Systematic Collections

Chair

• Jonathan L. Dunnum (jldunnum@unm.edu)

Members

History and Mission

The Systematic Collections Committee was formed in 1972 as an outgrowth of an ad hoc committee formed at the request of the National Science Foundation. The Systematic Collections Committee serves the Society by handling all matters that came before the Society related directly or indirectly to systematic collections of mammals.

Responsibilities

• Advising curators worldwide in matters relating to collection administrations, curation, and accreditation
• Maintaining a directory of mammal collections and conducting a survey of existing collections approximately once each decade
• Maintaining a list of curatorial standards for mammal collections and managing a collection-accreditation program under the auspices of the Society.

• Preserve a Voucher Specimen! The Critical Need for Integrating Natural History Collections in Infectious Disease Studies
• Curatorial guidelines and standards of the American Society of Mammalogists for collections of genetic resources
• Building an integrated infrastructure for exploring biodiversity: field collections and archives of mammals and parasites
• Field Methods for Collection and Preservation of Mammalian Parasites
• Mammal collections of the Western Hemisphere: a survey and directory of collections 2018
• Biospecimen Repositories and Integrated Databases as Critical Infrastructure for Pathogen Discovery and Pathobiology Research
• Natural history collections-based research: progress, promise, and best practices
• “Door to drawer” costs of curation, installation, ... and long-term care of mammal voucher specimens (Baker et al. 2014)
• Cost of collecting and preparing mammal voucher specimens for natural history collections (Bradley et al. 2012)
• 2012 ASM position letter regarding proposed changes to Collections in Support of Biological Research (CSBR) program funding
• Mammal Collections in the Western Hemisphere 1997
• Mammal collections accredited by the American Society of Mammalogists, Systematics Collections Committee
• Basic curatorial standards for systematic collections of mammals
• Mammal Collections: 2007 working version – Mammal Collections in the Western Hemisphere, updated 2007 [MS Excel Format]
• Mammal Collections in the Western Hemisphere, updated 2012 [MS Excel Format]
• Collections that meet minimum standards, 1975
• Survey of the recent mammal collections of the world, 1985

The committee has established minimal standards for proper collection maintenance and serves, on behalf of the Society, as an informal inspecting and accrediting agency for the curatorial status of collections. It also responds to requests from curators for information on proper collection care. It is responsible for the periodic surveys of collections of Recent mammals published by the Society. The Committee make-up includes members who are knowledgeable about care and management of systematic collections and are geographically dispersed to allow for inspection of collections throughout the country.

• The 2022 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2021 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2020 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2019 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2018 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2017 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2016 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2015 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2014 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2013 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee
• The 2012 Annual Report of the Systematics Collections Committee