The value of museums in the production, sharing, and use of entomological data to document

47 Pages·2017·0.83 MB·English

Arctic Science

The value of museums in the production, sharing, and use of
entomological data to document hyperdiversity of the
changing North

Journal: Arctic Science
Manuscript ID AS-2016-0038.R3
Manuscript Type: Review
Date Submitted by the Author: 27-Mar-2017
Complete List of Authors: Sikes, Derek; University of Alaska Fairbanks, Biology & Wildlife
Bowser, Matthew; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Kenai National Wildlife
Refuge D
Daly, Kathryn; University of Alaska Fairbanks, Biology & Wildlife
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Høye, Toke; Aarhus Universitet, Arctic Research Center; Aarhus
Universitet, Department of Bioscience
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Meierotto, Sarah; University of Alaska Fairbanks, Biology & Wildlife
Mullen, Logan; Univefrsity of Alaska Fairbanks, Biology & Wildlife
Slowik, Jozef; Universitty of Alaska Fairbanks, Biology & Wildlife
Stockbridge, Jill; University of Alaska Fairbanks, Biology & Wildlife
Keyword: Arctic, biodiversity, Arthropoda, monitoring, taxonomic bottleneck

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1 The value of museums in the production, sharing, and use of entomological data to
2 document hyperdiversity of the changing North
3 Part of the special volume of Arctic Science: Arctic Museum Collections – documenting and understanding changes
4 in biological and cultural diversity through time and space
5 Derek S. Sikes1, Matthew Bowser2, Kathryn Daly1, Toke T. Høye3,4, Sarah Meierotto1, Logan Mullen1, Jozef
6 Slowik1, Jill Stockbridge1
7 1 University of Alaska Museum, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 907 Yukon Dr., Fairbanks, Alaska, 99775, USA
8 [email protected], corresponding author
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10 2 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, PO Box 2139, Soldotna, Alaska, 99669, USA
11 [email protected]
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13 3Arctic Research Center, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, bldg. 1540, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
14 [email protected]
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16 4 Department of Bioscience, Kalø, Aarhus UnDiversity, Grenåvej 14, DK-8410 Rønde, Denmark
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19 Abstract. If the current rate of climate change continues, the composition, distribution, and
20 relative population sizes of species in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere are likely to
21 change considerably. Understanding the magnitude of this change requires a well- documented
22 baseline against which to compare. Although specimen-less observations can help augment such
23 a baseline for the minority of organisms that can be confidently identified in the field or from
24 photographs, the vast majority of species are small-bodied invertebrates, primarily arthropods,
25 that can only be identified from preserved specimens and/or their tissues. Museum staff archive
26 specimens and make them and their data available for research. This paper describes a number of
27 challenges to the goal of thorough documentation of high latitude arthropod biodiversity, and
28 their potential solutions. Examples are provided from ongoing and recently completed research
29 that demonstrate the value of museum specimens and the sharing of their data via global portals
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30 like GBIF.org.
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31 Keywords. Arctic, biodiversity, Arthropoda, monitoring, inventory, taxonomic bottleneck
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34 Introduction
35 The Arctic and subarctic are regions of intense ecological interest due to the rapid
36 changes resulting from global warming, the biogeographic uniqueness of these regions’ biota,
37 and how well adapted the biota is to a cold climate (Danks 1981; Meltofte et al. 2013; Sikes and
38 Allen 2016). As high temperature records continue to be broken, with the 10 months prior to and
39 including July 2016 being the warmest globally since recording began in 1880 (NASA 2016), we
40 are transitioning into a different world. Research has documented a variety of alarming changes
41 associated with high latitude warming, which is more rapid than that seen in lower latitudes. For
42 instance, Alaska has warmed about 3.5°C in the interior during the winter and 2°C overall since
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43 the 1950s (Melillo et al. 2014). Shrubs are expanding into Arctic tundra and alpine zones, fire
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44 frequency and intensity have increased, the garowing season has lengthened by about two weeks,
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45 sea ice, alpine snowfields, permafrost, and glaciers are thawing and shrinking, non-native
46 organisms such as ticks are establishing, and the climate is shifting beyond the physiological
47 optimum of a dominant boreal forest species, Picea glauca, white spruce (Veblen and Alaback
48 1996; Stone et al. 2002; Lawrence and Slater 2005; Sturm et al. 2005; McGuire et al. 2009; Beck
49 et al. 2011; Bret-Harte et al. 2013; Juday et al. 2015; Durden et al. 2016; Phoenix and Bjerke
50 2016). The National Science Foundation, the premier science funding agency of the US, has
51 recently prepared a list of ten major research foci for future NSF investment (NSF 2016). Among
52 these ten ‘Navigating the new Arctic’ is listed, demonstrating the high priority the NSF places on
53 the documentation of “these rapid biological, physical, chemical and social changes.” The
54 international Conservation of Arctic Fauna and Flora (CAFF) has established the Circumpolar
55 Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP), the goal of which is to monitor arctic biodiversity to
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56 provide decision makers relevant information about the changing Arctic. Their 2013 Arctic
57 Biodiversity Assessment report (Meltofte et al. 2013) includes a chapter on terrestrial
58 invertebrates (Hodkinson et al. 2013) which stresses the importance of increasing our
59 understanding of past, current, and potential future Arctic terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity.
60 Although the Arctic contains fewer arthropod species per unit area than environments at
61 lower latitudes, arthropod diversity is still high and makes up the largest component of multi-
62 cellular biodiversity in the region (Hodkinson et al. 2013; Høye and Sikes 2013; Sikes et al.
63 2013; Ernst and Buddle 2015). Arthropods respond rapidly to environmental changes and are
64 deeply entwined in Arctic food webs (Høye and Forchhammer 2008). However, the
65 consequences of climate warming remain understudied across the Arctic and subarctic.
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66 Within the Arctic and subarctic biogeographical zones Alaska’s arthropod fauna is
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67 unique. Unlike most of what is now Canada, aAlaska’s lower elevations were mostly glacier-free
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68 during the Neogene and Pleistocene (Ives 1974; Matthews 1975; Behan 1978; Pielou 1991; Elias
69 and Brigham-Grette 2013). This allowed organisms to survive in ice-free refugia (e.g., Beringia)
70 (Abbott and Brochmann 2003; Behan-Pelletier and Schatz 2011; Elias and Brigham-Grette 2013;
71 Pringle 2014). This is thought to be a primary explanation for Alaska’s hundreds of potentially
72 endemic arthropod species (Sikes and Allen 2016). Due to changes in climate and sea levels, the
73 region acted alternatively as a passageway or a barrier, which has resulted in multiple dispersal
74 events between the Palearctic and Nearctic across the Bering Land Bridge (Sanmartin et al.
75 2001; Vila et al. 2011; Sikes and Venables 2013). This has created many complex and interesting
76 biogeographic patterns between the Nearctic and Palearctic.
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77 We, and others before us (e.g. Hodkinson et al. 2013) consider it an urgent priority to
