naphthalene sources, and each drawer contains up to 25 g of powdered naphthalene (removal of these unit trays from 75% of drawers frees up 40 drawers worth of space.

Upgrading, Expanding, and Extending Our Legacy Database

A specimen databasing project was initiated in 1992 using the object-oriented procedural programming language FoxPro 2.0 for DOS and was expanded upon as part of a 1997 Collections Improvement grant (NSF DEB-9709141). At that time the simple, two-table (taxonomy and specimen) database was migrated to Microsoft Access, and a static copy was made available via the Web through a ColdFusion application server (browsable here: http://inventory.ent.ncsu.edu/)

Through this 16-year endeavor we databased 95% of our species-determined pinned material (508,938 specimens), 80% of our species-determined slide material (57,337 slides), and 27% of our species-determined ethanol preserved collection (3,252 vials). We can now run queries in Access that reveal important information about our research collection: e.g., how many holotypes (460) and paratypes (11,028) we have, how many species (27,647) and genera (8,835) are in the collection, which species are from North Carolina, etc.

This assemblage of data positions us for rapid database expansion, to include images (archived in Morphbank) and collecting event data (ported to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility; GBIF). We intend to increase the virtual exposure of our specimen data such that the information enclosed within our cabinets is available for ecological studies, specimen determination, other research efforts, and education. We also recognize the importance of recording our genus- and family-determined specimens, as well as our bulk collection, and these efforts are incorporated into the workflow described below.

Databasing strategy – software

The current web-accessible version of the database is substantially out of date, navigationally unintuitive, and difficult to query (e.g., determining the number of Bombus specimens from North Carolina is impossible, though those data are available in the database). We propose migrating existing data to MySQL and using the Ruby on Rails application MX (http://purl.oclc.org/NET/mx-database; Yoder et al. 2006) to manage and collect more data on these specimens. MX is malleable as an open source project (can adapt the code to our needs and plug-in other Rails developments should they be useful), extensible as a Ruby-on-Rails application (can plug-in community developed modules, e.g., a barcode printer) and links seamlessly with Morphbank (http://morphbank.net), which serves as our image repository (see Seltmann letter). MX already has all the functionality we need to manage loans, cabinet, drawer, specimen, collecting event (including Google Maps integration), taxonomic and other relevant data. As a Web-accessible application we have considerable flexibility to work on data and metadata from remote locations (even outsourcing our georeferencing and label interpretation tasks), and the Web version of the database is updated in real time. To deliver georeferenced collecting event data to GBIF we will run a concurrent TDWG Access Protocol for Information Retrieval (TAPIR) server fed with data exported from MX.

There are many examples of MX employed for exposing specimen-level data (available at the MX website (see Yoder et al. 2008; i.e., the software has moved beyond the "proof of concept" phase of development); e.g., the Evanioidea Online site (Deans et al. 2008a): tinyurl.com/5agycu). The data model and database elements follow the Darwin Core standard (http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/DarwinCore) and are outlined in the Supplementary Documentation of this proposal. The Insect Museum is an institutional member of Biodiversity Information Standards consortium (TDWG), and we follow and adhere to the latest informatics standards. As an institutional member we also remain connected to the community of developers responsible for new tools in georeferencing (e.g., BioGeoMancer, GEOLocate, MaNIS), image annotation tools, data exposure, and community data annotation and label transcription.

Databasing strategy – hardware

We have a dedicated Apache server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 5), with PHP 5, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and other components necessary to run and develop our instance of MX. This server has only 19GB of free space, however, and expanding it to suit our needs is prohibitively expensive. Our drawer (minimally 2601 files at 22MB each) and slide box (minimally 1,400 files at 40MB each) images require 120GB of space, and this will grow rapidly as lots need re-imaging after curation. Specimen imaging (4-22MB each for 5 standard images) requires at least 30GB for holotypes alone, and another 540GB to image one specimen each for the 27,000+ species contained in our collection (a task that is beyond the scope of this project but which happen within 6 years). The Morphbank mirror (Insecta images only) requires another 30±5GB (K. C. Seltmann, in litt.) We will purchase a new server with 1TB of space to hold images and mirror Morphbank (see Budget Justification). The new server is extensible, with multiple hard drive ports to allow for expansion as needed (at $500 per TB this is affordable in our annual budget).

