Grandma, what a big brain you have!

All the better to survive with, my dear

 

Used with permission from Nicola L. Robinson.

Editor’s Note: SciColl held our first community workshop on Emerging Infectious Diseases in October 2014. This October we're posting several pieces that highlight the important work where collections continue to play an integral role.

Editor’s Note: SciColl intern, Ebubechi Okpalugo from Pembroke College, contributed this article as part of her time in the SciColl office during Summer 2017.

Sit down with a prehistoric relative of ours from the genus Homo - their extinction making it a lot easier said than done - and you’ll notice something significantly different: their heads, and therefore brains, are a fraction of the size of a modern human’s. Why exactly did brain size increase? Quite simply, large and complex brains can process and store more information, which was hugely beneficial to humans as they developed skills and social interaction.

The Smithsonian NMNH Human Origins exhibit houses a collection of fossil skull remnants dating back as far as 3 million years ago, as well as silicon reconstructions of early humans. One can see a gradual change in facial features, body hair and most significantly, head shape and size. Over the course of human evolution, it’s found that brain size tripled, with the modern human brain being the largest and most complex of any living primate. But, size alone doesn't tell us much about thinking ability.

Here’s a bit of what we know. 

The Archaeogenomics Equation

What do you get when you mix archaeology, ecology, wildlife management, and conservation genomics? No, this isn’t a tagline similar to a duck-in-a-bar joke. What you have is an emerging field of studying called conservation archaeogenomics.

At the forefront of this work are Robert Fleischer and Jesús Maldonado, both of the Center for Conservation Genomics (CCG) at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and National Zoo. The purpose of archaeogenomics is to use genomic methods to learn how humans impacted the environment over time, and Fleischer and Maldonado use this information to make recommendations for conservation.

The Greatest Hits

Fig.1. Museum in Pennsylvania (Credit: Michelle J. Enemark, 2011) and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault 
 (Credit: Mari Tefre, Global Crop Diversity Trust, via Flickr) 

Editor’s Note: After two years of exciting and engaging work, staff writer Adele Crane will be leaving Scientific Collections International for graduate school in Arizona. Out of 214 posts garnering more than 34,500 views, Adele chose some of her favorite articles.

From a small natural history museum in Pennsylvania to a seed-bank built to survive doomsday scenarios, collections reside all around the world in many forms. My work over the past two years with Scientific Collections International (SciColl) has been to chip away at only a fraction of the specimens and samples out there, exploring a slew of topics from microbes in your backyard to moon rocks - and on rare cases, even both!

When we initially started the blog, we wanted to connect collections to disease research and response. Articles on cross-disciplinary and novel approaches to outbreaks would lead up to SciColl’s very first workshop on Emerging Infectious Diseases. The workshop was indeed timely, coinciding with the Ebola epidemic in Africa, and it highlighted the need to make this type of active outreach ongoing, instead of sporadic.

Perhaps as a preface to the type of work I will pursue in graduate school, my favorite articles were a fantastic education on how to bridge unique specimens with historic and current disease research. To break down the broad topic of “emerging infectious diseases,” we focused on smaller case studies of known and relatively unknown pathogens that affect millions around the world:

• Disease Collections and How They Can Save the World: In 1976, a broken vial of blood transported in luggage from the Democratic Republic of the Congo found its way to the young Belgian scientist, Peter Piot. The blood carried one of the most feared pathogens in current disease research. 

• C. Miguel Pinto, the Disease Detective: A conversation with C. Miguel Pinto in our very own museum explored the cross-section of disease research and classic taxonomy, in which basic evolutionary principles are tested. 

Fig.2. Plate of microorganisms that were cultured from the soil
(Credit: Julia Stevens)

Over the course of the blog, we looked beyond case studies and current research challenges. How can ancient specimens inform future problems? There are many examples where collections were used to further important research in areas like environmental change and food security.

When we take a step back, the larger impacts of educating the next generation of scientists or bringing countries together to protect biodiversity are extraordinarily important. After working with SciColl, I am grateful to have gained that perspective and I hope to hear many more of these stories in years to come:

• Microbes and Middle Schools: Citizen science has the ability to reach both students and researchers in powerful ways. Collections that not only support invasive species studies but engage middle schoolers in science are a cornerstone of ongoing work at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. 

• Seeds for the End of the World: Seed banks preserve both biological diversity and cultural heritage. Banks around the world, from Peru to Norway, are working to provide a future for agriculture and historical practices. 

• Smart Collecting: A New Collecting Culture: What began as a short discussion in our Emerging Infectious Disease workshop turned into a larger conversation about a “collecting culture” that could be improved for museums and biobanks alike.

Save the Date: Food Security Symposium

We are excited to announce the symposium “Stressors and Drivers of Food Security: Evidence from Scientific Collections,” which will bring together researchers and experts on scientific collections across disciplines to address issues regarding food security. This symposium will be held September 19 to 21 at the National Agriculture Library in Beltsville, Md., and will be hosted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Scientific Collections International.

The Assassin (Flies) of Entomology

Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of videos we will release in 2016 about the use of scientific collections and DNA technology.

Torsten Dikow has traveled around the world to find the perfect fit. And he seems to have found it at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).

The Ultimate Identifier

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of videos we will release in 2016 about the use of scientific collections and DNA technology.

