4
Building and Maintaining a Robust Infrastructure

The health of biological collections—and, ultimately, of the scientific research that relies on them—is dependent on the underlying infrastructure that assembles, maintains, and provides access to these collections. That infrastructure includes not only the physical space and equipment used to house and maintain the specimens in a collection, but also their accompanying data and the procedures governing their care. It includes the technologies to produce digital data and the cyberinfrastructure to store, analyze, and aggregate data with those of other collections through online portals (see Chapter 5). Finally, biological collections infrastructure includes the trained staff, students, and volunteers who acquire, curate, manage, and ensure the quality of specimens and their data, and coordinate their scientific and educational uses. Such infrastructure can be expensive and time consuming to maintain, but the value that biological collections provide to the scientific research and education communities more than justifies these expenditures. For example, an analysis of biological resource centers that collect, certify, and distribute living organisms demonstrated that these institutions amplify the cumulative impact of individual research discoveries and thereby significantly increase the pace and reduce the cost of research (Furman and Stern, 2011).

This chapter focuses on the physical infrastructure challenges of ensuring that biological collections remain available and viable for research and educational use. It also touches on an important aspect of the biological collections infrastructure—the mechanisms that ensure that the extended research and the broader education communities have convenient and effective access to the biological specimens maintained in these collections.

THE PROMISE OF BIOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS INFRASTRUCTURE

It is easy to overlook the importance of infrastructure. When everything is functioning smoothly, infrastructure—whether it is the facilities of a university, the computers and transmission devices underlying the Internet, or the air traffic control system responsible for air travel—tends to be taken for granted.

The same is true of the nation’s system of biological collections. When collections are discussed, it is generally in terms of their physical, digital, and intellectual assets and resources used by researchers and others to answer questions about past, present, and future life on Earth. But those resources are available only because of the nation’s biological collections infrastructure, which not only maintains the specimens and associated biological materials and data, but also supports the means in which they are widely shared and distributed.

The nation’s biological collections have a dual nature similar to that of biological field stations and marine laboratories, which are both individual entities and “collective elements of the nation’s broader scientific infrastructure” (NRC, 2014b, p. 45). As individual research repositories, each biological collection serves the institution in which it is housed and also serves the broader scientific community. Individual biological collections vary in nature from small, project-based collections with relatively simple infrastructure needs to large repositories of diverse living, fossil, and preserved specimens and their associated data with complex, sophisticated, and ongoing infrastructure needs.

Biological collections can also be thought of as a collective system that is a vital component of the nation’s scientific infrastructure. This distributed system is somewhat analogous to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO),¹ a dispersed set of telescopes that provide resources to astronomy researchers worldwide, as well as to formal and informal educational programs. The capability of distributed biological collections to serve as a collective national resource depends on ongoing digitization efforts and a cyberinfrastructure that allows them to link and integrate their digital data (see Chapter 5). One current difference from the NRAO is that biological collections are managed independently, with each collection in the network largely setting its own strategic plan and being responsible for its own mission, management, and funding.

The specific physical infrastructure needs of biological collections vary according to the types of specimens they contain (e.g., size, number, taxonomy, and biosafety level), the maintenance requirements of the specimens (e.g., wet, dry, refrigerated, or frozen), and the intended scientific and educational objectives (see Figure 4-1). The requirements for cryopreserved (frozen) biological collections, for example, are particularly stringent because the specimens and biological material lose their viability or integrity if they thaw. Such collections are often stored in freezers kept at –80^oC or in cryogenic storage drawers using liquid nitrogen at –190^oC, both of which require constant monitoring and backup generators, particularly for specimens without duplicates housed at another location. At a minimum, all biological collections require a secure facility with the necessary equipment and controls to maintain lighting, temperature, humidity, airflow, and other environmental conditions at the levels required to maintain the specimens and prevent contamination and degradation. Many organisms are represented by a variety of collection types that may require different preservation methods, storage conditions, and locations (sometimes even involving multiple institutions). For example, in addition to herbarium specimens, plants may be represented by separate wood or seed collections, cell or callus cultures, plant genes in bacterial plasmids, frozen or silica-dried leaf tissue, and whole plants in fields, greenhouses, or growth chambers. Mammal and bird collections can include live animals, skin, and skeleton (or fluid-preserved) voucher preparations, frozen tissues, cell cultures, embryos, sperm, karyotypes, diverse sets of endo- and ectoparasites, and more (Galbreath et al., 2019). Ichthyology and herpetology collections contain predominantly ethanol-preserved wet specimens,

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¹ See http://public.nrao.edu/about.

but also maintain cleared and stained glycerin specimens and skeletal and tissue collections, all requiring different storage conditions.

