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The National Collections of Natural History at Tel Aviv University. There is no national museum of natural history in Israel, but two university collections – Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – are recognized as the national collections. Paleontology. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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The National Collections of Natural History at Tel Aviv
University
There is no national museum of natural history in Israel, but two university
collections – Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – are recognized as the national collections
Paleontology
Curators: Drs. Yuri Katz and Olga Orlov-Labkovsky
Physical anthropology• Human evolution • Human history and evolution (Israeli dig
sites)
Curators: Profs. Yoel Rak and Israel Hershkovitz
Fishes (ca. 150,000 specimens in 14,400 lots)
• Mediterranean• Red Sea• Freshwater
Curator: Dr. Menachem Goren, Assoc. curator: Dr. Roi Holzman
Collections manager: Dr. Revital Zaslow, Nir Stern
Land vertebrates• Mammals (ca. 12,000 specimens)• Birds (ca. 16,000 specimens)• Reptiles (ca. 16,000 specimens)• Amphibians (ca. 2000 specimens)
Curator: Dr. Shai MeiriTaxidermists: Igor Gavrilov, Dr. Stas VolinchikCollections managers: Daniel Berkowic, Arieh Landsman, Erez Maza
Mollusca(55000 specimens)
• Mediterranean• Red Sea• Freshwater• Terrestrial
Curator: Dr. Frida Ben AmiCollections manager: Henk
Mienis, Oz Ritner
Invertebrates (except mollusks & insects, hundreds of thousands of specimens)
• Mediterranean• Red Sea• Freshwater• Terrestrial
Curator: Prof. Yehuda BenayahuAssoc. Curators: Profs. Yossi Loya, Bela Galil, Micha Ilan
Collections managers: Dr. Revital Zaslow, Alex Shlagman, Dr. Sigal Shefer, Dr. Tamar Feldstein
Entomology (ca. 2-3 million specimens)
Curators: Drs. Amnon Freidberg, Vladimir Chikatunov, Vassily Kravchenko, Sergei Zonstein, Netta Dorchin
Assoc. curators: Drs. Dani Simon, Yael Mandelik, Profs. Avraham Hefez, Dan Gerling
Collections managers: Leonid Friedman, Alex Shlagman, Tirza Stern, and Drs. Moshe Guershon, Ermin Eunesco, Wolf Koslitzky, Tatiana Novoselsky.
Herbarium• Fungi• Lichens• Algae
Curator: Dr. Silvia BlumenfeldCurators emeriti: Profs. Margalit Galun, Jacob Garty, Nissan Binyamini, and Yaakov Lipkin
Molecular collection
Curator: Dr. Dorothee HuchonCollection manager: Dr. Tamar Feldstein
Tissues for DNA extraction are now routinely collected from all land vertebrates and some invertebrates
The collections together with the Zoological and the Botanical Gardens
are open to the public through a variety of Nature Campus
activities
Support to agricultural, conservation, and environmental research and decision-making
• Setting conservation priorities• Agriculture (pests & Biological
control, Pollinators)• Air traffic (civilian & military)
Biodiversity / Ecosystems
Mammal presence
maps
Green – adhering to the Kyoto protocol
Climatic and environmental data layers
+ ++BAU-
business as usual
climate modelsMaxEnt model softwareMaximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions
Steven J. Phillips, Robert P. Anderson, Robert E. Schapire Ecological Modelling, Vol 190/3-4 pp 231-259, 2006. http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~schapire/maxent/
Developing a comprehensive database
• Database is centralized, developed and managed by Dr. Menachem Goren aided by Tirza Stern
Developing a comprehensive database
• Database is centralized, developed and managed by Dr. Menachem Goren aided by Tirza Stern
• It is based upon ACCESS software
Why Access?
• Cheap to use and run• Stable (and so is Microsoft)• Compatible with just about everything• Easy to customize to the needs of
particular collections (different data are relevant for different taxa)
• Database is centralized, developed and managed by Dr. Menachem Goren aided by Tirza Stern
• It is based upon ACCESS software • It involves all ‘regular’ museum data fields
Developing a comprehensive database
Developing a comprehensive database
• Database is centralized, developed and managed by Dr. Menachem Goren aided by Tirza Stern
• It is based upon ACCESS software • It involves all ‘regular’ museum data fields• Already ca. 250,000 entries representing
ca. 2,000,000 specimens
Developing a comprehensive database
• Database is centralized, developed and managed by Dr. Menachem Goren aided by Tirza Stern
• It is based upon ACCESS software • It involves all ‘regular’ museum data fields• Already ca. 250,000 entries representing
ca. 2,000,000 specimens• Entemological collections are lagging
behind
Developing a comprehensive database
• Database is centralized, developed and managed by Dr. Menachem Goren aided by Tirza Stern
• It is based upon ACCESS software • It involves all ‘regular’ museum data fields• Already ca. 250,000 entries representing
ca. 2,000,000 specimens• Entemological collections are lagging
behind• Database is not web-based but data are
freely available upon request
Why not have an open-access database online?
• Some summary of available data appears on the museum website
• Ownership of data issues• Some technological challenges• Need to repot to funding agencies• We will get there someday
Most importantly (I think):
• Everything now entering the collection is immediately computerized and databased
• We are computerizing older material• Data are made freely available to those who
ask for them• We are moving forward in making sure
everybody can easily learn which data are available
What can a good database give us?
• We can access any specimen and the data associated with it
• We can identify deficiencies in our holdings (taxonomic, temporal, geographic, nature of specimens)
• We can use the data themselves to do science
Reptile species collected since
1980
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