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Museum Collections (museum + collection)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Life Sciences	47%
Humanities and Social Sciences	28%
Earth and Environmental Science	23%

Selected Abstracts

NAGPRA AT 20: Museum Collections and Reconnections

MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2010
Martha Graham
ABSTRACT Since the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was enacted 20 years ago, the identification and repatriation of cultural items has become essential to museum,tribe relationships. Interactions prompted by repatriation policies and laws impel tribal representatives and museums alike to take a new look at museum collections. Three examples of interactions between Indian tribes and the American Museum of Natural History that were prompted by NAGPRA demonstrate how museum practices are changing. A series of responses by tribal representatives involved in these NAGPRA cases, with specific reference to their reconnections with the material culture in museum collections and museum,tribe relationships, show the ways in which tribal members frame the issues. [source]

The Risk of Historical Artefacts in Travel: The Construction of Risk in the International Travelling Exhibition

JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2006
CHIA-LING LAI
This follows the history of a controversial exhibition, the "Splendour of Imperial China", held in 1996 that travelled from the National Palace Museum in Taipei which is renowned for its abundant and unique Chinese art collection to one of the most prominent museums on the global stage , the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Drawing upon Mary Douglas's analysis of danger/risk and classification, this paper argues that the risk within the "outbound" international travelling exhibition is less ontological than constructed. Often the controversy over the risk re-delineates the boundary between "us" and "them". This article, first of all, examines the power-laden relationship, regulated by the struggle of the global museum field, when museum experts at home and abroad co-write the risk of an exhibition's travel in the language of insurance calculation. Second, it analyses the laymen's protesting discourses against the historical artefacts' overseas travel through outbound international travelling exhibition. The protest which appropriated the "keeping-while-giving" logic of exchange, and backed up with both national sentiments and international symbolic sources, rendered the exhibition a hot potato. Finally, it interrogates how the settled outbound travelling exhibition actually renders the museum collection reclassified and revalorized according to their suitability for overseas travel. [source]

The dangers of multi-male groupings: trauma and healing in cercopithecoid monkeys from Cameroon

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 7 2009
Tara J. Chapman
Abstract This study examines the potential linkage between social organization and trauma in a sample of cercopithecids from Cameroon. Skeletal trauma is described in a museum collection of eight sympatric monkey species. Macroscopic analysis was carried out on a total of 139 complete skeletons of mangabeys, colobines and guenons. Species in multi-male groups were found to have higher fracture frequencies than those in uni-male groups. These higher frequencies may be related to intra-specific male,male aggression; however, similarities in fracture patterning between males and females in multi-male groups suggest that other factors may be involved. Although fracture etiology may not be identified with certainty, this study suggests that predation may indirectly be a cause of traumatic injuries in those species of cercopithecid monkeys displaying multi-male social organizations. The data presented also highlight the utility of museum collections as an additional resource in analyses of primate behavior, demonstrating that behavioral information does not die when the animal does. Am. J. Primatol. 71:567,573, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Historic marine invertebrate species inventory: case study of a science baseline towards establishing a marine conservation area

AQUATIC CONSERVATION: MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS, Issue 7 2009
N.A. Sloan
Abstract (1)Assessing species diversity is a basic requirement for conservation, and protecting biodiversity is a major goal of marine area conservation. (2)A case study is presented on the development of a literature-based (1870s to 2000), museum collection-based, georeferenced inventory of marine invertebrate species of the Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) region, Canada. (3)Database structure and quality assurance are described, along with including indigenous people's words for species towards using traditional knowledge within cooperative marine conservation area management. (4)The utility of this type of inventory is proposed as a starting point for gathering regional biodiversity knowledge, and facilitating addition of other knowledge types, towards marine area conservation. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Significance of Specimen Databases from Taxonomic Revisions for Estimating and Mapping the Global Species Diversity of Invertebrates and Repatriating Reliable Specimen Data

