Non-Arthropod Invertebrates

Collection Management Projects

The inventory of collections and databases that describe the collections of the department was completed in 2010. The revision and cataloguing of the collections continues to be the priority and accounts for more than 30% of all recorded elements. We currently have tools for describing collections, which facilitate optimum exploitation of the specimens and of the associated information that makes up the collections. The rhythm of documentation and computerization is intensive in order to fuel the sources of information of the collections. Now, the database has already completed the documentation of all the phyla represented in the department, except for the molluscs, by far the largest collection. The part of the collections already computerized forms part of the broadest biodiversity platform in the world, the portal GBIF, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, where the malacology collection and the group of collections known as general zoology are particularly accessible.

Special attention is being paid to the documentation of type specimens. The initial results are visible in the form of the catalogue for mollusc types (published in Catalan, Spanish and English). Several collections that have come to the department or occasional items brought in by researchers are continuously growing the collection of specimens accredited as type specimens. A web page has been set up with interactive query capability for information on the type specimens.

One aspect of the documentation that is being jointly worked on with the the departments of collections is georeferencing, i.e., information of coordinates that make it possible to analyse the distribution of the specimens in space. Current collecting techniques include the use of devices to determine precisely the position, but the vast majority of the museum’s collections were obtained in earlier days and only text-based descriptions of the collection points are available. This retrospective georeferencing process, i.e., assigning coordinates to descriptions based on toponyms, is a vast project that is being fully developed in the internal and public organization of the department.

As documentary knowledge of the collections already in the museum advances, opportunities arise for taking action to improve the presence of zoological groups poorly represented among the museum’s collections.

Scientific Projects

Designing the collections as a scientific infrastructure means providing it with the maximum capability for consultation and use applied to research. This is the spirit of the website Bioexplora. Firstly, clear and intuitive consultation tools are being developed for the collections, which lead to procedures for downloading the results in different formats. This is the objective of deveoping a proprietary project: Taxo&Map.

A website created to be available to whoever wants to consult the museum’s collections in greater depth is WikiCollecta, which allows expert consultants and the general public to learn more about the collections, the people who have taken part in managing the scientific patrimony of the department, or how the retrospective georeferencing processes are carried out.

Biological research in the department takes place in two areas: terrestrial malacology, the more traditional area, and marine biology, which was added more recently. The drive to research is still subject to the priority of achieving the scientific endowment of the collections – a goal that is very near.

With regard to the conservation conditions of the specimens in the collections, special attention is paid to the quality of the preservative liquids and their ability to not interfere with the molecular analysis of the specimens. Several experiments have been carried out to determine the stability over time of the conservation conditions produced by the different liquids.

Finally, it is important to note the participation in the projects of periodical publications published by the museum, specifically Arxius de Miscel·lània Zoològica and Animal Biodiversity and Conservation.