In a recent publication on GlobalPost.com, Dr. William Brown calls for the preservation of natural history collections as a way to preserve biodiversity. “Natural history museums and related institutions … are the keepers of the codes of life. They have the collections and the curators, scientists and educators who understand biodiversity,” wrote Brown, who is President of the NSC Alliance, as well as the President and CEO of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
The op-ed offers two recommendations that would jointly serve the preservation of biodiversity as well as science collections: preservation of viable tissue and DNA from all known species, and the digitization of all type specimens. These recommendations are drawn from a report authored by the chief executives of eight internationally recognized natural science collections.
To read the op-ed, please visit http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100330/DNA-imaging-biodiversity?page=0,0. The full set of recommendations can be downloaded here.