ROLES NATURAL OF Meredith A, Lane''' HISTORY COLLECTIONS I Abstract Natural history colleclions have always rontaiiiril a wealth of data: genetie and phylogeiu'lic information stored as an inherent part of the samples of organisms themselves, and hiogeographic, and ecologiral. hiographieal information stored in the laheLs that are affixed to them, 'logetlier. a preserved organism and lahel are a scientific specimen its that has great intrinsic value. Se|>arately, the lahel is a piece of |>aj)er with meaningless inscriptions upon and the |)lanl, it, spider, microbe, mushroom, or bird, though carefully preserved, is just so much dead organic matter. Natural history collect—ions are the repositor) of the voucli<'rs for the documentation of what we know about the diversity of living things what species exist and where, what their habitat re(]uiremcnts are, what ecological associations they have with other species, what useful biochemical products they might and who them gen(^rate. collected and has studied them. Before the advent of computers, natural history coUeclituis were physical databases from which geogra|)hic or ecological analyses and rej)oi1s could be extracted by human and visitation transcri[)lion. usually a laborious and time-consuming However, such task. analyses are invaluabir for land-use planning, pharmacognosy, conservation biology, range management, and forestry, agriculture, a host of other afjplications, including scientific studies of the ecology and systematics of the species being examined. CompuU-rization makes of label data such reports on distribution and ecology of species more readdy available to potential users; they add value to the data. Interconnecting the databases brings robustness to the information that natural history collections can provide policy-making to bodies; ajipreeiation of robust data will lead in turn to appreciation of the collections from which those data were taken. Intercotuiectivity recjuires that collec- abandon tions persoruiel comprtilion in favor of achieving a conmion goal: the discovery and description of the worlds biota. When was asked was I first to write this paper, I of {ilants. is true that botanists have been slow It told that the topic I would rover sliould he 'nhe to give up the name "herbarium," a word de thai role of natural history collections in relationshi[) to Tournefort and Linnaeus mean useil to a collection the National Biological Service." I have taken the of preseiTed specimens of plants. suspect that we I keeping liberty, wliile biological sur\eys in mind, botanists might nmch more readily have become my expanding of topic to include the roles (plural) natural historians of plants had our collections con- of natural history collections, not oidy in relation tinned to he called, as they were before de Tour- NBS to the but also in relation to society at large, nefoii and Linnaeus (Radford et al., 1974), hortiis and to eacthi otl lev. siccus or hortus mortusl However, one 1 t consider I f(»r I begin with a broad-brush statement about the herbaria be natural and to histoiy collections, refer activities of biological surveys in general, and their to them as such except in the discussion of the relationsliip to collections. Next, I touch (»n tlu^ his- histoiy of the two sorts of collections. — lory of natural histoiy collections what their ndt^s have been in the past, an^ collections; without pers. & 1986; Rautenbach Herholdt, 1990). those vouchers, the facts that their studies have un- covere d in question. These protocols must be .erwise PERFORM TAXONOMIC/ECOLOGICAL STUDIES management method no basis for the pursuit of one would be desirable, from the political stand- It Systemat- ^^,^^ another (Conference of Directors of point, for the literature to contain reports of studies & Rautenbach j^^ 1971; Herholdt, Collections, have already been done that would answer the that 1990; 1994). Pettitt, Very questions of the legislatures. frequently, this and personnel not the case, biological sur\'eys is Relationship of Biological Surveys to undertake original investigations. Natural History Collections Often, the requests for information involve cpies- From these examples, clear that natural his- The is tinos about the eeoloirv of certain organisms. it tory collections are fundamental to all that biolog- ecological research. In turn, often involves ques- Where surveys do. there no collection, the ical is tions about the taxonomy and phylogeny of those Such was job of a survey to form one. the organisms. The answers to these questions rest first is 1804-1806, when President Thomas situation in squarely in natural history collections that the bi- having acquired the huge Louisiana may Jefferson, just surveys personnel maintain them- ological museums Territory for the fledgling United States, sent Meri- selves or have access to in natural history wether Lewis and William Clark and their compan- 1994) ions make a survey of the headwaters of the Mis- to there no collection, the step in the re- If is first River and thereabout, include souri territories to make Even search one. the consulted is to if lit- peo- observations of the minerals, soils, climate, erature does contain a taxonomic, phylogenetic, ples, and animals in their diverse kinds, as well as and ecological analysis of the organisms of interest which particular plants put forth "• ^^^ ^^^tes at the biological survey person does not have (so that • - would have been or lose their flowers or leaf, times of appearance of do study original research), that to particular birds, reptiles or insects" (Cutright, based on natural histoiy collections that voucher 1969). Jefferson was himself a naturalist of note, and document the work of the author(s) of the paper who kept detailed records of the requirements of Yochelson, 1969; Conference of Directors of (e.g., many he attempted grow sorts of plants that to in Systematics Collections, 1971; 1994). Pettitt, his experimental garden, and of observations of the behavior of animals on his plantation (Martin, ENVmONMENTAL EXAMINE [MPACTS 1952). Lewis and Clark took their charge from the Biological surveys