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2004
RUDOLF MEIER
More specifically, we demonstrate for a specimen database assembled during a revision of the robber-fly genus Euscelidia (Asilidae, Diptera) how nonparametric species richness estimators (Chao1, incidence-based coverage estimator, second-order jackknife) can be used to (1) estimate global species diversity, (2) direct future collecting to areas that are undersampled and/or likely to be rich in new species, and (3) assess whether the plant-based global biodiversity hotspots of Myers et al. (2000) contain a significant proportion of invertebrates. During the revision of Euscelidia, the number of known species more than doubled, but estimation of species richness revealed that the true diversity of the genus was likely twice as high. The same techniques applied to subsamples of the data indicated that much of the unknown diversity will be found in the Oriental region. Assessing the validity of biodiversity hotspots for invertebrates is a formidable challenge because it is difficult to decide whether species are hotspot endemics, and lists of observed species dramatically underestimate true diversity. Lastly, conservation biologists need a specimen database analogous to GenBank for collecting specimen records. Such a database has a three-fold advantage over information obtained from digitized museum collections: (1) it is shown for Euscelidia that a large proportion of unrevised museum specimens are misidentified; (2) only the specimen lists in revisionary studies cover a wide variety of private and public collections; and (3) obtaining specimen records from revisions is cost-effective. Resumen:,Sostuvimos que los millones de registros de especimenes publicados en miles de revisiones taxonómicas en décadas anteriores son una fuente de información costo-efectiva de importancia crítica para la incorporación de invertebrados en decisiones de investigación y conservación. Más específicamente, para una base de datos de especimenes de moscas del género Euscelidia (Asilidae, Diptera) demostramos como se pueden utilizar estimadores no paramétricos de riqueza de especies (Chao 1, estimador de cobertura basado en incidencia, navaja de segundo orden) para (1) estimar la diversidad global de especies, (2) dirigir colecciones futuras a áreas que están sub-muestreadas y/o probablemente tengan especies nuevas y (3) evaluar si los sitios globales de importancia para la biodiversidad basados en plantas de Myers et al. (2000) contienen una proporción significativa de invertebrados. Durante la revisión de Euscelidia el número de especies conocidas fue más del doble, pero la estimación de riqueza de especies reveló que la diversidad real del género probablemente también era el doble. Las mismas técnicas aplicadas a las sub-muestras de datos indicaron que gran parte de la diversidad no conocida se encontrará en la Región Oriental. La evaluación de la validez de sitios de importancia para la biodiversidad de invertebrados es un reto formidable porque es difícil decidir si las especies son endémicas de esos sitios y si las listas de especies observadas subestiman dramáticamente la diversidad real. Finalmente, los biólogos de la conservación requieren de una base de datos de especimenes análoga a GenBank, para obtener registros de especimenes. Dicha base de datos tiene una triple ventaja sobre la información obtenida de colecciones de museos digitalizadas. (1) Se muestra para Euscelidia que una gran proporción de especimenes de museo no revisados están mal identificados. (2) Sólo las listas de especimenes en estudios de revisión cubren una amplia variedad de colecciones privadas y públicas. (3) La obtención de registros en revisiones es costo-efectiva. [source]

MUSEUM SPECIMENS AND PHYLOGENIES ELUCIDATE ECOLOGY'S ROLE IN COEVOLUTIONARY ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MITES AND THEIR BEE HOSTS

EVOLUTION, Issue 6 2007
Pavel B. Klimov
Coevolutionary associations between hosts and symbionts (or parasites) are often reflected in correlated patterns of divergence as a consequence of limitations on dispersal and establishment on new hosts. Here we show that a phylogenetic correlation is observed between chaetodactylid mites and their hosts, the long-tongued bees; however, this association manifests itself in an atypical fashion. Recently derived mites tend to be associated with basal bee lineages, and vice versa, ruling out a process of cospeciation, and the existence of mites on multiple hosts also suggests ample opportunity for host shifts. An extensive survey of museum collections reveals a pattern of infrequent host shifts at a higher taxonomic level, and yet, frequent shifts at a lower level, which suggests that ecological constraints structure the coevolutionary history of the mites and bees. Certain bee traits, particularly aspects of their nesting behavior, provide a highly predictive framework for the observed pattern of host use, with 82.1% of taxa correctly classified. Thus, the museum survey and phylogenetic analyses provide a unique window into the central role ecology plays in this coevolutionary association. This role is apparent from two different perspectives,as (a) a constraining force evident in the historical processes underlying the significant correlation between the mite and bee phylogenies, as well as (b) by the highly nonrandom composition of bee taxa that serve as hosts to chaetodactylid mites. [source]