Even organisms that appear superficially similar, such as different types of microalgae, may require different types of infrastructure to maintain them as biological collections (see Box 4-1). Because of the wide variety of biological collections, there are many publications that describe specimen-specific infrastructure requirements and baseline standards (see Box 4-2). The basic physical infrastructure requirements also involve a variety of materials, tools, technologies, and other resources necessary to maintain and curate collections. Examples include compactors, digitization infrastructure (cameras, lighting, scanners, printers, etc.), backup generators, safety requirements (e.g., for ethanol or cryogenic collection storage), media and reagents to preserve or promote growth, sensors, and alarms to monitor and raise alerts about unauthorized access or

fluctuations or unsafe environmental conditions, and tools and technologies to authenticate accessioned material and periodically assess the condition or determine the genetic identity of specimens.

An important feature of biological collections is that they—like many culturally and historically important collections—continue to grow. Specimens are added to biological collections through three main mechanisms: (1) field collecting of specimens in previously unexplored ecosystems and resurveying previously sampled ecosystems; (2) generating new, living genetically modified research organisms; and (3) the acquisition of specimens or entire collections by gift, donation, exchange, or purchase. During the 19th century, many of the largest and most ambitious biological collections grew through specific national or international research mandates to catalog all species of a given region, taxon, or clade. Today, many biological collections grow principally as a product of individual research projects or an individual institution’s priorities.

The potential ramifications of neglecting the nation’s biological collections infrastructure are wide-ranging, with severe consequences for innovations in

biotechnology, medicine, agriculture, energy, and many other sectors built on life science research (Flattau et al., 2007; McCluskey, 2017; Sigwart, 2018). Neglecting infrastructure could also affect research, public services, and private businesses that rely on accurate taxonomic identification, such as forensics, the study of disease outbreaks (human, wildlife, and agricultural), border protection, and the control of invasive species (Cook et al., 2020; McLean et al., 2016). In addition, most natural history collections are non-renewable scientific resources—they cannot be replaced. The loss of individual specimens or entire collections creates unfillable gaps in the knowledge of present and past life on Earth. Institutions that do not provide adequate infrastructure for their biological collections hamper their own missions to advance science and technology, build a highly skilled workforce, and educate the next generation of global citizens.

CHALLENGES

Maintaining a healthy physical infrastructure involves a variety of interrelated challenges. Perhaps the most obvious challenge involving specimens and data is that they need to be preserved indefinitely, beginning with their initial accession and continuing with long-term maintenance for both anticipated and unanticipated uses. Accordingly, the quality of the specimens needs to be carefully and constantly maintained to ensure that findings from past research can validly and reliably be compared with results in any number of future research investigations. These challenges are exacerbated by the fact that healthy collections are continually expanding through the acquisition of new material, which requires a steady increase in physical capacity. Finally, making specimens and data available to researchers and other users, including educators, students, and businesses, is important in maximizing the usefulness and of impact infrastructure considerations for the nation’s biological collections. The following sections describe these challenges in more detail.

Collections Require Ongoing Preventive Conservation

Without active and ongoing preventive conservation,² natural history specimens will degrade over time and become less useful for research and education. Fluid-preserved specimens will eventually dry out if not stored in appropriate containers and resupplied with the appropriate liquids, cryopreserved tissues will decay if freezers are not maintained and kept at desired temperatures, dried collections can fall victim to insects and mold, and fossils are subject to Byne’s (Cavallari et al., 2014; Shelton, 2008) and pyrite diseases (Cavallari et al., 2014; Hall, 1998, Larkin, 2011). Responding to the requirement that collections be

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² Preventive conservation is defined as actions taken to minimize or slow the rate of deterioration and prevent damage; it includes activities such as risk assessment, the development and implementation of guidelines for continuing use and care, ensuring appropriate environmental conditions for storage and exhibition, and instituting proper procedures for handling, packing, transport, and use (SPNHC, 1994).

viable and pure, living collections also address these issues through quality control processes as described below. Providing ongoing funding for the active care of collections—as well as for the accessioning of new specimens into collections—is a challenge for an institution, especially one charged with the maintenance of many types of scientific research infrastructure.

