Natural history collections are rapidly being recognized as critical resources for understanding ecological change. Archival specimens allow researchers to directly observe populations and communities over otherwise inaccessible spatial and temporal scales. However, natural history collections were not originally designed primarily for the purpose of monitoring and forecasting change. Therefore, their samples can reflect idiosyncratic collection methods, reflecting sampling strategies that tend to focus on maximizing taxonomic and geographic diversity. In contrast, ecological biorepositories are specifically devised to detect biological responses to change. Archiving and facilitating research use of nearly all physical samples collected by NEON, the NEON Biorepository is the most comprehensive example of such a biorepository to date. The samples housed at the NEON Biorepository reflect the within species variation, community composition, and ecosystem properties of NEON sites over time and are preserved with methods that maximize their long-term research potential. However, the NEON Biorepository consists of samples from a limited number of geographic sites and taxonomic groups, and temporal sampling is shallow at this early stage of the project. We investigate how the unique features of natural history collections and the NEON Biorepository can complement each other to maximize our ability to detect signals of biological change.
Results/Conclusions
We quantify differences in the spatial, temporal, and taxonomic extent of occurrence records of NEON focal insect and small mammal groups from the NEON Biorepository and other natural history collection data portals. In doing so, we are able to identify taxa and geographic locations for which sampling within natural history collections is conducive to integration with NEON Biorepository samples. We show how incorporating samples from each of these different types of collections can illuminate spatial and temporal trends in, for example, phenology and community composition. Finally, we discuss ongoing and potential future work leveraging NEON Biorepository samples to study macroecology, population structure, microbial ecology, ecosystem ecology, and species interactions.