Recording dental caries in archaeological human remains

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OSTEOARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 4 2001
Simon Hillson
Abstract Dental caries is an important condition to record in archaeological collections, but the way in which recording is carried out has a large effect on the way in which the results can be interpreted. In living populations, dental caries is a disease that shows a strong relationship with age. Both the nature of carious lesions and their frequency change with successive age groups from childhood to elderly adulthood. There is also a progression in the particular teeth in the dentition which are most commonly affected and, in general, the molars and premolars are involved much more frequently than the canines and incisors. Lower teeth are usually affected more than upper, although the condition usually involves the right and left sides fairly equally. In the high tooth wear rate populations represented by many archaeological and museum collections, there is a complex relationship between the form of lesions and the state of wear, which adds yet another range of factors to the changing pattern of caries with increasing age. In the same populations, chipping, fracture and anomalous abrasion of teeth are also common, and these contribute similarly to the distribution and forms of carious lesion observed. Amongst the living, the pattern of ante-mortem tooth loss is important in understanding caries and, in archaeological material, there is also the complicating factor of post-mortem tooth loss. Finally, there is the question of diagnosis. There are diagnostic problems even in epidemiological studies of living patients and, for archaeological specimens, diagenetic change and the variable preservation of different parts of the dentition add further complications. For all these reasons, it is difficult to define any one general index of dental caries to represent the complete dentition of each individual, which would be universally suitable for studying a full range of collections from archaeological sites or museums. Variation in the nature of collections, their preservation, tooth wear, and ante-mortem and post-mortem tooth loss mean that when such a general index appears to differ between sites, there could be many other reasons for this, in addition to any genuine differences in caries incidence and pattern that might have been present. It is suggested here that the best approach is instead to make comparisons separately for each tooth type, age group, sex, lesion type and potential lesion site on the tooth. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Lystrosaurus species composition across the Permo,Triassic boundary in the Karoo Basin of South Africa

LETHAIA, Issue 2 2007
JENNIFER BOTHA
Lystrosaurus is one of the few therapsid genera that survived the end-Permian mass extinction, and the only genus to have done so in abundance. This study identifies which species of Lystrosaurus have been recovered from Permian and Triassic strata to determine changes in the species composition across the Permo,Triassic (P,T) boundary in the Karoo Basin of South Africa. Data generated from museum collections and recent fieldwork were used to stratigraphically arrange a total of 189 Lystrosaurus specimens to determine which species survived the extinction event. Results reveal that L. curvatus and L. maccaigi lived together on the Karoo floodplains immediately before the extinction event. L. maccaigi did not survive into the Triassic in South Africa. L. curvatus survived, but did not flourish and soon became extinct. Two new species of Lystrosaurus, L. murrayi and L. declivis, appeared in the Early Triassic. It is possible that L. murrayi and L. declivis occupied different niches to L. maccaigi and L. curvatus, and had special adaptations that were advantageous in an Early Triassic environment. We suggest that L. maccaigi may be used as a biostratigraphic marker to indicate latest Permian strata in South Africa and that, in support of previous proposals, the genus Lystrosaurus should not be used as a sole indicator of Triassic-aged strata. Our field data also show that L. curvatus may be regarded as a biostratigraphic indicator of the P,T boundary interval. [source]

Field sampling bias, museum collections and completeness of the fossil record

LETHAIA, Issue 4 2005
AARON HUNTER
Museum specimens, particularly old collections, typically lack comprehensive field data and determination of substrate, sampling biases, etc., is problematic. Diversity at the generic level of all identifiable latest Cretaceous (Campanian,Maastrichtian) echinoderm remains in major museum collections from the Mons (southern Belgium) and Danish (Jylland (Jutland) and Sjælland (Zealand)) basins were compared to those of the Liège-Limburg Basin. The last-named has been studied in detail, including microscopical analysis of ossicles picked from bulk samples. Echinoids of the Mons Basin show similarities to those of the Liège-Limburg Basin, but crinoids, asteroids and ophiuroids remain poorly known from the former. Echinoderms of the Danish Basin resemble those of similar chalk lithofacies in the Liège-Limburg Basin, despite significant geographical separation. These disparities can be explained, at least in part, by collector bias in sampling methodology, although differences in substrate presumably also had an influence. [source]