In addition, many biological collections are located in environments that are prone to disaster—natural and human-caused. For example, an attempt to assess risks to herbaria found that about half of all herbaria have at least three risk factors, one of which relates to their location in areas prone to flooding, earthquakes, severe weather (hurricanes, typhoons, etc.), or social unrest, and the other risk factors relate to insufficient staffing and limited utility to modern research because of the collections’ inaccessibility (Thiers et al., 2018). However, even in relatively safe locations, inadequate infrastructure enhances vulnerabilities to natural disasters and theft (Araujo, 2019; University of Vermont, 2017). Although it may be possible to recover from damage to facilities and equipment, many natural history specimens, including fossils and specimens collected in the past, contain baseline knowledge for historic environmental conditions and prior research that cannot be replaced. The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic poses an additional threat. Up to one-third of all museums in the United States may permanently close due to financial losses during the pandemic, potentially leading to the loss or relocation of millions of natural history specimens and fossils.³ In addition, some living collections cannot be cryopreserved or lyophilized, such as some microalgae or Drosophila species, and require labor-intensive procedures to maintain. When fewer people are allowed to enter the facility during a pandemic, maintenance of these stocks can be impacted and if their transfer is delayed, stocks may lose viability.

Sometimes the only solution to failing infrastructure is to transfer specimens wholly or in part to a more stable situation. Usually, the collections transferred are small, although in 2018, the University of Louisiana Monroe moved nearly 6 million specimens from the herbarium and fish collections to the Botanical Research Institute of Texas and Louisiana State University (the herbarium collection) and to the Tulane University Biodiversity Research Institute (the fish collection). Many collections have been saved from decline or outright destruction when rescued by another institution that was willing to accept responsibility for their care. The United States Culture Collection Network published a survey of rescued living microbial collections, including resources at the E. coli Genetic Stock Center, the Fungal Genetics Stock Center, the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, and the Culture Collection of Algae at The University of Texas at Austin, and described some of the scientific discoveries made with the rescued specimens since then (Boundy-Mills et al., 2019). This effort demonstrated the value of having established capacity to ensure that important collections survive when there is insufficient financial support or when senior staff retire or change institutions. However, transferring collections to a new institution may potentially have negative consequences. Such transfers increase infrastructure, financial,

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³ See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48rKE129ME4.

and regulatory requirements at the new institution, break links to historical knowledge about the collection, and can remove the specimens farther from the region where the specimens were collected and, potentially, from the primary users of those collections.

Living Stock Collections Require Consistent Quality Control

The quality of a living stock collection is a major determinant of whether its specimens can be used for research and of the type of research for which they are most suitable. Specimen quality is critical for ensuring the reproducibility and replicability of research results and reflects on the credibility of collections and their institutions.

Quality control, which is similar to preventive conservation for natural history specimens, is the process through which collections personnel seek to ensure that the quality of specimens and reference materials, such as cell cultures, are standardized and maintained. Customers of living stock collections expect that the material they receive will be properly identified as to the species, will possess the expected genetic markers, and will be viable and pure. For these reasons, many living stock collections have staff dedicated to quality assurance. Quality assurance documents and demonstrates control over the quality control processes. Quality assurance facilitates and organizes historical information about the origin and handling of the material and also preserves the traceability of the material.

Quality control and quality assurance require performing standardized tests for authentication, sample characterization, replenishment, and long-term stability. Such standardization is based on experience previously gained and includes predetermined ideal ways to identify suitable growth, storage conditions, and protocols to characterize and define the biological materials. These efforts extend not only to handling the materials, but also to shipping the materials to users and receiving incoming materials.

Every living collection has taxon-specific minimum categories of quality benchmarks. Jarrett and McCluskey (2019) describe some of the quality considerations for 14 different living model organisms along with descriptions of the facilities and procedures necessary to maintain them. Box 4-3 provides an example of typical minimum categories of quality benchmarks for living microbial collections.