Data archiving strategy

Our server is backed up nightly with tapes that are stored in a climate-controlled environment. A better long-term strategy involves the NCSU Libraries, which already has a tight relationship with the Insect Museum. The NCSU Special Collections Research Center (www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections) already retains an extensive registry of books, reprints, notes, correspondence, illustrations and informal sketches spanning the history NCSU’s insect systematics program. We will continue this partnership with our electronic data (saved copied of the database), and all of our images will be available to anyone in Morphbank and duplicated at the NCSU Libraries.

Databasing strategy – workflow to establish the framework

To build the backbone for our research collection data we need to assign unique identifiers and barcodes to each cabinet in the research collection (n=250, including alcohol and slide cabinets), as well as each drawer/slide box in these cabinets (n=5000). Each drawer/slide box will be treated in MX as a lot, with each cabinet being a lot of lots. The ultimate goal is to assign each specimen in those lots a unique identifier and barcode (see part III below). With roughly 1,400,000 individuals contained within our cabinets, however, some portions of the collection will necessarily wait for complete databasing. Our workflow for lot labeling, therefore, includes a lot image-capture phase:

Cabinet barcoding [2 hours to complete]

  1. two undergraduate (under supervision of the collection manager (CM)) label each cabinet with an adhesive barcode.

Drawer barcoding and imaging [303 hours to complete, at 7 minutes per drawer x 2,601 drawers]

  1. each drawer in a cabinet is pulled, and an adhesive barcode label is placed on the anterior face (under supervision of the CM)
  2. a duplicate barcode is pinned in a unit tray inside the drawer; for cramped drawers where we anticipate much expansion empty unit trays are then integrated (we anticipate this level of manipulation for ~200 drawers)
  3. the naphthalene tray is removed from 75% of drawers. Currently every single drawer with specimens holds a naphthalene source; removal of these trays reduces fumes and frees approximately 2000 small unit trays for specimens (almost 42 drawers worth)
  4. the entire drawer, with lid removed, is imaged at high resolution (Fig. 2, top row), similar in style to the process used with herbarium sheets; image loaded into Morphbank
  5. the barcode is scanned, a lot created in MX, and the image is associate with that lot
  6. each drawer lot is then tagged with taxonomic name keywords to enable searching

[Note: Imaging each drawer allows interested parties to browse our collection virtually, even the portions of our collection that will not receive specimen-level barcoding/databasing for several years. A 22 Mpx image of the drawer, which can be tiled and made zoomable/scrollable (similar in functionality to Google Maps; Fig. 2 (top right) reveals the level of resolution obtained with this system) affords one the ability to taxonomically determine large specimens, examine the numbers of undetermined specimens we have, interpret collecting event data for smaller specimens, identify specimens to borrow (e.g., using image annotation tools one could circle each specimen s/he wants to borrow; MX already has this capability – annotation example here: tinyurl.com/6crn24), and identify potentially outdated determinations. This is not intended as an endpoint solution, but rather as a placeholder until those specimens can be imaged individually. Our workflow with respect to curated drawers will change such that drawers that have been manipulated (specimens moved, labeled, identified, reaccessioned, etc.) will be placed in a holding area until they can be re-imaged and loaded into Morphbank – a process that takes approximately 1 minute per drawer (R. Beaman, in litt. for herbarium sheets). We also note that decreased naphthalene use requires increased pest monitoring and drawer-freezing rotation; adjustments to our current policies will be made upon discussion with the Museum Council.]