NAGPRA AT 20: Museum Collections and Reconnections

,A developing sense of crisis': a new look at university collections in the United Kingdom

MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2000
Kate Arnold-Foster
A growing concern with the care and handling of some of the richest university museum collections in the world led to a nationwide review and sparked considerable new thinking in the United Kingdom. Kate Arnold-Forster, formerly a practising curator, is a museum consultant specializing in collection surveys and reviews, and in strategic matters. She has been involved in five of the regional surveys of higher education collections in the United Kingdom: in London, the north of England, the south-west, the Midlands and the South-eastern Museum Service (Western Region). Other recent research projects include a review of British music museums (Museums of Music, HMSO/MGC, 1993), and collaboration in the museum sector (Collaboration Between Museums, MGC, 1998). She is a member of the Museums and Galleries Commission (MGC) Museums Registration Panel and a fellow of the Museums Association. [source]

CARBONATE DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS, SEQUENCE STRATIGRAPHY AND EXCEPTIONAL SKELETAL PRESERVATION IN THE MUCH WENLOCK LIMESTONE FORMATION (SILURIAN) OF DUDLEY, ENGLAND

PALAEONTOLOGY, Issue 1 2007
DAVID C. RAY
Abstract:, The Much Wenlock Limestone Formation of the Dudley inliers, West Midlands, contains one of the world's richest and most exquisitely preserved Silurian marine biotas. However, for most museum specimens, little is known of their exact provenance and mode of preservation. Detailed comparisons between outcrops and museum collections allow the identification of five faunal-lithological associations and numerous horizons of exceptional skeletal preservation. The associations are interpreted as a series of transient carbonate mid-platform environments extending from below storm wave-base to above fair-weather wave-base. Erosive surfaces, condensed sections, flooding surfaces and the stacking patterns of genetically related bed-sets (parasequences) have allowed the formation to be interpreted as a single third-order sequence stratigraphic cycle of sea-level change. The articulated preservation of taxa such as pelmatozoan echinoderms and trilobites can be attributed to either rapid burial by obrution deposits close to fair-weather wave-base or smothering by storm sequestered muds in slightly deeper-water settings. Such intervals of exceptional preservation are commonly associated with flooding surfaces, presumably reflecting reduced likelihood of reworking once rapid burial had taken place. [source]

The digital museum in the life of the user

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2005
Hsin-liang Chen
This panel will explore the fascinating issue of the "digital museum in the life of the user." As online museums, digital museum collections, and enhanced gallery devices become more common, it is important that we improve our understanding of how museum visitors make use of digital museum resources, online and in house. This panel, therefore, will discuss approaches to and the need for a better understanding of the users and usage of digital museums. [source]

Using carbon isotopes to track dietary change in modern, historical, and ancient primates

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2009
Matt Sponheimer
Abstract Stable isotope analysis can be used to document dietary changes within the lifetimes of individuals and may prove useful for investigating fallback food consumption in modern, historical, and ancient primates. Feces, hair, and enamel are all suitable materials for such analysis, and each has its own benefits and limitations. Feces provide highly resolved temporal dietary data, but are generally limited to providing dietary information about modern individuals and require labor-intensive sample collection and analysis. Hair provides less well-resolved data, but has the advantage that one or a few hair strands can provide evidence of dietary change over months or years. Hair is also available in museum collections, making it possible to investigate the diets of historical specimens. Enamel provides the poorest temporal resolution of these materials, but is often preserved for millions of years, allowing examination of dietary change in deep time. We briefly discuss the use of carbon isotope data as it pertains to recent thinking about fallback food consumption in ancient hominins and suggest that we may need to rethink the functional significance of the australopith masticatory package. Am J Phys Anthropol 140:661,670, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

The dangers of multi-male groupings: trauma and healing in cercopithecoid monkeys from Cameroon