There are four key challenges to maintaining quality control of living collections. First, best practices are neither standardized across the living stock collections community nor updated as new regulations and technologies become available. Second, some living collections, such as those of bacteria, yeast, fungi, and other microbes, contain specimens isolated so long ago that they need to be re-identified using current taxonomy and technologies. Third, it is often difficult to confirm genetic markers in materials received from the research community because many living stock collections lack access to specialized personnel, reagents, and equipment for genotyping. Fourth, the equipment and infrastructure to cryopreserve

living collections are expensive. Cryopreservation using liquid nitrogen tanks is an effective, but costly, approach to ensuring the longer-term viability of many types of cells and tissues. Many living collections opt for mechanical freezers, which are more affordable but result in a reduction in long-term viability. For some organisms, lyophilization (freeze-drying) may be used, rendering the material stable for long periods of time at room temperature.

Collections Need Room to Grow

There is a pressing need for the strategic expansion of the nation’s set of biological collections to ensure they adequately represent the diverse array of Earth’s biota across space and time. The continual growth of biological collections is essential for tracking ongoing global change, especially because the planet’s habitats and physical environments are now rapidly shifting. Given the

tremendous anthropogenic changes now under way, sampling and archiving the baselines of the presence and distribution of organisms will support future scientists in their efforts to understand changes in biodiversity and organisms’ responses to global change. Likewise, the expansion of living stock collections, including both new types of genetic stocks and new types of products from existing specimens (e.g., tissues, clone libraries, or purified genomic DNA), is essential for many services and areas of research and development, including synthetic biology, microbiome analysis, bioterrorism, and developing crops and livestock able to thrive in an altered climate. Regardless of the reasons, the growth of biological collections requires strategic thinking about infrastructure from multiple angles—the capability to expand space, the development of tools and technologies that help reduce space required for specimen maintenance and storage, and the more effective use of existing space.

A collection that has stopped growing is often seen by others in the community as being inactive and thus may be overlooked as a research resource. Some biological collections do not have general growth, or even strategic growth, as part of their mandate. Those biological collections that include growth in their mandate may vary widely in the degree to which they pursue growth. For example, the ornithology collection of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington in Seattle has pursued an aggressive policy of growth since its founding in the 1970s and is now, after five decades of sustained growth, one of the premier ornithology collections in the world. Similarly, the insect and other collections generated by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)⁴ are being housed at Arizona State University, which has allocated approximately 10,000 square feet for this purpose (per personal communication, Nico Franz, curator, Hasbrouck Insect Collection, Arizona State University, November 2019). Many living microbial collections include growth within their mission, in part because many scientific journals require that microbial strains used in publicly funded research be made accessible to the research community for future study. Unfortunately, many living collections lack the capacity to accession a high volume of material from publicly funded research, even if collecting such material is within their mission. Addgene,⁵ a nonprofit global plasmid repository, is an example of an independent entity that accepts, archives, and distributes thousands of plasmids, viruses, and other materials cited in research publications. However, the Addgene model has not yet been applied to engineered or constructed living strains used in research.

Typically, collections growth is the result of funding for specific research projects that have a specific focus on a particular taxon or on developing a new type of research organism (e.g., an organism with specific genetic modifications). In other words, growth is typically not the result of a coordinated collecting strategy. As a result, many collections have well-known biases in terms of species, sex, size, or the geographic distribution of specimens, and correcting such biases can be an important motivation for continued growth. Often, the growth of biological collections creates tension between the resources needed to curate and maintain existing collections and the resources needed to house and manage incoming biological material. Additionally, growing biological research collections may compete for space with other institutional functions (e.g., classrooms, research laboratories, and athletics), some of which may be deemed more relevant for immediate revenue generation or the mission of the larger institution.

In general, the infrastructure funding programs of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI) do not include provisions to ameliorate the demands that collections growth places on biological infrastructure. DBI’s Collections in Support of Biological Research program explicitly excludes what it deems as “normal” growth, even though there are no clear metrics by which normal growth is determined. NSF provides support for

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⁴ See https://www.neonscience.org.

⁵ See https://www.addgene.org.

growth in only two situations: when there is an urgent need for an institution to subsume an orphan (abandoned) biological collection, or for new collections produced from national and international initiatives such as NEON. DBI’s Sustained Availability of Biological Infrastructure program, established in 2019, only provides support to prevent the loss of “mature” physical infrastructure and cyberinfrastructure. Notably, NSF does not require research proposals that involve collecting or generating new specimens to include support for collections maintenance and growth. All research proposals are required to include a data management plan⁶ to describe how research results, including data from specimen-based work, will be disseminated and shared. However, there is not yet a requirement for a specimen management plan to describe how specimens and their associated data will be curated, digitized, and cared for over the long term for an established biological collection. Additional discussion about the need for a specimen management plan, including the management of the digital data associated with specimens, and requirements for an accompanying budget to support the management plan is offered in Chapters 5 and 7, respectively.

