Why museum collections are important
According to recent estimates, the number of natural history specimens held in the UK museums exceeds 100 million (worldwide, over 3 billion). There are several large natural history collections in the UK, like those of The Manchester Museum. Our collection numbers approximately 4 million specimens. Many of the specimens are hidden behind the scenes and it is difficult to display them in their entire diversity. This section explores why these collections are stored and preserved for their vital
role in research, teaching and learning, such as
uses of the Fossil Record
.
The study of Biodiversity
The value of natural history collections are related to the understanding of the Earth's diversity because they directly link to the development of biological knowledge. These collections provide references for named species and act as an ecological database through the data associated with specimens. The collections are an irreplaceable resource for taxonomic and biodiversity research.
Such research aims at answering three basic questions: what is the organism under study, where is it found in the nature, and why is it found there. Because a cornerstone of the scientific process is repeatability, specimens used in the scientific process should be preserved and catalogued in museums to ensure that species identifications can always be checked.
Biological Libraries
Acting as 'biological libraries', natural history collections are unique locations for information. Unlike library books, we cannot copy preserved natural history specimens. As more species become endangered or extinct, natural history collections become the only source of information for these species.
One of the obvious measures of scientific value of a natural history museum is a number of type specimens or types. A type is the standard specimen selected by a scientist during the original description of a new taxonomic name. Types serve as the unique primary reference for species names. The Manchester Museum retains over 22,000 types, representing some 8,000 species names. This makes The Manchester Museum one of the most important taxonomic sites in the UK after London and Oxford.
