Douglas H. Erwin and Willi Ziegler
 
 
 

In the 18th and early 19th century the public perception of earth history and biology was based on the typological-registration inventory of natural history objects then currently in vogue. These objects became known and were collected during the geographical exploration of the world during the times of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, James Cook, and others.

In medieval times, natural objects were already being kept in galleries or collections that did not distinguish between natural objects and artifacts. During Renaissance time, these accumulated objects were kept in the so-called "art and wonder cabinets" and they served the continuing acquisition of knowledge in regard to the micro- and macro cosmos. Some objects from these collections were compared with their likes in a kind of playful association, and thus knowledge was gained about those deviating from the normal.

Francis Bacon defined the "art and wonder chambers" as part of a utopic "Laboratory of Judgement" {or knowledge}. The association with such laboratories led increasingly so to the classification of these objects (e.g. from collections of Ulisse Adrovandi as shown in the engraving of Fernando Cospis Museum in 1677). As late as the 16th century, Adrovandi had started a comprehensive encyclopedia of nature that was based on his collections and on illustrations provided by professional artists. Collections of such "classified" types were, at this early date, occasionally affiliated with scientific teaching (e.g. the museum of Athanasius Kircher at the Jesuit College in Rome). The intellectual basis and preliminary work for Linnaeus' modern systematics was accomplished because of the "art and wonder cabinets"). The enlightening idea of the universal museum, as well as the differentiation of the various specialized collection types, go back to these resources.

It follows that each museum and each collection developed its own organization and depending on its individual history and on the time and circumstances of its founding (Ziegler, 1995, p.50). Thus, museums and collections are conditioned in their aims, their appearance; their sense of priority, their respective histories and by the local factors of the country in which they were established (Hudson, 1987, p. 83). These facts have to be taken into account in judging the future work of natural history museums, and it is hoped that they will resist any attempts at concentration, fusion or leveling.

Later, but not before the middle of the 18th century, a more and more systematic collection and systematic registration of natural history objects occurred mainly during European imperialistic times. These objects were often collected in exotic foreign countries and then accumulated in private collections by individual collectors or princely groups. At best, they were located geographically, thus providing for the first time some data on the sites of collections.

At the same time, many illustrated books (e. g., Pallas, Dupont, Rudbeck, Audubon, Adrovandi and many others) came into existence on plants and animals, and mostly exotic naturalia. This literature represents the remaining expression of the intellectual basis of this type of collections (Schaefer, 1994, Ziegler, 1995).

An immediate effect of such serious and purposeful activities was that the "cabinets of curiosity", which often housed "monstrosities" rather then "normalities", were changed into "cabinets of naturalia". Collecting, filing and displaying then became a goal in its own right and therefore these cabinets finally had as their main task the exhibition of natural history objects.

It was the famous Swedish scholar Carolus LINNAEUS, who, in the middle of the 18th century, took the decisive step toward the modern classification of scientific collections by developing his "Systema Naturae" based on his experience with "art and wonders cabinets". He proposed the system of binomial nomenclature, providing order for the known world of plants and animals of his time (Linnaeus, 1758). His system of classification (the Linnaean System), which is still in use today, has to be regarded as the beginning of morphologic descriptions and their systematic management. For the first time, the Linnaean System enabled collected materials to be the basis for ordering human knowledge of rocks, fossils, plants and animals. In his classification, Linnaeus aimed to "replicate the logic of God's creation".

Linnaeus set aside type specimens for each species. These were (and are) available for comparison whenever similar forms were described. This means that precise morphologic-systematic classification of a natural history object requires comparison and scrutinization. Linnaeus' type collection was thus the first modern scrutinized scientific collection.

Since then, unknown life-forms have to be described in accordance with the Linnaean classification system, and must be compared with related taxa in other collections to make sure that a new name is justified, or to avoid errors, or even chaos in nomenclature. As a result, morphologic-systematic elaboration (taxonomy) is always at the initial stages of any paleontological and biological research. The task of storing studied material and making it available has been taken up by natural history museums worldwide, and thus, these organizations have played (and are playing) a critical role in post-Linnaean times.

Many of the important Natural History Museums were founded in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As early as the 19th century, scholars had become increasingly aware that the materials stored in the Natural History Museums, which in part originated from the medieval collections, are of outstanding scientific value. Furthermore, it was recognized that these collections must be properly preserved and maintained as reference collections (Couvier, Lamarck, e.g. worked in this period of museum development). Taxonomic methodology gained a new dimension when Alexander von Humboldt in the early 19th century introduced a holistic approach, studying natural history objects within their natural environments, adding thus geographical information and spatial and temporal features about the collecting site.