It is possible that the growth of biological collections is not recognized as a pressing problem and so it has not traditionally been a primary criterion for NSF to grant infrastructure funding. Yet, many improvements in infrastructure, including increased space, compactors, and robotic access to specimens and other facilities, can ameliorate the challenges of collections growth. The lower priority placed on growth may have stemmed from the fact that, over the past few decades, collections growth has slowed for many institutions (Malaney and Cook, 2018). The reasons for this slowdown are varied, including a lack of physical space for new collections, an increased reliance on project-based collecting, increased difficulty obtaining permits and navigating the increasingly complex legal issues surrounding biological collecting, the perception of leadership at host institutions that collecting and the fieldwork associated with it are not valuable, and changing societal norms surrounding biological collecting (Antonelli et al., 2018; Bakker et al., 2020; Wallace et al., 2013).

Biological Collections Need to Be Accessed

Open science⁷ is a major, global trend that is changing the culture and practice of science. Open science facilitates the exchange of not only biological materials, but also of ideas, data, and other resources such as databases, journal publications, and analytical software (Becker et al., 2019). In the context of open science there are three interrelated challenges facing the accessibility of biological collections: (1) discoverability, (2) physical access to specimens, and (3) access to digital specimen data (see Chapter 5).

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⁶ See https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappg20_1/pappg_2.jsp#IIC2j.

⁷ Open science is transparent and accessible knowledge that is shared and developed through collaborative networks (Vicente-Sáenz and Martínez-Fuentes, 2018). See https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.12.043.

Discoverability

The lack of a registry or catalog for all biological collections in the United States is an impediment to open science. Some well-curated catalogs exist for particular types of biological collections. For example, the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC) maintains both Culture Collections Information Worldwide,⁸ a registry of more than 800 culture collections, and the Global Catalogue of Microorganisms,⁹ a public online database of bacteria, fungi, and archaea held in more than 130 collections across 49 countries (Wu et al., 2013). However, because many collections do not have an online catalog of their holdings, users need a catalog or registry that provides collection descriptions in order to find specimens relevant for their research; the lack of such a registry or catalog complicates this sort of discovery.

Access to Physical Specimens

Access to specimens and their related data is of crucial importance to many areas of research and innovation, education, and public engagement in science. However, some biological collections lack adequate space, staff, and research tools for users to study specimens on-site. For both natural history and living stock collections, specimens or the associated biological materials are often shipped to users rather than accessed at the collection facility itself, although this may not be possible if a large amount of material is requested or if the specimens are too fragile or bulky to be shipped. Thanks to national or even worldwide networking, some biological collections can facilitate access to samples that are not stored in their own facilities.

The management of living material requires specific infrastructure such as a laboratory, a greenhouse, or a vivarium as well as the relevant training and expertise. Some living stock collections are only accessible to registered or qualified users. Direct access is usually restricted when specimens represent endangered species or if the materials pose biosafety or biosecurity risks, in which case the user needs to be prequalified to handle the material appropriately in order to minimize these risks (see Box 4-4). Certain microbes and derivatives could potentially be misused and are under strict regulations and controls. The few collections that manage these agents are also under strict control and regulations. Nonetheless, access to these collections is essential in providing support to the scientific community to develop effective countermeasures and control strategies.

Meeting the Needs of a Dynamic Scientific Enterprise

The culture and practices in the scientific enterprise are complex and shifting in several ways that have important implications for infrastructure. First, research

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⁸ See www.wfcc.info.

⁹ See gcm.wfcc.info.