Slide barcoding and imaging [210 hours to complete, at 9 min per box x 1,400 slide boxes]

  1. each slide box is pulled and labeled (bar-style code)
  2. slides are removed, individually barcoded (matrix-style; mock-up below), and arranged to be scanned as a unit at 800dpi with a scale bar and standard color reference; image loaded into Morphbank (mocked up image at 600dpi seen in Fig 2 (bottom row), with original available as Morphbank ID 365743)
  3. the slide box barcode is scanned, entered into MX, and the slide scan image is associate with that lot
  4. each slide box lot is then tagged with taxonomic name keywords to enable searching

[Note: The individual slide barcodes and associated collecting event data are not captured during this phase of data collection. We can dry cycle this process using text recognition software, such as Abbyy or PrimeOCR (the vast majority of our slides have highly legible block-letter labels) or wet cycle it using undergraduates to key-stroke CE, determination, and barcode data]

Alcohol-preserved barcoding [70 hours to complete, at 2 minutes per jar x 2,115 jars]

  1. alcohol-proof barcode labels inserted into and adhered onto each jar (n=2,115) of bulk material
  2. lot created in MX and associated with barcode
  3. each label fished from the insect “soup” and key-stroked into MX to make collecting event information available to museum associates and potentially interested parties

[Note: this avails our vast array of bulk material, some of which goes back to the 1960’s in NC or even recent collecting in exotic localities (e.g., Kenya, Burkina Faso), to prioritization and to potentially interested parties. Our bulk material is currently uncataloged.]

Specimen-level barcoding and databasing [remaining 1,183 undergraduate hours]

We budgeted for a total of 2,040 hours of undergraduate assistance for the life of the project. 585 hours will be spent barcoding and databasing our lots, and 272 are dedicated to assessing data quality (described below). The remainder, 1,183 hours, combined with time spent by the CM and the graduate students associated with this project, is dedicated to barcoding specimens and inputting collecting-event data. Based on benchmarking by our colleagues at the Illinois Natural History Survey (J. W. Whitfield, in litt.) one undergraduate student can database on average 15 specimens per hour. In our project this tallies to 35,490 specimens between two undergraduates over the life of the project. That total will be supplemented by the graduate students’ efforts, as well as those of the CM. We selected the following taxa as our primary targets given their relevance to recent events (declining pollinators and ladybird beetles, enablement of ant invasives by aphids) and the demand for their data from colleagues (see Dunn, Cameron, and Michel letters).

Ladybird beetles – (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

Our coccinellid collection consists of 6,431 specimens, 4,358 of which are determined to species (n=129). 86% of our specimens were collected in North Carolina, 9% from remaining USA, and 5% from other countries. Several species of native ladybird beetle are notably in decline or are suspected to be near extinction (Losey et al. 2007, Harmon et al. 2005), possibly due to the introduction of exotic species used in biocontrol programs, such as Harmonia axyridis (Asian multi-colored ladybird beetle), which is known to consume other coccinellids, and Coccinella septempunctata (seven-spotted ladybird beetle). A recently funded (NSF DRL-0741738) effort at Cornell University aims to understand these losses, especially for the nine-spotted (Coccinella novemnotata; we have 117 specimens) and the two-spotted lady beetle (Adalia bipunctata; we have 137 specimens), and our ladybird beetle data are critical in that most of our records pre-date the major introductions of exotics.

