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Collecting the Real Thing
Worldwide
Science at Carnegie Museum of Natural History
By R.J. Gangewere
When Charles Darwin
argued in 1859 that humans were descended from apes, educated people were
outraged. When Alfred Wegener
proposed in 1915 that the continents were drifting apart, he was laughed
at. When Stephen Jay Gould argued in the 1990s that humankind was only a
tiny accident on a minor side branch of the evolutionary tree, people were
upset.
Each scientist works
from the scientific collections and evidence of his or her own time, and
these three theorists came to conclusions that changed the way people think
about the world. Surprises about the
natural world continue in our time, and in some ways have been
accelerated. This is because in the
last century research collections have grown remarkably, computers have
learned to analyze databases, molecular study has taken investigation to a
new level, and new areas of the world have become more accessible.
Museum research is like putting the apple back on the tree
The scientists at
Carnegie Museum of Natural History are very much at the frontier of this
continuous age of discovery. They collect worldwide, document specimens scientifically, develop
systematic collections, and share them with world experts. They publish prolifically in scientific
journals, are part of a global network of specialists in their field, and
they ask questions about Earth history that are narrowly specific but often
fundamental to our understanding of evolution and the way the world works.
One clear sign of
the museum's priorities, notes director Bill DeWalt, is that a whopping 42
percent of its annual budget is devoted to research and the maintenance of
its collections. Another recent sign is the development of a new
position--Associate Director of Research and Collections. This will be filled by Hans-Dieter Sues,
who comes to Pittsburgh from the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, where he
was vice-president with similar responsibilities.
Internationally, Carnegie
Museum of Natural History has 120 research associates and field workers who
add to its collections, study its specimens, and contribute to scientific
publications. Some are from the
University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, but many are based
in research institutes, museums and universities in China, Japan, Chile,
Brazil, Australia, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Mexico, and other countries.
Paleontologist
Zhexi-Luo regards his research colleagues as "the best in China"
when he does fieldwork in that country. Anthropologist Sandra Olsen works
with the world's foremost authorities on horses for her studies of the
nomadic horse culture of Eastern Asia.
Olsen's scientific colleagues from Russia, Europe and the United
States assembled at Powdermill Nature Reserve for a scientific retreat in
2000--topped off by a day of horse activities in collaboration with the
Rolling Rock Club. Powdermill has hosted a series of international study
groups in various disciplines. The
rustic setting in the beautiful Laurel Highlands makes it an ideal retreat.
What Collections Tell Us
In today's
environmentally challenged world, museum scientists are called upon to
document the recent past. What
butterflies flew in western
Pennsylvania 50 years ago? The museum
can answer with tens of thousands of real specimens. Big collections have one of their
greatest values in assisting in conservation and the management of living
things--in planning for biodiversity.
Museum science also
redefines the ancient past. Did
birds evolve from dinosaurs? In the
Victorian era, famous naturalists such as Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin
could theorize that birds evolved from dinosaurs, but they lacked today's
collection-based evidence of transitional species, and the modern analytical
techniques to support their arguments. Today, the museum has the fossils to
make the argument.
New discoveries
constantly increase our knowledge. The earliest known placental mammal
species--the "Dawn mother" (Eomaia
scansoria), was recently brought to light by paleontologist
Zhexi Luo and mammals curator John Wible. Luo is associate curator of the
section of Vertebrate Paleontology, which houses the famous collection of
fossil dinosaurs that originally placed Carnegie Museum high on the list of
world research museums.
Curator Christopher
Beard, another vertebrate paleontologist, recently received the prestigious
MacArthur Fellows award for his research into primate evolution. One of
Beard's accomplishments is the discovery in China in 1995 of a 40-million
year old fossil primate that he named Eosimius
centennicus, in honor that year
of the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Museum of Natural
History.
The head of
vertebrate paleontology, curator Mary Dawson, herself documented the first
occurrence of mammal migration across the North Atlantic from North America
to Western Europe. These extinct "ice mice" crossed 50 million
years ago from one continent to another on a land bridge, a migration that
indirectly reinforced Wegener's theory of moving continents.
The museum "conducts exceptional scientific inquiry to
create knowledge of, and to promote stewardship of, Earth and its
life."
—Museum
mission statement
More directly
reinforcing the theory of moving continents is the decade-long work of
paleontologist David Berman. Working
with colleagues in Central Germany, Berman has demonstrated similarities
between animals in North America and Central Europe during the Permian
period (280-230 million years ago), a time of mass extinctions and a
profusion of amphibian species. By looking
at older marine fossils from over 350 million years ago, invertebrate
paleontologist Albert Kollar helps document changes in biodiversity, and the
global extinctions of species, all related to rising and falling sea
levels. Having collections that represent long periods of time spread over
great physical distances is a key to explaining the origins and variations
of species.