Status Quo and Future Aspects

It is obvious from the previous statements that museums and collections-based research institutions have long served as the principal repositories of systematic and stratigraphic information on the history of life. In many countries a variety of pressures have increased this role for museums and institutes at the same time that declining funding and staffing levels have reduced the ability of these organizations to continue to effectively document our knowledge of the fossil record. These recent trends raise long-term concerns for the health of paleontological collections, for the future of training in systematic paleontology, and even for the continued survival of some institutions

All paleontological research ultimately depends on the occurrence of specific fossils in specific rocks at a particular time, place and environment. Museums document these occurrences and facilitate broader research on morphologic and systematic relationships, stratigraphic and geographic distributions and other aspects of the history of life. Such collections play a vital role for systematic --*they document the occurrence of named taxa and the range of morphologic variation within a species. In addition, museum collections remain the primary source of information on the geographic and stratigraphic range of a species and on patterns of co-occurrence of taxa for studies in paleoecology, paleoclimatology and paleobiogeography. Museum specimens are often an important source of information for geological studies as well. The attached rocks are often vital in determining the environmental setting of a particular fossil, and museum specimens are often used for geochemical analyses and many have been examined for traces of molecular fossils, including ancient DNA.

Yet new research questions often demand new collections. The advent of punctuated models of speciation in the 1970's required a level of stratigraphic resolution rarely found in museum collections and generated many new collections as paleontologists examined the tempo of speciation in the fossil record. Similarly, proposals that the Cretaceous/Tertiary mass extinction was triggered by the impact of a bolide required far more detailed collecting than needed by systematic or previous stratigraphic research. Hence few museum collections were directly relevant to most studies of the pace of mass extinctions during the 1980's (although of course they provided the essential systematic framework for all such studies). Museum collections continue to play a vital role in more synoptic studies. Analyses of biogeographic patterns of extinction and survival during the end-Cretaceous event for example (or any other mass extinctions), requires detailed re-analysis of museum collections. Without the availability of taxonomic monographs and the museum collections to back them up, little would be known about the influence of species ranges on survival probability during these mass extinctions.

The systematic and stratigraphic information provided by museums and their research departments will continue to provide the primary evidence documenting the history of life. Through their expertise in systematics, such institutions will continue to serve an important role in training successive generations of systematists. Yet the reputation and ultimately the funding of any institution depends upon the scientific reputations they establish. For museums, these reputations are based not on collections or exhibits, but ultimately upon the intellectual vitality of their research programs.

Future Directions

The growth of phylogenetic systematics (parsimony and related techniques) has led a revitalization of many institutions in the west. A new generation has been trained who approach systematics with new techniques, and a greater emphasis on more explicit, testable patterns of phylogenetic reconstruction. This is a positive development, but has regrettably been accompanied by a decline in the number of systematists at many institutions, with a corresponding decline in the breadth of systematic expertise.

The growing use of the Worldwide Web and other electronic information sources poses a significant challenge for the future of paleontology in general, and for museums and institutions in particular. But perhaps more importantly it suggests an opportunity for much tighter integration of collections and research between different institutions. As the primary repositories of collections-based information, museums and collections-based research institutions should be playing a leading role in the development of appropriate, integrated collections databases and secondary research databases. Such an effort requires ongoing development of new systematic expertise, but will have important pay-offs for the increasing relevancy of museums and institutions, for paleontology as a whole, and for exhibit/outreach activities. Specifically:

1. Development of an integrated WWW front-end to allow searching of collections databases for systematic and occurrence information.
2. Aggressive development of secondary databases of systematic, stratigraphic, environmental and biogeographic information, with links to appropriate images and associated information, including character matrices. The 'Electronic Treatise' is such a project within invertebrate paleontology.

Difficulties Ahead

Regrettably, one of the greatest challenges facing museums and other collections-based research organizations is the growing number of 'orphaned collections', collections, often of substantial research value. Even though these materials have been once collected with much effort, labor and expense (Teichert, Sweet, Boucot & Ziegler, 1987), they have been abandoned by their host institution; others have been locked up in undescribed fossil collections and thus lie unused. Preserving those portions of such collections which are likely to be of value for future research is an important role for museums, yet many museums are themselves facing space constraints and declining support for collections support and primary systematic activities. Managing the orderly disposition of these collections, as well as internal triage of existing collections to produce "new" space, will be an important challenge for all museum scientists. This is made doubly difficult by the constant uncertainty over what material will prove useful in the next century.

