Natural History Collections Types of Natural History Collections

Natural History Collections

Types of Natural History Collections • Natural History Museums – Plants – Animals • Skeletons • Preserved – Fossils – Anthropology Collections – Geological collections • Botanical Gardens • Zoological Parks Plant Garden at the Museum of Natural History, Paris

Earliest Natural History Museums • Cabinets of curiosities • Public Museums – 16 th Century; Conrad Gessner in Zurich – 1635; Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris – 1677; Ashmolean Museum in Oxford – 1881; Natural History Museum in London

Functions of Natural History Collections • Education • Catalog biodiversity – Library of information – Repository for type specimens – Source of physical and molecular samples for comparison • Conservation Main Hall of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago

Types of Specimens • Museums – Specimens are dry or preserved – Fossils • Botanical gardens – Living plants in a park or in greenhouses – Herbaria • Zoological Parks (Zoos) – Living terrestrial animals • Aquaria – Living aquatic animals Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D. C.

Natural History Museum, London • Founded 1881 • Main collections: – Botany – Entomology – Minerology – Paleontology – Zoology

National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D. C. • Established 1910 • One of the Smithsonian Museums • Main collections: – Plants – Animals – Fossils – Minerals – Rocks – Meteorites – Cultural artifacts

Botanical Gardens • From herbal gardens and exotic plants, 18 th century • History to biblical times • Test and grow plants for medicine, dyes, food, timber, and other economic and strategic purposes • Bartram Gardens –first botanical garden in N. A. – Satisfy European demand for exotic plants

New York Botanical Garden, NYC • Established 1891 • 50 gardens, one a parcel of old-growth forest • Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory – Genomic DNA storage – Tree. BOL, a project to ‘barcode’ plants • Mertz Library Rose garden of the New York Botanical Garden

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew • Opened 1759 • Largest collection of living plants >30, 000 different species • Jodrell Laboratory – Botanical illustration – Seed collection – Research in secondary compounds Palm House, Kew Gardens

Herbarium Specimens • Herbarium sheets • Dry mosses & lichens • Large specimens stored in boxes • All kept in cabinets according to a system Herbarium at the Museum of Natural History, Paris

Herbaria • Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (Paris) nearly 10 million specimens • Ботанический институт им. В. Л. Комарова (St. Petersburg) more than 7 million specimens • Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (7 million specimens) • New York Botanical Garden, (7 million specimens) Herbarium curator at the New York Botanical Garden William and Lynda Steere Herbarium

Zoos and Aquaria • Evolved from private royal menageries • Living collections with different habitat and dietary requirements • Breeding programs in place for conservation and to maintain a breeding population

Largest Zoological Parks • Zoologischer Garten Berlin (1844); >1, 500 species • Moscovskiy Zoopark (1864); >1, 000 species • Beijing Zoo (1906); ~1, 000 species (marine and terrestrial) • San Diego Zoo (1916); >800 species • Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Penguin exhibit at the Zoologischer Garten Berlin (1927); >800 species • Bronx Zoo (1899); >650 species