The archive and the ark: bird specimen data in conservation status assessment

摘要

The enterprise of naming all life-forms on earth reached its zenith in the years 1850-1950, but it is often forgotten that our knowledge of the distributions of species stems primarily from the same museum endeavour. However, various good reasons dictate that not all material deposited in museums is documented in the public domain, leaving the conservationist with a rich body of essentially new (if commonly predictable) information for use in fixing the ranges (and indeed ecologies) of threatened species. By its use of museum material, BirdLife International's Red Data Book programme has found numerous significant range extensions (whose effect-predictably, given that more localities indicate a wider extent of occurrence and stronger population-isgenerally to diminish the concern with which the species in question are regarded). Drawing on 60 museums, Threatened birds of the Americas used unpublished museum range and ecological data in 232 (77 percent) and 138 (46 percent) species accounts respectively. Drawing on 30 museums, Threatened birds of the Philippines identified a total of 830 localities, 228 (27 percent) of which were based solely on museum evidence. Museums also hold contentious specimens that require re-evaluation, but there is disconcerting evidence of the decline of the specimen-based taxonomy which helps to bind conservation and science together.