When it comes to plants and arthropods, should specimens be taken from their habitats and kept in collections? Nearly every scientist we talked to agreed that collecting and keeping specimens are essential to the work they do. Botanist Brian Boom from the New York Botanical Garden said, “In systematic botany, if you don’t have a specimen, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The voucher specimen--the evidence that you have found what you say you have found--is of absolute importance.” Arachnologist Kefyn Catley of the American Museum of Natural History said, “You can’t do this kind of work without collecting. I can’t persuade people that I have a new species of spider by sending them a picture of it; they want to see the specimen.“ Another AMNH entomologist, Eric Quinter, referred to his collection as his “library,” the place he goes to find important information about what he is studying. Still other scientists spoke of “responsible collecting.”
To find out what responsible collecting means and how to go about it, we talked to Liz Johnson, Manager of Metropolitan Biodiversity Programs at the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. “Responsible collecting is really a series of behaviors and attitudes,” she told us, adding that it makes no difference if you are a scientist working in a museum or research institution or a student at a university or middle school.
Here are the behaviors and attitudes Liz thinks are most important:
More About This Resource...
This article, part of Biodiversity Counts, examines how to responsibly collect and keep specimens. The article, which is available both online and as a printable PDF, discusses:
- the reasons why collecting specimens is important for studying and documenting new species
- the series of behaviors and attitudes that define responsible collecting for both scientists and students, which include knowing your purpose, never taking rare or endangered specimens, and not taking more than you need
Less than 1 period
Supplement a study of biodiversity with an activity drawn from this article about responsible collecting.
- Ask students if they think it's okay for scientists to take specimens from their habitats. Why or why not?
- Send students to this online article, or print copies of the article for them to read.
- Have students write a one-page reaction to the article, explaining in their own words what it means to practice responsible collecting.