Curation status of Diptera

Introduction

In 1985, the Smithsonian's Entomology Collections Committee developed the Smithsonian Collections Standards and Profiling System to address problems of collection management: conservation, accessibility, physical curation and data capture. This system allows for standardisation of data on collection holdings and thus for comparison between collections. It also provides for measurement of progress in curation within a collection after the establishment of a baseline curation status. The system works by assigning a numerical curation code to the basic units used in insect collections (see McGinley, R.J. 1989. Entomological Collection Management - are we really managing? Insect Collection News 2 (2): 19-24). Briefly, the levels are as follows:

Level 1: Conservation problem, either one of physical curation or one of potential information loss - for example unlabelled specimens in the general collection.

Level 2: Unidentified material, sorted only to major (usually suprageneric) groups and effectively inaccessible to the research community.

Level 3: Unidentified material, sorted to "Loanable units" (usually genus, but variable depending on group) and accessible to the research community. For most groups of Diptera, this was material sorted to family level.

Level 4: Material identified to species level but not incorporated into main collection (e.g., material identified for biodiversity or ecological studies, surveys, etc.).

Level 5: Identified and integrated material which is inadequately curated.

Level 6: Identified, integrated, and adequately curated.

Level 7: Physical curation complete, species level inventory complete (e.g., Fauna of New Zealand volume material, or most recent revision of group).

Level 8: Physical curation complete, individual specimen label data captured (the only material in this category is the Diptera primary type collection).

In August 2002, the baseline curation status of the NZAC Diptera pinned specimen collection was determined using this system. The basic storage units used in the NZAC are wooden boxes, and the number of specimens in a full box can vary from less than 10 (e.g., large identified tipulids) to about 300 (unidentified small specimens). Accordingly, numbers of individual specimens have been estimated for each category, instead of numbers of storage units. The estimates for all but primary type specimens (Level 8) are approximate and have been rounded to the nearest 10. Only when holdings for a family were less than 20 were actual numbers recorded; these specimens were usually comparative material from countries outside New Zealand of families not represented in the New Zealand subregion. Specimens currently on loan to researchers were not included, except for Muscidae for which it was known the specimens were in Level 3.

Results

The results are presented in summary form below. Detailed results for each of the 92 families represented in NZAC pinned specimen holdings are provided, in both alphabetical and systematic order.

The results can be used for a number of purposes:

1. They indicate the relative curation status of the major groups of Diptera, and thereby provide a basis for discussions and decisions on where relative curation effort should be focused.;
2. The individual family results indicate the amount of material available to researchers for study, and the relative curation state of the material.
3. The numbers of specimens for each family will help plan the transfer of the specimens from the current store box system to new drawers in cabinets, which is due due to take place in the latter part of 2003.

No specimens were assigned to level 1, as it was considered there were no conservation problems present. However, about 20% of the collection was assigned to level 2 because these specimens are not readily available to researchers. Levels 3 and 6 each had about a third of the specimens assigned to them, which is considered an indicator of an actively used collection in which there is both new material being collected and made available to researchers as well as identified material available for use by a wider number of researchers.

The family with the most pinned specimens is Tachinidae, with an estimated 8900: it also has about two-thirds of the specimens identified to level 6 (species-level), mainly through the efforts of J.S. Dugdale. There are nearly 7000 Dolichopodidae, of which about half are curated to level 6. The third largest family is Ephydridae with an estimated 6300 specimens; about three-quarters are curated to level 6 through the recent curatorial efforts of visiting researchers V. Hollmann-Schirrmacher and W. Mathis.

The Mycetophilidae (fungus gnats) are a large, speciose family with about 4500 specimens; however, only about 20% are identified to level 6, mostly through the research of A.L. Tonnoir in the 1920s. There are many other smaller families with a similar curation profile (see table of families arranged systematically or alphabetically), reflecting the relative lack of research effort on them since NZAC was started in the early 1920s.

Acknowledgement

This work was funded by FRST under contract CO9X0002

Update 14 November 2007

Over the last 2 years, the number of specimens in categories 1 and 2 has been reduced to a low number. Mr Stephen Thorpe sorted all the New Zealand specimens and most of the overseas specimens to at least family level, and added thousands of additional specimens from various sources including his own collecting. This means that nearly all pinned Diptera specimens are now at least category 3 of "loanable units".

During his sorting Stephen discovered two new genera and species representing two families new to the New Zealand fauna. Recently Rohacek (2007) described Zealantha thorpei in the family Anthomyzidae (Zootaxa 1576) , and Winterton will be formally recording the presence of the family Apsilocephalidae by describing a new genus and species.

In 2007 the presence of the family Fergusoninidae In New Zealand was formally recorded by description of Fergusonina metrosiderosi Taylor sp.n. (Taylor, Davies, Crosby & Martin, 2007 Systematic Entomology 32).