A second major challenge lies in maintaining an active constituency, both within paleontology and more for museum and institutions, in the face of declining support for such activities. Confronting this challenge will require efforts to build and maintain constituencies for museums and institutions within the field, within science as a whole, with government officials, and across a broader public.

Best Case/Worse Case Scenarios

The worst case scenario is a continuation of existing trends in declining support for research, collections and outreach activities. The disturbing increase in the number of orphaned collections in the United States and elsewhere could easily overwhelm the abilities of remaining institutions to accept this material, leading to loss of the immensely rich heritage of past generations of paleontologists. Similarly, an entire generation of systematists has been retiring for several years and many of these specialists are not being replaced and new generations of specialists are not being trained. Such a loss of accumulated systematic knowledge portends an increasing ignorance of the detailed history of important fossil groups, with corresponding effects on studies of the rate and pattern of evolutionary change, the history of mass extinctions, post-extinction recoveries and evolutionary radiations, paleoenvironmental, paleoclimatologic and paleobiogeographic reconstruction and stratigraphic correlation. Even the development of exciting new techniques in these areas will not substitute for degradation in the reliability of the fundamental data of paleontology.

As with any institution, the future of museums is largely dependent upon their own activities. Museums cannot remain healthy if they retreat and become bastions of systematic practice while other areas of paleontology address other research questions. Museums must continue to address the most critical issues within paleontology, but within a specimen-based context. The best case scenario for museums and institutions is to continue to engage the public in learning about the history of life, to be proactive in converting this public interest into support for collections and research, and to remain active contributors to the intellectual vitality of paleontology.

Summary

History, intellectual fundaments. Purpose and the inevitable significance for the study of life of Natural History Museums have been outlined. The essential tasks of the museums today and in the future are: collect, classify, preserve, research, exhibit and educate the public.

References

Cato, Paisley S. & Jones, C. (eds.). 1991. Natural History Museums. Directions for Growth. Texas Tech. Univ. Press. 252 pp., Lubbock, Texas.

Glaser, Jane R. & Zenetou, Artemis A. (eds.). 1996. Museums: A place to work. Routledge, 302 pp., London.

Hudson, K. 1987. Museums of Influence. Cambridge Univ. Press., 220 pp., Cambridge.

Schaefer, W. (1964). Naturwissenschaftliche Museen als Forschungsstaetten.. Aufsaetze und Reden Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft. 14, 28 pp., Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main.

Teichert, C., Sweet, W. C. & Boucot, A. J. 1987. The unpublished fossil record: Implications.- With a foreword by W. Ziegler. Senckenbergiana lethaea, 68, 1-19, Frankfurt am Main.

Ziegler, Willi (ed.). 1995. Naturhistorische Sammlungen in Hessen.- Aufsaetze und Reden Senckenbergische Naturforsche Gesellschaft. 44, 77 pp., Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main.

Ziegler, W. & Krupp, F. 1996. The role of taxonomic research in biodiversity conservation. In Krupp.F. Abuzinada, A.H. & Nader, I. A. (eds.). A marine wildlife sanctuary for the Arabian Gulf. Environmental research and conservation following the 1991 Gulf War Oil Spill. NCWCD, Riyadh and Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt, 193-198. Frankfurt am Main 

Museum and Institutional Paleontology Delegates

Dr. Douglas H. Erwin--Topic Coordinator
Smithsonian Institution
Department of Paleobiology
MRC 121
Washington DC 20560-0001 USA
Erwin.Doug@NMNH.SI.EDU
202-357-2053

Prof. W. Ziegler--Topic Coordinator
Pallisenweg #6.
D-6003 Hungen-1, GERMANY
wziegler@sngkw.uni-frankfurt.de
49-6402-1421 (FAX)
49-6402-1421 (PHONE)

Dr. Reinhold Leinfelder
Institut fuer Geologie und Palaeontologie
Universitaet Stuttgart, Herdweg 51
D-70174 Stuttgart,Germany
reinhold.leinfelder@po.uni-stuttgart.de
49-711-121-1341 (FAX)
49-711-121-1339 (PHONE)

Dr. Giovanni Pinna
Viale Cassiiodoro 1, 20145 Milano ITALY
02-76022287 (FAX)
0248014352 (PHONE)

Dr. Sun Weiguo
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology
Academia Sinica, 39 East Beijing Road
Nanjing, 210008, PRC
weiguo@pub.nj-online.nj.js.cn
86-25-3357026 (FAX)
Telex: 342301 NJIGP CN
86-25-3357026 (PHONE) 

This page is maintained for the Paleo21 Organizing Committee by Norman MacLeod and H. Richard Lane. Corrections, inquiries about, and updates to any of the information shown above should be directed to Norm and/or Rich.