Biological Collections

Museums are local-to-global organizations operating in a digitized, distributed, and diverse 21st century world. Museums leaders face significant challenges in achieving broader relevance, meaningful engagement, and equitable outreach. This article examines the transformative potential of digitized collections to increase public engagement and enhance authentic educational efforts of museums, with specific emphasis on visual media as a key resource to achieve these outcomes. Using digitized collections to broaden learning opportunities and support a wide range of users will require museum leaders to engage in strategic digitization efforts-supplementing research images, making conscious decisions about meeting educational needs when setting digitization policies, and investing in meaningful outreach with digitized collections. Educational opportunities are contextualized with brief case studies of authentic investigations for middle school learners using digitized objects from a natural history museum. Three lessons learned during development and evaluation are described and implications for museum leaders are discussed.

In this paper we discuss aspects of interdisciplinary Museology and Biology, based on Zoology's collections and museums. Thus, from a clipping within natural science collections, we question the similarities between Museology and Biology and discuss about some recurring points in the literature and the different roles in research and curatorial process. At the end, we bring the discussion on the challenges and advances in the field of mediation between museums and the public through educational activities.

Este artigo expõe um breve relato de dois projetos de extensão realizados no herbário SMDB, da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, RS, Brasil. O referido herbário apresenta, atualmente, um acervo de 16.800 espécimes vegetais e de fungos. Representa a flora regional, incluindo espécies do Pampa e da Mata Atlântica. Um dos projetos desenvolvidos, constituiu-se em receber estudantes de ensino fundamental e médio, apresentando-se o herbário e sua importância no registro da biodiversidade e no auxílio a projetos de pesquisa e conservação da flora. Em dois anos foram recebidos 900 estudantes e 56 professores. Outro projeto dedicou-se à disponibilização de dados através da colaboração com o Projeto INCT-CRIA do Herbário Virtual de Plantas e Fungos do Brasil. Primeiramente, foram incluídos dados no sistema BRAHMS, e depois foram  disponibilizados em rede. Em 2016, houve 305.219 registros de consulta aos dados disponibilizados. Os projetos possibilitaram a participação de diversos acadêmicos, que apresentaram seus resultados na Jornada Acadêmica da UFSM (JAI-UFSM).

are characterized by divergent karyotypes and are genetically distinct. Blarina species are similar morphologically but, in most cases, can be distinguished morphometrically. Blarina distributions tend to be parapatric along well-defined contact zones; however, it has been suggested that the northern short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda (Say, 1823)) and Elliot's short-tailed shrew (Blarina hylophaga Elliot, 1899) occur sympatrically in Iowa and Missouri. To evaluate this possibility, 179 specimens were collected in southwestern Iowa and northwestern Missouri. Karyotypes and total length were used for field identification, and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis was used to verify field identifications and to investigate the extent of hybridization. One hundred seventyeight of 179 specimens were identified to species. The one exception had a karyotype of B. brevicauda (2n = 50, FN = 48); however, AFLP analysis indicated that this individual was likely an F1 hybrid. No backcrosses were detected, so it appears that introgression is minimal. The putative hybrid was trapped at a locality with B. brevicauda just north of a locality having only B. hylophaga. No locality contained both species. Therefore, these species are not broadly sympatric as has been suggested, but rather exhibit a distribution similar to the pattern of parapatry seen in most of the contact zones of Blarina. Résumé : Les musaraignes à queue courte (du genre Blarina Gray, 1838) se caractérisent par des caryotypes divergents et sont génétiquement distinctes. Les espèces de Blarina sont semblables morphologiquement, mais dans la plupart des cas, la morphométrie permet de les distinguer. Les répartitions des Blarina ont tendance à être parapatriques le long de zones de contact bien définies; on croit néanmoins que la grande musaraigne à queue courte (Blarina brevicauda (Say, 1823)) et la musaraigne à queue courte d'Elliot (Blarina hylophaga Elliot, 1899) se retrouvent en sympatrie en Iowa et au Missouri. Afin de vérifier cette possibilité, nous avons récolté 179 spécimens dans le sud-ouest de l'Iowa et le nord-ouest du Missouri. Les caryotypes et la longueur totale nous ont servi pour les identifications de terrain et une analyse du polymorphisme des longueurs des segments amplifiés (AFLP) a permis de confirmer les identifications de terrain et de déterminer l'importance de l'hybridation. Des 179 spécimens, 178 ont été identifiés à l'espèce. La seule exception avait un caryotype de B. brevicauda (2n = 50, FN = 48); cependant l'analyse de ALFP indique que cet individu est vraisemblablement un hybride de F1. Comme il n'y a aucune indication de rétrocroisement, l'introgression semble minimale. L'hybride putatif a été piégé dans une localité contenant B. brevicauda située juste au nord d'une localité où vit seulement B. hylophaga. Aucune localité ne contient les deux espèces. Les deux espèces ne possèdent donc pas une importante zone de sympatrie, comme on le croyait; ils ont plutôt une répartition parapatrique du type observé dans la plupart des zones de contact de Blarina. [Traduit par la Rédaction]