Using probabilistic models to investigate the disappearance of a widespread frog-species complex in high-altitude regions of south-eastern Australia

ANIMAL CONSERVATION, Issue 3 2010
A. J. Hamer
Abstract Amphibian populations have suffered declines and disappearances around the world. It is now recognized that many of the disappearances were the result of infection by the amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Most global declines were first observed in the 1980s. Here, we used information from museum collections, natural-history databases and the literature to quantitatively assess the disappearance of the bell frog species complex (Litoria aurea, Litoria castanea and Litoria raniformis) in high-altitude Tableland regions of the Great Dividing Range, south-eastern Australia. Based on the sighting record, we estimated that Li. castanea disappeared on the Northern Tablelands in 1979, then from the Southern and Central Tablelands in 1984. Estimated dates of disappearance of Li. aurea and Li. raniformis from the Southern and Central Tablelands were 1981 and 1982, respectively. The Northern Tablelands populations of Li. castanea may have been one of the first high-altitude populations of frogs to disappear from Australasia and perhaps one of the first globally. We documented targeted searches of suitable habitat within the historic range of the three species in these Tableland regions since 1985, noting that only one bell frog population was discovered (Li. aurea, Southern Tablelands, 2000). Our Solow equation estimate of the probability of extant populations of bell frogs persisting up to the year 2000 was <0.001, so the rediscovery of Li. aurea was mathematically exceptional. Although the cause of these declines remains unknown, the latitudinal (i.e. north to south) and rapid pattern of disappearance of Li. castanea, and the rapid contraction in the range of Li. aurea and Li. raniformis from high-altitude regions, strongly suggests a pathogen such as Bd was responsible. We recommend further surveys for bell frogs on the Tablelands, as the rediscovery of Li. aurea provides faint hope of finding other extant populations. [source]

Reconstructing the history of human impacts on coastal biodiversity in Chile: constraints and opportunities

AQUATIC CONSERVATION: MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS, Issue 1 2010
Marcelo M. Rivadeneira
Abstract 1.Although Chile is at the forefront in evaluating experimentally the importance of human harvesting impacts on coastal biodiversity, there are no evaluations of such impacts on a long-term historical basis (tens to thousands of years). Different types of archival information (i.e. contemporaneous, archaeological, and palaeontological) were used to carry out a research programme based on the historical assessment of the impacts and intensity of resource extraction on coastal biodiversity along the Chilean coast. 2.In addition to recent scientific literature, different sources of contemporaneous information (e.g. museum collections, old reports and accounts) can reveal the human impacts observed in the more recent past. Furthermore, the large number of prehistoric shell middens along the entire Chilean coast offer access to ,11 000 years of history along the entire coast, although the faunal composition, structure, and dynamics of most of them remain largely unstudied. 3.Finally, the rich and widespread fossil record of some marine groups provides the opportunity to reconstruct the structure and dynamics of benthic communities during different phases of human influence (e.g. pre-human, prehistoric harvesting, and modern harvesting). 4.Preliminary comparisons of fossil versus modern bivalve assemblages suggest marked changes in the species composition. Human impacts seem very recent and shifts in the structure of benthic assemblages may have occurred only a few centuries/decades ago. 5.In contrast, prehistoric harvesting, although intense, was apparently not enough to cause a profound impact on coastal ecosystems. The approach herein envisaged can provide the basis to build a historical baseline to evaluate the human impacts on the coastal biodiversity in the region. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

ARCHAEOMETRY AND MUSEUMS: FIFTY YEARS OF CURIOSITY AND WONDER,

ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 6 2008
M. F. GUERRA
Artefacts and works of art kept in museum collections originated in many cases from ancient private collections. In such cases, a partial or total absence of historical information may create additional problems concerning their authenticity. The study of museum collections and their preservation requires the use of analytical techniques but also combined examination techniques not commonly necessary for the study of archaeological objects. This paper gives an overview of the importance of museum items for the understanding of the past, the difficulties relating to their authentication and the significant advances brought about by science-based techniques, in particular those cases discussed in Archaeometry during the past 50 years. [source]

Jumping across Wallace's line: Allodessus Guignot and Limbodessus Guignot revisited (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae, Bidessini) based on molecular-phylogenetic and morphological data