Native bees – (Hymenoptera: Anthophila)

Our bumble bee collection consists of 2,282 species-determined specimens (plus another 300 Bombus sp.), with 67% collected in NC and 93% from the U.S.A. The remaining bee collection numbers roughly 32,000 (minus Bombus and particularly strong in Megachilidae) focuses on eastern U.S.A. and served as T. B. Mitchell's reference collection for his Bees of the Eastern United States (1960, 1962). These volumes remain the standard for bee identification in eastern North America (we recently made them available as PDFs through the Museum website), and preserving, databasing, and exposing the data associated with this collection is critical to understanding recently documented, troubling declines in native bees (Otterstatter & Thomson 2008; Buchmann & Ascher 2005; see also letters from S. A. Cameron and A. Michel)

Aphids of North America – (Hemiptera: Aphididae)

The aphid collection consists of 55,000 specimens from C. F. Smith, A. T. Olive, H. L. Conroy, and M. M. Cermeli; it is especially strong in material (mostly donated by Smith; 5,049+ from Olive) from North Carolina (Smith et al. 1992) and Utah. Our colleague in NCSU’s Zoology department, Rob Dunn, has already databased our ant collection (information will be incorporated into our own database) and urgently needs the information from our world-class aphid collection to understand the roles Hempitera play as facilitators of invasive ants (see letter). C. Dietrich (see letter) and D. Dmitriev are databasing our Cicadellidae for us and have agreed to share their data (which will be acquired using the Darwin Core standard) completely with the Insect Museum. These two data sources together will facilitate this ecological research and strengthen our understanding of invasive species.

Holotype barcoding, databasing, imaging [230 hours, at 30 minutes each]

The CM will database and image our holotype collection (460 specimens) using the GT Vision EntoVision system, our Nikon compound microscope (for tiny and slide-mounted specimens), or the Canon EOS drawer imaging set-up (for specimens >2cm in length). Six standard views of each image (3 for slide-mounts), including dorsal habitus, ventral habitus, lateral habitus, anterior head, genitalia, and labels. Images will be loaded into Morphbank and then associated with specimen data in MX. All information regarding type specimens will be made available in real time through the Web as the data are collected. We will follow the imaging best practices outlined in Häuser et al. (2005; available through GBIF), which includes numerous insect case studies and chapters covering color management and file naming.

Upon completion of the type collection we will decide which taxa next to image at the specimen level; our ultimate goal is to image EVERY specimen in the research collection. Image collections of each specimen will be created in Morphbank (e.g., see Liljeblad et al. 2008; example here: http://morphbank.net/?id=221259)


Fig. 2. Mock-up of imaging strategy. Top row: (L) high-resolution drawer scan (22Mpx), (R) full resolution provides substantial information. Bottom row: (L) partial slide box scan, with each slide barcoded, (R) 600dpi view of some aspects of the slide. Note: we intend to scan slides at 800dpi. Real scans and photos will show significant improvement in color rendering and resolution thanks, in part, to the superior equipment and lighting budget for in this proposal.

Data quality – exploiting tools in Morphbank and elsewhere

Data quality is always an issue when a project of this magnitude is initiated. Data entry will be supervised by the CM, and three staff members (CM and two undergraduates) will each spend two hours per week manually checking for errors in MX (six total per week; 272 undergraduate hours over the life of the project); the focus will be on checking collecting event data. By publicly exposing our data from the beginning we also allow others – in fact, anyone – to contribute to this process. Annotation and commenting tools are already available in Morphbank and MX to allow for easy submission and retrieval of annotations of our data.

Education and Outreach

Training students for careers in systematics

The Insect Museum has always dedicated itself to broadly training and producing highly productive, forward thinking systematists (45 of them since the Museum was founded), and our success is exhibited by the consistent placement of graduates in desirable positions. To enhance the level of training we provide the Museum will create through this grant a two-year “museum intern” program for the graduate students in Entomology at NCSU. Each semester a different systematics student will hold this position and be responsible for imaging/databasing/labeling the specimens of his/her taxon of interest. The student will also engage in some level of outreach, including two blog posts a month on their progress or other aspects of insects (see outreach, below) and a once-a-semester public outreach at Yates Mill Pond (described below).