There are ten scientific
sections with important collections at Carnegie Museum of Natural
history. With some 20 million
scientifically identified research specimens, this museum has a
long-standing reputation as one of the world's top 10 research museums. Despite the small size of its curatorial
staff, the museum's researchers consistently publish as many or more research
articles in prestigious journals like Nature
and Science than do the
combined faculties of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon
University.
The Collector's Passion, and Impact
It's no surprise
that research collections reflect the passions of the scientists. Some men are happier with their
collection of shells than millionaires are with their dollars, said a
Victorian writer. This is especially
true when the collections have many "type" specimens (or
"holotypes"). These are the original examples used to identify
each unique species, and Carnegie Museum of Natural History has thousands
of them, including famous dinosaur type specimens like Tyrannosaurus rex and
Diplodocus carnegii.
Carnegie Museum of
Natural History's collections often have unforseen impact. The freshwater shells collected by the
museum's Arnold Ortmann a century ago are now regarded as the gold standard
for identifying the species that once lived in western Pennsylvania's
unpolluted rivers and streams. This
is critical to modern conservation efforts in the region. Another long-range impact developed in
Peru in the 1990s, when Carnegie Museum anthropologist James Richardson III
collected shellfish and fish remains from ancient coastal settlements. This, in turn, led to conclusions about
the origins of El Niňo, the ocean-atmospheric system that produces
catastrophic rains, warmer temperatures, and coastal flooding. Richardson also recently solved one of the greatest mysteries
in western Pennsylvania archaeology - what happened to the Monongahela
Indians who had disappeared from southwest Pennsylvania by 1635? On the basis of tree ring data, he and
his colleagues have proposed that drought destroyed their agriculture,
forcing them to leave the area.
The head of the
section of Mollusks, Tim Pearce, can give examples of how collected species are used to further
"bio-prospecting"--the identification of certain species with
economic value. One example is a
tropical marine snail that produces a chemical 100 to 1000 times more
powerful than morphine, without the side effects. This chemical might have medical value as
a pain killer and is currently in clinical trials. The practical value of collections is
found not only in medicine, but also in industry, conservation and
entertainment.
In all this
research, the passion that unites museum scientists is that their work is
collection-based. Curators are hired because they can grow, support,
defend, and share their research collections, says John Rawlins, associate
curator of Invertebrate Zoology.
Research collections
evolve over long periods of time--making them different from some
university and private collections, which reflect the focus of one
collector, or an institutional mission.
Museum collections and research
are also a hotbed of educational experiences for young people, who are the
collectors and scientists of tomorrow.
One spectacular educational exhibit, Hillman
Hall of Minerals & Gems under mineralogist Marc Wilson is known
internationally as one of the top three mineral exhibits in the country.
Focusing the Research
Collections have
special strengths. The museum's
Curator of Birds, Brad Livezey, notes that he curates one of the best
scientific collections of bird skeletons, but that the greatest collection
of bird skins in the United States is at the American Museum of Natural
History. Entomologist Chen Young collects
and researches craneflies, one of the world's important insect food sources
for other life forms, and a key indicator of unpolluted streams. The museum's cranefly collection is one
of the top two in North America for specimens from around the globe.
The Anthropology
collection at Carnegie Museum of Natural History emphasizes New World
material--North and South America--and
pre-European material (before 1700) in western Pennsylvania. Thus, Anthropology curator David Watters
points out that when an "orphan" collection seeking a new home is
offered to the museum, he judges its value by the section's research needs
and goals.
The different states
of development in each field of research can be seen by the questions that
scientists ask. In some fields, the
age of discovery is past, and the age of interpretation and analysis
dominates. Since there are few new living birds or mammals to collect and
describe, ornithology and mammalogy turn more easily toward theoretical
analysis. John Weins of the section
of Amphibians and Reptiles is one scientist who seeks the answer to
theoretical questions such as why there are so many species prolific in the
Earth's hottest zone. Is there
something there that promotes diversity of species, or is there conversely
something in the colder temperate zone that reduces diversity?
Other fields, like
paleontology, botany, malacology and entomology, find the age of discovery
still booming, with abundant numbers of new species yet to be discovered
and described. In entomology,
experts face a future in which potentially millions of new species await
scientific description.
In the fall of 2002,
experts from Carnegie Museum of Natural History begin a worldwide effort to
inventory and collect fauna such as insects, plants, fungi, earthworms, and
snails remaining in Haiti and Dominican Republic--two of the most
threatened environments of the world.
Most of the vertebrates such as mammals and birds are already known. This three-year project is funded by the
National Science Foundation, and the scientific experts from Carnegie
Museum, entomologists John Rawlins and Chen Young, will supervise the
inventory in partnership with the Smithsonian and Harvard University. Hundreds of scientists from all over the
world will participate.
All these
scientists will focus on identifying and describing specimens, and building
collections. In short, they will be
in the field using the irreplaceable techniques of museum science. As Director Bill DeWalt says, “The great
natural history museums are a kind of ‘library’ of Earth and its
inhabitants. I personally feel a
tremendous responsibility to preserve and protect that library for use by
both scientists today as well as scientists of future generations.”
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