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Natural History Collections Club Network Workshop

The Natural History Collections Club Network (NHCCN) will be hosting a half day workshop at the annual meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) in Denver, CO on Sunday, June 18^th. The purpose of the workshop is to raise awareness of Natural History Collections Clubs and to recruit new clubs into the network. Content of the workshop will include guidelines and strategies for starting a new club and methods for becoming a part of NHCCN. We have funding to support two individuals each from seven institutions to attend the workshop and the SPNHC conference. This includes funding for your registration, room, and travel to SPNHC from June 17-June 24, 2017. The NHCCN is made of several clubs that are curator-advised, student-driven organizations aimed at enhancing local natural history collections by helping to train student volunteers to assist in curating and managing them. The network represents clubs from all types of universities but seems to most benefit those with small collections as a way to protect and raise enthusiasm for their collections. We are particularly interested in institutions with small collections and/or minority serving institutions but anyone is welcome to apply.

Link to Application: https://goo.gl/forms/zXtIv2kVM0TNYiou1

Please contact Kari Harris at kharris@astate.edu for more information.

2017 WiSE Girlz Spring camp

Herbarium Manager Position at the University of Connecticut

The CONN Herbarium at the University of Connecticut is pleased to announce that we are now searching for a herbarium manager. This is a full time position requires curatorial experience and a detailed knowledge of modern herbarium practices including digital specimen data basing, a master's degree in botany or a related field, a working knowledge of the eastern North American flora, and a strong background in taxonomy and nomenclature. We appreciate your help in forwarding this email to anyone who might be interested in the position.

More details about the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UConn can be found at: http://eeb.uconn.edu/

And for details about the EEB Collections Facility go to http://biodiversity.uconn.edu/.

For questions about the position, please contact Cindi Jones (cynthia.s.jones@Uconn.edu).

Digital Photography 101 Workshop

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May 2017 Biodiversity Spotlight

Photo courtesy of Cathy Bester

Bering Land Bridge and the MyCoPortal

Contributed by: Teresa Iturriaga, Rhianna Baldree, Alex Kuhn, Andrew Miller

Mycologists long to collect
areas remote to most men
where fungi today may thrive
keeping plants, trees, and cycles alive.

Bridges are to their liking
since one can go underneath
connecting with what lies beneath.
About fungi this is most striking.

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Research Spotlight: May 2017

Using specimens to create a pollinator community assessment of restored tallgrass prairie

-- Contributed by Heather Cray, Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo

Animal species need space – a place to forage, grow, and nest. This is especially true of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), whose caterpillars generally feed exclusively on one genus or species of host plant (think monarch butterflies and milkweed). For the 4,000 or so species of native bees in North America, required forage plants and nesting sites vary from common suburban offerings (e.g., patches of bare ground, maples, willows, clover), to specialized needs which are ecosystem-specific. Enter tallgrass prairie – a grassland ecosystem with high forb diversity that supports a dizzying array of invertebrate life. As our continent’s most endangered ecosystem, the 1-3% that remains is a mix of remnant and restored habitat, and restoration efforts-- both large and small, are ongoing. Read more here.

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