One of the four semesters will be opened for a student who desires more extensive outreach experience. The candidate will be solicited from the department (selection committee formed if multiple candidates). This student’s responsibilities will be to rebuild the displays for outside the museum and the display for Yates Mill Pond. This student will also write blog posts that focus on delivering information to non-experts and will deliver a presentation at the Yates Mill Pond facility on the topic of his/her choice (e.g., attracting pollinators to your garden).

Enhancing our image as a public resource of information

The Insect Museum holds the largest collection of North Carolina insects and serves as an important data repository for understanding diversity through time in the state as well as source of information for the residents of North Carolina (and the world) to learn about insect biology. We retain a cabinet of materials aimed at educating the public (the “oh my” drawers, which feature large, showy insects, as well as species of local interest). The Museum’s outreach efforts are generally coordinated through the Entomology Graduate Students Association, though alumni and friends of the Museum also have access to these specimens for show-and-tell.

We aspire to have a more public interface in the form of a reception area that exhibits displays of insects and entomological research. Unfortunately our current infrastructure prohibits this acquisition and renovation of space, so we will install the public face of the museum at the Historic Yates Mill Pond County Park (see Cope letter), which is a small nature preserve just south of Raleigh, nestled amongst NCSU’s experimental farm complex. YMP is administered by Wake County and NCSU, and has recently renovated lab space, auditoriums, and a public displays section. Through this collaboration we hope to have increased face-to-face interaction with the citizens of North Carolina. We intend to host lectures in their auditorium twice a year and to install a permanent fixture featuring pined insects, information about native insects, and expanded pollinator garden, and live insect displays (insects from our insectary).

Our recent efforts to update the look and functionality of our website include the addition of the Insect Museum blog (http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/page/insects). We have posted brief communications (n=111 between 1/8-7/24/2008) on a broad array of insect-related topics, including news of the Museum, recent improvements to our collections, information about native and exotic insects, and how recent advances in phyloinformatics will benefit our collections. Our Google Analytics script reveals that the blog has received 8,521 visits between 1/8/08-7/20/08, an average of 44 unique visitors a day. 1,695 of those visitors reached us through web searches (as opposed to visiting us directly through a link somewhere). The breakdown of those keyword searches is quite telling, and clearly there is an audience we can readily capture if we provide the right content. Over this six month period people found our website by searching for some variation of "bees + North Carolina" (n=93, 30 of these searches were specific for bumble bees) or "insects + North Carolina" (n=602, this includes searches for insects other than bees, e.g., "beetle + NC"). We intend to serve this audience by analyzing keyword searches every two weeks and designing blog posts to fit the most requested topics (without duplicating previous efforts). The graduate student museum intern will head this "insect of the fortnight" effort with input from PI Deans.

The Museum staff regularly participates in BugFest (http://bugfest.org/), a large festival held every year in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (downtown Raleigh), which is another way we reach out to the public regarding insect issues. We plan to design and distribute at BugFest (which attracts 20,000+ people every year) packs of baseball-style cards featuring North Carolina’s native and fascinating insects (quote attached). An image of the insect will be printed on the front, with statistics and information on the back. This effort will help raise awareness of how insects contribute to our lives (focusing on positive contributions) and why natural history collections are critical to understanding and documenting biodiversity trends.

Management Plan

Tasks and responsibilities

Bob Blinn, as directed by PI Deans and PI Wiegmann, serves as the personnel manager for this project. Bob oversees daily activities of the graduate students and undergraduates and is responsible for organizing the disposal of excess naphthalene (free through the NCSU Environmental Health & Safety), the rotation of drawers through the freezer, and the monitoring of pests. Given that the handling of type specimens requires extensive specimen experience, Bob will engage in some imaging with the graduate students. Bob will also direct the installation of new cabinets and the shuffling of drawers into new space (floor plans provided in Supplementary Documentation).