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGY, Issue 2 2004
Michael Balke
Abstract The monotypic genus Allodessus (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae: Bidessini) has previously been considered to be strictly Australian, with A. bistrigatus (Clark) having a wide range on that continent and in Tonga. Based on data gathered from extensive museum collections and a molecular phylogeny of the group, this concept is revised. The following species of the Bidessini are now assigned to Allodessus: Bidessus megacephalus Gschwendtner (East Palearctic), Liodessus oliveri Ordish (New Zealand), Bidessus skottsbergi Zimmermann (Chile: Easter Island) and Bidessus thienemanni Csiki (Indonesia: Java). The latter, as well as L. oliveri, are morphologically extremely similar to A. bistrigatus and are, perhaps, the same species. As currently delimited, Allodessus has a wide range, spanning parts of the Australian, Oriental, Palearctic and Oceanian regions. Based on a cladistic analysis of mtDNA sequence data, we synonymize Boongurrus Larson and Tjirtudessus Watts & Humphreys with Limbodessus Guignot. Australian species of Liodessus Guignot are transferred to Limbodessus, which is the sister group of Allodessus. The following 33 species are transferred to Limbodessus: Oceania ,Liodessus cheesmanae (Balfour-Browne 1939) [Vanuatu], Bidessus curviplicatus Zimmermann 1927[Samoa]; Australian epigean,Bidessus dispar Sharp 1882, B. praelargus Lea 1899, Hydroporus amabilis Clark 1862, H. gemellus Clark 1862, B. inornatus Sharp 1882, B. Shuckardii Clark 1862; Australian hyporheic ,Boongurrus rivulus Larson 1994; Australian stygobiont ,Nirridessus bigbellensis Watts & Humphreys 2000, N. challaensis Watts & Humphreys 2001, N. cueensis Watts & Humphreys 2000, N. fridaywellensis Watts & Humphreys 2001, N. hinkleri Watts & Humphreys 2000, N. lapostaae Watts & Humphreys 1999, N. masonensis Watts & Humphreys 2001, N. morgani Watts & Humphreys 2000, N. pinnaclesensis Watts & Humphreys 2001, N. pulpa Watts & Humphreys 1999, N. windarraensis Watts & Humphreys 1999, Tjirtudessus bialveus Watts & Humphreys 2003, T. cunyuensis Watts & Humphreys 2003, T. eberhardi Watts & Humphreys 1999, T. hahni Watts & Humphreys 2 00, T. jundeeensis Watts & Humphreys 2003, T. karalundiensis Watts & Humphreys 2003, T. macrotarsus Watts & Humphreys 2003, T. magnificus Watts & Humphreys 2000, T. raesidensis Watts & Humphreys 2001, T. silus Watts & Humphreys 2003, T. sweetwatersensis Watts & Humphreys 2003, T. wilunaensis Watts & Humphreys 2003, T. yuinmeryensis Watts & Humphreys 2003. Limbodessus compactus (Clark) has a wide Asian/Australian range, while all other Limbodessus spp. are endemic to the Australian region and represent an adaptive radiation of epigean, hyporheic and subterranean species, as well as numerous undescribed New Guinea high-altitude specialists. Another species of Bidessini, Papuadessus pakdjoko Balke, is newly recorded from Papua New Guinea here. [source]

Long-term stability of hornet cuticular hydrocarbons facilitates chemotaxonomy using museum specimens

BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY, Issue 4 2009
STEPHEN J. MARTIN
Cuticular hydrocarbons are key compounds used for insect chemical communication and their species-specificity makes them of great utility to chemotaxonomists. However, very little is known about their long-term stability in relation to their use as reliable taxonomic tools. We compared the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of fresh extracts from four hornet (Vespa) species with extracts from specimens that were frozen for 1 year and of those stored in insect display boxes for 20 years. Cuticular hydrocarbon profiles were qualitatively very stable, maintaining their species-specific profiles even after 20 years. The long-term stability of cuticular hydrocarbons in hymenopterans opens up the possibility of using museum collections for chemotaxonomy studies and helping with the delineation of species in difficult groups. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 96, 732,737. [source]