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Digitization of museum collections holds the potential to enhance researcher diversity

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 1, pages 1789–1790 (2017)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Natural history collections preserve critical information on biodiversity in space and time, but collections housed in museums have traditionally been inaccessible to many. At the same time, there remains great under-representation of many groups among researchers in science and education, even though diverse research teams approach problems with greater combinations of expertise and background, often resulting in more highly cited papers1. Here, we highlight how the advent of digitization (open access to images and specimen data) now makes a wealth of biodiversity information broadly available, and represents one method that can simultaneously increase access to those samples and help diversify our community. Digitization allows access to museum holdings to those for whom collections have typically been out of reach.

There is an unequal distribution of large scientific collections, with most of the major holdings being held in the Northern Hemisphere. Many of these collections in museums of the Global North were built from mega-diverse countries in the Global South through an integrated legacy of scientific exploration and colonialism. In some cases, the ecosystems of the past have been so altered that museum holdings are their only record2. Digitizing collections is one way in which their unequal distribution can potentially be mitigated, by making samples collected in biodiverse countries accessible to researchers and policymakers from those countries3. This access, therefore, can help to develop in-country taxonomic and systematic research programmes, a key component in quantifying global biodiversity loss4.

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Fig. 1: Digitized information for Clypeobarbus hypsolepis (Daget, 1959) occurrences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Joshua A. Drew

  2. Division of Vertebrate Zoology, Department of Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA

    Joshua A. Drew & Melanie L. J. Stiassny

  3. Department of Science and Education, Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA

    Corrie S. Moreau

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  1. Joshua A. Drew
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  2. Corrie S. Moreau
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  3. Melanie L. J. Stiassny
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Correspondence to Joshua A. Drew.

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Drew, J.A., Moreau, C.S. & Stiassny, M.L.J. Digitization of museum collections holds the potential to enhance researcher diversity. Nat Ecol Evol 1, 1789–1790 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0401-6

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