Four graduate students will rotate into the position of "museum intern" during the life of the project and will serve under the guidance of PIs Deans and Wiegmann. Each student will focus his/her attention on curating a taxon of their choosing (this includes determining, labeling, and databasing), developing an outreach component (weekly blog posts, e.g., or several trips to Yates Mill Pond to lead nature hikes), and helping the graduate students get organized about data entry and curation. The idea is to train students in responsibilities typically associated with museum positions.

The undergraduates are primarily responsible for the labeling and imaging of lots (drawers) and for the data entry, georeferencing, and proofing (in collaboration with graduate students and under supervision of the CM).

Timetable

September-December, 2009: Cabinets, drawers, and unit trays ordered. Cabinet labeling done immediately. Drawer labeling and imaging then commences, focusing on material in cabinets that are not slated for replacement (6 weeks needed for new cabinetry to be delivered). All drawers labeled and imaged. All aphid slide boxes labeled and imaged. Weekly updates are provided on the Insect Museum blog by the PIs, the CM, and/or the graduate students. PI Deans and colleagues design insect cards; design finalized by June. One lecture about native pollinators (focusing on bees, developing bee-friendly gardens, eliminating high-risk areas around the home) given at Yates Mill Pond County Park. Museum Council meets to discuss new fixtures, plans, and concerns.

January-June, 2010: Bulk material databasing completed. New cabinets and drawers have been installed. Expansion buffer has also been integrated. Specimen-level barcoding commences, focused first on bumble bees (Apidae: Bombus) and then on the remaining bees. Insect cards ordered, printed in time for BugFest in October. Redesign of insect displays begins (printed material, themes decided, specimens assembled); these will be installed outside the Museum. Lecture at Yates Mill Pond on declining and endangered insects. Presentation at Entomological Collections Network meeting covering the history of the collection and our intentions through this project. Museum Council meets for project update and to resolve any issues.

July-December, 2010: Databasing of bees finished. Databasing of Coccinellidae commences, interspersed with efforts to database the Aphididae collection (done virtually, from images). Lecture at Yates Mill Pond on the evolutionary history of insects. Graduate student for this semester focuses on developing a display for our public face at Yates Mill Pond (expanded pollinator garden, live insects, pinned insects, informative pamphlets, etc.) Museum Council meets for project update and to resolve any issues.

January-August, 2011: Bees, ladybird beetles, and aphids databased. Yates Mill Pond installation complete; student delivers public lecture on topic of his/her choice. Presentation at Entomological Collections Network meeting covering the success of this project. Museum Council meets to evaluate the results of this project and decide future directions.

Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts

The research and infrastructure proposed herein facilitates critical and timely research on declining and invasive faunas. The specimens upon which this research will be based are protected for future generations of researchers and their metadata made available for any interested parties with internet access, be they ecologists needing collecting event data to model distributions, conservation biologists looking for historical records of a particular insect, systematists revising taxa, port authorities seeking the identity of a stowaway leaf hopper, or a resident of North Carolina wonder what that “beetle-like bug” is in his basement.

This project also exposes the PIs and graduate students to sophisticated informatics, and serves to train another generation in how to properly manage a natural history collection – with exposure to pest management practices, loan and accession practices, specimen preparation, curation strategies, etc. – and ensures we remain an institutional resource that is relevant and responsive to environmental, societal, and economic changes.

Our proposed activities also significantly impact the broader community by providing us with the infrastructure and manpower to provide educational and fun interactions with the public: free lectures about the positive interactions we have with insects, baseball-style packs of cards designed to inform kids about their native and interesting insects. The Insect Museum benefits from increased exposure. We become a relevant, interesting, useful, and important resource for the residents of the state and the world.

Dissemination of results

As mentioned above, the Insect Museum maintains a website with a news section on the index page, as well as a blog that all museum affiliates have access to. We intend to post regularly via these resources about our progress, and we budgeted for expenses associated with our participation in the Entomological Collections Network annual meetings, where presentations will be delivered on the background, strategies, troubleshooting, and results of our efforts in the Museum.

References