often examine the environ- was meant, and brought President seriously, as it & mental impacts of human actions (Kim Knutson, back bales of specimens of various sorts of organ- own puniew 1986; Pettitt, 1994) within their or isms, sometimes at the risk of life and limb (Cut- those of neighboring states. Again, it is natural his- right, 1969). This leads us to the discussion of the document spread tory collections that the of intro- history of natural history collections. shall in a I duced taxa and decline of native species, the cur- moment return Lewis and Clark. to and rent distribution of taxa, the relationships among organisms, which live, not in clades but HiSTORY of NATURAL HISTORY Collections rather in interconnected, interoperable habitats. n • The i i eeneses of natural history collections are, rTrihe ph1 yl1ogenet*i• c s*tudJ*ies *tuhat* are dJ one uby sys*tem- ^ 1 ' i-rr i i i bi y -u have found, in general understood dinerently ^v n r «L l;^ us.mg same the collections provide the Ins- atists r i i . rTr-hi e • < i and botanists zoologists. instigation for col- r xu ** r ,ton.cal1 cont.ext. for the evol1 utionary emergence oi '^^''^ , r lecting plants, and, t,he si. mple methi odi of tihei• r pres- the organisms within those habitats. beginning herbaria ervation, led to a different for which specimen- than for collections of animals, for DEVELOP MONITORING, MANAGEMENT, AND development consenation techniques is still in full CONSERVATION PROTOCOI^ Hawks, swing (Ouellet, 1985; 1990). Within museums lie solutions to problems in The origins of natural history collections extend & academy conserving natural resources (Shropshire Shrop- back through Western history to Ptolemy's 538 Annals the of Garden Missouri Botanical in third-century B.C.E. Alexandria, which was Museum a of the British of Natural History 1753 in palace that contained botanical and zoological gar- (Lintz, 1991) or the formal natural history col- first dens for teaching purposes, and cloisters and lee- lection in Nortli America, the Charleston Library rooms ture for students and teachers (Bateman, Society, started in 1773 (Alexander, 1979). Even 1975). Pliny s first-century C.E. Historia Naturalis the venerable Paris Museum only began acquire to not only describes academy, this but gives our sci- birds at the verj' end of the eighteenth century; by name ence its (Porter, 1991). The development of 1793, that collection included 493 skins, collecting between that time and the Renaissan(*e, unfortunately, one and is of war, looting, plunder, HERBARIA but, by the fifteenth century, palaces in Europe contained collections of books, art (much of which Modern herbaria, in the post-Renaissance sci- had natural subjects), and the odd natural oddity entific sense, have a history that is at least a cen- unicom (nai-whal tusks interpreted as horns, for ex- tury longer than zoological collections. we accept If ample) (Ritterbush, 1969; Bateman, 1975). herbaria as natural history collections (which in day and this age they certainly are), then the oldest f^™^' ZOOLOGICAL natural history collection for scientific pur- COI.I.KCTIONS poses of any sort (and this, most zoologists do not Through the sixteenth century and well into the know) is the oldest herbarium in existence, which seventeenth, "cabinets of the curious," that con- dates from 1523 (Ogilvie, 1985). The herbarium of tained shells, fossils, minerals, casts from nature, Gherbards Cibo dates from 1532 (Radford ab, et and botanical and zoological art, became a common 1974), and the herbarium of the University of Pad- among possession European (Alexander, begun was nobility ua, in 1545, the institutional her- first & 1979; Impey MacGregor, 1985; Hooper-Green- barium and (Shetler, 1969), therefore the uni- first Some New hill, 1992). of these cabinets were actually versity natural history collection. In the World, whole rooms, others were truly pieces of furniture the establishment herbarium Win- of the first (at designed to contain objects that re{)resented the en- ston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1772) predates by a tire world in miniature. These objects, however year the oldest zoological collection on this conti- neatly stored, were not scientifically arranged, nor nent (Shetler, 1969; Porter, 1991). — were they available to the public study they The original use of the word "herbarium" f(n- is were private collections amassed for private, pri- much older even than the sixteenth century. Her- marily aesthetic, purposes (Ritterbush, 1969). Al- baria once were rooms medieval monasteries, in in though I do not know this, I would wager that the which were kept, usually hanging from the rafters, owners entered into collection-building competi- bundles of dried herbs were be used that to for — "mine same tions: is bigger than yours" the syn- flavoring food, for counteracting mildew and body drome that is perpetuated among some museums odors in linens and clothing, and, of course, for and collectors today. medicinal pur[)oses. For an image of such a room, The museums first of the public of natural history think of the garden and monastery Franco Zef- in (which included, from its inception, two herbaria) ferellis lush cinematic production of Shakespeare's — was founded Romeo and that in Paris, in 1635; the first uni- Juliet in the herbarium, Juliet pre- is museum versity was established at Basel in 1671 sented with the sleeping draft that had been com- Museum (Bateman, The Ashmolean Ox- pounded 1975). at from the herbs hanging overhead. In ad- 1683 ford University, established in (Alexander, dition, these examples of dried herbs would have 1979; Lintz, 1991), seems to be the first to have been used in teaching younger monks about the official curators, a catalog, and a set of regulations plants and their uses. Thus, the monastery herbar- for visitors. These early museums, however, were ium was both the forerunner of the modem teaching more of art than of actual natural objects, because collection of plants, and continuation of the "herb- When of the difficulty of preservati

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