78 establish a well-documented baseline for the Arctic’s unique biodiversity, before these
79 ecosystems are greatly altered by predicted radical changes due to climate change. This baseline
80 will allow future assessment of the magnitude of change and enable detection of range shifts,
81 extirpations, extinctions, invasions, and novel species assemblages. The best data are based on
82 vouchered specimens – physical bodies of organisms (Winker 2004; Rocha et al. 2014) and
83 associated environmental data from their collection events. To promote global collaboration,
84 specimens and these data are ideally held for the public trust in well-maintained research
85 collections, such as the University of Alaska Museum, which share specimen data freely online.
86 Museum collections have always served as references for historical conditions. In recent years,
87 technological advances in museum record digitization, along with increased sampling, have
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88 made it possible to infer broad trends of ecrological and spatial abundance of terrestrial
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89 invertebrates in the Arctic. In addition to a specifmen-based assessment of the biota, funding for
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90 taxonomic revisions is necessary (Wheeler et al. 2012; Høye and Sikes 2013). Descriptions of
91 new species, new synonymies, and new identification keys are needed desperately - all of which
92 require large research collections to provide adequate sample sizes.
93 Voucher specimens are particularly important for organisms that are hard to identify,
94 which most invertebrates are. Accurate identification of organisms of high economic or
95 ecological concern is enormously important. Examples include species which threaten
96 agriculture, (e.g. Lygus spp. on peony crops), subsistence (e.g. winter ticks, Dermacentor
97 albipictus Packard, 1869, on moose), and human health (e.g. the brown recluse, Loxosceles
98 reclusa Gertsch and Mulaik, 1940, or Aedes mosquito vectors of Zika virus). Specimens
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99 vouchered in a museum allow verification of identifications and enable multiple forms of
100 identification - both traditional and molecular.
101 In this paper we focus on the role research collections play in the study of Arctic
102 ecosystems and describe the short history of the University of Alaska Museum Insect Collection.
103 We outline major challenges faced in the discovery and documentation of Alaska’s Arctic and
104 subarctic biodiversity, along with solutions we have tried, and provide examples of key research
105 projects in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, and Greenland. Throughout, we stress the importance of
106 research collections to the entire Arctic research community and argue for their continued and
107 increased funding.
108
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109 History and status of the University of Alaska Museum Insect Collection
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110 Established as part of a NSF-funded Arctict Archival Observatory grant (DEB-9981915),
111 the University of Alaska Museum (UAM) Insect Collection began in late 2000. An Interim
112 Curator of Insects was appointed on a three-year post-doctoral position to establish the
113 collection. Three large collections of Alaskan material were acquired: ~ 50,000 specimens of
114 Alaskan aquatic insects (Ephemeroptera, Diptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera, etc.) stored in glass
115 vials and preserved in ethanol, ~30,000 biting fly specimens (mostly Culicidae and Simuliidae)
116 on pins and in vials of alcohol collected by K.M. Sommerman during the Northern Biting Fly
117 survey of 1947-1958, and ~75,000 pinned terrestrial insect specimens collected between 1940
118 and the mid 1970s for a US Department of Agriculture collection in Palmer, Alaska.
119 The first author was hired in 2006 as Curator of Insects and began a vigorous digitization
120 and collection-building program with support from various funding agencies (see
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121 Acknowledgements) and help from students and volunteers. Since 2012 the UAM Insect
122 Collection has been using the online specimen database, Arctos (https://arctosdb.org/). Arctos is
123 an entirely web-based collection management system serving ~2.7M museum records from 95
124 collections to end users and data distributors such as GBIF.org and iDigBio.org. As a centralized
125 web application, Arctos integrates other internet resources, calls appropriate web services such as
126 GeoLocate and BerkeleyMapper, and is indefinitely scalable. Arctos is hosted by the Texas
127 Advanced Computing Center, a member of the NSF sponsored TeraGrid network of
128 supercomputing centers. Arctos developers are thoroughly familiar with developing standards for
129 georeferencing, the Darwin Core (http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/), and other datasharing protocols. With
130 the exception of electively encumbered sensitive data, all data are accessible in real time to the
131 public. Daily backups are stored on three separate tectonic plates. This solution affords great
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132 stability and makes the biodiversity data inr Arctos among the most securely archived and
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133 publicly accessible on the planet. f
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134 The UAM Insect Collection now serves data online for over 1.5 million non-marine
135 invertebrate specimens in 3,260 species (23% are apparent new records for the state), represented
136 by over 250,000 georeferenced specimen records (Fig. 1) that cover a date range of 1883-2016.
137 More than 80% of the specimens have been collected since the year 2000. This averages to about
138 2,000 specimen records created per month. Over 75% of the pinned collection and approximately
139 10% of the wet collection have been databased. At least one specimen of every lowest
140 identification, in both the pinned and wet collections, has been databased, creating a complete
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141 online taxon inventory of the collection. 70,601 of these specimen records have been cited or
142 otherwise used in support of 59 peer-reviewed publications1.
143 Part of the success of the UAM Insect collection is due to our modern, high-efficiency
144 databasing protocol. Only about 10% (153,692 specimens) of the digitized collection has been
145 identified to the species level. However, the remaining 90% has already been databased and
146 georeferenced. Wheeler et al. (2012) stated “While exciting technologies and projects are being
147 conceived to address these huge backlogs, there is absolutely no excuse for adding to them. All
148 species described from this point forward and every specimen added to a collection from this
149 point forward should be done in a way that is part of the solution and not part of the problem.”
150 Specimens should be digitized prospectively: at the earliest, and easiest stage possible - before
151 labeling and before sorting or identificDation. Retroactive digitization proceeds at a pace of
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152 between 5 to 30 specimens per hour, per technician. Prospective digitization can proceed at a
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153 pace of 5 to 30 collecting events (samples) per hour, per technician, and each collecting event
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154 can contain thousands of specimens. The key to this approach is the use of scannable barcode
155 labels linking specimens to their digital records. Once specimens have been prepared, sorted, and
156 identified, the barcode labels allow technicians to rapidly search for long series of specimen
157 records and update their taxonomic identifications - the final step in the process (Table 1).
158 Unfortunately, this method is not standard, and many research projects, including those
159 administered by museum staff, add thousands of specimens annually to the backlog of specimens
160 awaiting costly retroactive digitization.
161