When it comes to reliable plant identification in their work, Ida Lopez and Dr. Caroline Puente, of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) Plant DNA Barcoding Project, botany department, have a tool most associate with the retail world. But barcodes, in this case DNA barcodes, are creating many research opportunities in the scientific world in areas of ecology, evolution, conservation and more.

A DNA barcode, which is made up of approximately 600 base pairs of the species’ entire genome, can authentically identify down to the species level. A commonly used barcode marker in animals is the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1). This gene however does not successfully identify plant species.

“We knew that in animals the CO1 site was very indicative,” Lopez said. “Zoologists could just sequence this one site and tell exactly what type of animal it was.”

Because the CO1 gene has evolved slower in plants, it is not useful to identify plant species. So around 10 years ago, researchers, under the direction of John Kress, NMNH Department of Botany curator, began looking for candidate genes in plants. They found that they needed a combination of at least two chloroplast regions - rbcL and trnH-psbA - to create a workable plant DNA barcode. Today matK, another chloroplast gene, and a nuclear region – the Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) are added to insure success.

While researchers agree that fresh tissue is ideal for extracting DNA, Puente said that in cases where scientists can’t revisit a location to collect samples, museum collections, in this case botanical specimens, are invaluable.

“One of the big advantages of DNA barcoding is that we do not need a lot of tissue material” Puente said. “... You can barcode small organisms such as insects and bacteria - anything that has DNA even in limited amounts.”

A tissue sample just a little larger than a pencil eraser is enough for DNA extraction and barcoding. Lopez and Puente have specimens at their fingertips in the Department of Botany’s vast collection at NMNH. The collection holds 5 million specimens, with approximately 105,000 of those serving as type specimens.

To learn more about Lopez and Puente's work, visit The Plant DNA Barcode Project.


References
W. John Kress, Carlos García-Robledo, Maria Uriarte, and David L. Erickson (2014, November 19). DNA barcodes for ecology, evolution, and conservation. CellPress, vol 30 (1): 25-35. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2014.10.008

What is DNA Barcoding? Barcode of Life. Retrieved from http://www.barcodeoflife.org/content/about/what-dna-barcoding 

W. John Kress, David L. Erickson. (2007, June 6) A Two-Locus Global DNA Barcode for Land Plants: The Coding rbcL Gene Complements the Non-Coding trnH-psbA Spacer Region. PLOSOne(6): e508. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000508

Search the Department of Botany Collections. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved from http://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/botany/

Plant DNA Barcode Project. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved from http://botany.si.edu/projects/DNAbarcode/

Glossary

type specimens
The representative for an animal or plant species, which acts as a reference point when a species is first named.

A Year in the Life of Scientific Collections

Fig.1. Scenes from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Credit left to right: Neil Palmer/CIAT, 2011; Mari Tefre/Global Crop Diversity Trust, 2008; Dag Terje Filip Endresen/Svalbard Global Seed Vault, 2008)

Earlier this year, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) made a request to withdraw seeds from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which holds more than 850,000 samples from every country in the world. This request is the first of its kind for the “Doomsday Vault” that holds duplicate seed samples for national and international gene banks. The Syrian civil war forced ICARDA to move its headquarters from Aleppo, Syria, to Beirut, Lebanon, in 2012, and researchers managed to save 80 percent of the seed samples by sending them into storage at Svalbard.

Although such a withdrawal will allow ICARDA to regenerate these precious samples, it reveals the vulnerability of collections to war or even natural disasters. The year of 2015 marked a specific effort by individuals and organizations around the world to protect and sustain scientific collections, from those housed in natural history museums to frozen specimens in gene banks. We identified major trends that have affected both how collections are viewed in science and policy, as well as how they can be protected for generations to come. Read to learn more about what happened in the collections world this year, and what you should watch out for in 2016.

In the News: Museum Closure

Fig.1. The Illinois State Museum is closed to the public
 (Credit: Mike Linksvayer via Flickr)

The closure of a top natural history museum, a withdrawal from the ‘doomsday’ vault, and the arrival of a huge dinosaur skeleton herald major changes underway for these top research institutions and museums around the world:

Happy Birthday, Collections in the News!

One year ago today, Collections in the News published its first article about ongoing research regarding collections and how they can tell us more about the world. To celebrate, here are our top five most viewed and shared articles from the past year:  

Collection Spotlight: NMNH Vertebrate Paleontology 

We learned about preserving fossils for future researchers and museum visitors, thanks to Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues, curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

Microbes and Middle Schools 

Dr. Julia Stevens at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences told us why teaching middle school students about soil microbiology is important for the future of science. 

Tracing the History of Disease

New technologies were applied to old history in Dr. Loren Sackett’s work with wildlife diseases that cross over into humans.

“Evil Twin” of Climate Change

Ocean acidification is an ongoing threat to sea life and is only part of how climate change will affect our world, but information from sediment cores may help us to mitigate the problem.

Smallpox, Now Online! 

In an age where digitizing collections are the norm, we talked about how the question of open-access data is at the forefront of biosecurity.

Conferences chatterings (and tweetings)

Report explores use of scientific collections in combating emerging infectious diseases

Editor's Note

The October 2014 workshop report can be seen here. For more information about SciColl, visit www.scicoll.org.

WASHINGTON -- Scientific Collections International, or SciColl, a global consortium devoted to promoting the use and impact of object-based scientific collections across disciplines, hosted a two-day workshop in October 2014, bringing together some of the world’s leading minds in emerging infectious diseases.