1http://arctos.database.museum/info/publicationbycollection.cfm?collection_id=4andcitationonly=trueandp
eerr=true
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162 The Taxonomic Bottleneck
163 Even in the relatively species-poor Arctic, it is easier to collect invertebrate specimens
164 than it is to identify them. This is one aspect of the so-called “Taxonomic Bottleneck” (Kim and
165 Byrne 2006) which describes the problem of Earth’s biodiversity being too large for the limited,
166 and possibly declining, taxonomic workforce available to describe and identify it. Alaska, a
167 region one-fifth the size of the contiguous 48 US states, and estimated to hold over 8,200
168 species2 of non-marine arthropods (Sikes et al. 2017) currently has one PhD-level insect
169 taxonomist. There are fewer than ten people in Alaska who regularly identify arthropods to
170 species level, and whose combined taxonomic expertise covers less than 25% of the state’s
171 species. Thus, a large backlog of incompletely identified specimens accumulates quickly, which
172 explains why 90% of the digitized speDcimens in the UAM Insect Collection are not yet identified
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173 to species level.
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174 To mitigate this problem we have collaborated with taxonomists in Canada, Europe, and
175 other US states to whom we loan specimens (or invite to visit UAM). Currently, we have 53,010
176 specimens on loan and send out an average of 30 loans per year. This helps reduce our backlog
177 but is not a comprehensive solution for various reasons: often no funding is available for these
178 identifications, they are generally performed as a favor in exchange for the option to retain
179 specimens of interest (and data) for later use. Loans sometimes take much longer than the
180 expected one year to return, or in some cases, are lost. There are orphan taxa for which no
181 specialist exists, or specialists are too busy with their own backlogs to take additional loans.
182 Also, mailing specimens in alcohol has become increasingly challenging.

2 http://arctos.database.museum/saved/AK-Arthropoda-checklist-2016-01-14
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