institutions and funders increasingly emphasize and value convergence of scientific disciplines in order to facilitate collaborative, transdisciplinary research and innovation, particularly to address pressing challenges such as antimicrobial resistance, food security, biodiversity loss, and the independent and sustainable production of energy (Jahn et al., 2012; NRC, 2014a). Research infrastructure that promotes convergence and weakens disciplinary silos typically requires physical space that is easy to access but is outside the domain of any single disciplinary department. A hub-like location, for example, the University of Idaho’s Integrated Research and Innovation Center,¹⁰ has a variety of design elements that encourage scientists, students, and others to interact formally and informally. Second, institutions that provide formal and informal education programs increasingly support experiential learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) (Monfils et al., 2017; NASEM, 2017c). STEM education research provides robust evidence that active learning increases interest in and retention of science (NRC, 2015b) (see Chapter 3), thereby making it possible to expand the diversity of the next generation of thinkers who will address ongoing and future challenges facing the planet and human health. In addition, there are growing efforts to cultivate a culture of entrepreneurship and an increasing demand outside of academia for STEM-skilled, workforce-ready graduates. As a result, many colleges and universities are designing (or redesigning) facilities, including research laboratories, classrooms, maker spaces,¹¹ and informal public gathering spaces that support more immersive transdisciplinary research and experiential learning environments for scientists, students, and learners of all types (e.g., Be a Maker program¹² and the Learning Spaces Collaboratory¹³). The Beaty Biodiversity Museum is a successful example of how a natural history collection might effectively integrate research and educational spaces (see Box 4-5). However, building or renovating space to display collections and create immersive and “hands-on” learning opportunities is financially challenging, particularly for smaller biological collections or those that house sensitive materials. In addition, large-scale infrastructure endeavors to build collaborative, transdisciplinary research and learning environments and the ongoing efforts to address infrastructure needs of biological collections are largely disconnected from one another.

THE WAY FORWARD

Given the challenges described in the previous section, it is clear that new approaches will be required to maintain and improve the value and effectiveness of the nation’s biological collections. Growing demands on biological collections will require some fundamental changes to the infrastructure supporting

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¹⁰ See https://www.uidaho.edu/research/entities/iric.

¹¹ Providing the space and the materials for project-based, independent, hands-on experience for students.

¹² See https://beam.unc.edu.

¹³ See https://www.pkallsc.org.

these collections—changes that will grow from new approaches to maintaining them. This section outlines some general strategies that will provide overall improvements in the biological collections physical infrastructure.

Future-Proof the Infrastructure

The environment for biological collections is changing rapidly, from new demands being placed on collections by a steady stream of scientific advances to the availability of up-to-date technological capabilities, particularly digital ones, and changes in the ways that scientific research and development are conducted (see Chapter 2). The reevaluation of the collections infrastructure is also motivated by the anticipated increase in the rate of species extinctions (Díaz et al., 2019). It is now incumbent on scientists to approach existing and new specimens, especially those from endangered taxa and threatened biomes, as if it is their last opportunity to do so, because it soon may be. Maximizing

biodiversity information for future study requires redoubled efforts to document and preserve it, which will result in many new collections that will need to be accommodated in the nation’s biological collections. New methods of propagating living organisms as well as novel methods for preserving tissues and whole organisms may require changes to the current collections infrastructure as well as new curatorial techniques. More robust methods for storage, and the linkage of additional data gathered about endangered and extinct biota, will result in a better understanding of their life histories, habitat requirements, and interactions with other species, and how they reacted to global change in deep time. Guiding this reassessment of current preservation and documentation methods will be the understanding that future knowledge of many species may rely entirely on the specimens and information held in biological collections. Thus, it will be important to ensure that the nation’s biological collections continue to thrive no matter what the future brings.

Strategic Planning for Infrastructure

Strategic planning gives an organization the opportunity to evaluate or refine its core mission, identify stakeholders, set goals, and determine the strategies and resources that are needed to achieve those goals. In particular, such exercises require foresight and collaboration between research and administrative staff in an institution to guide the way in which infrastructure challenges are addressed.

Strategic planning can help identify the financial and other needs of a collection and differentiate the funding needed for ongoing maintenance of the collection from that needed to meet evolving standards, replace aging infrastructure, and accommodate the growth of collections. Initiating the strategic planning process every few years can help identify the potential funding sources for biological collections infrastructure and also identify gaps in funding that will need to be met by other resources during the plan’s duration (Parsons and Duke, 2013).

Reflections on the core mission of the collection and its primary and secondary stakeholders will help those in charge of the collection come up with actions to ensure the necessary preventive maintenance and quality control of the specimens, increase the specimens’ accessibility, and anticipate future uses. The planning process should also take into consideration the availability and training needs of collections leadership and staff (see Chapter 6).

Many collections already engage in regular strategic planning exercises. For the past several years the Society of Herbarium Curators and Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio) have sponsored a month-long online course entitled Strategic Planning for Herbaria, which trains representatives from up to 10 herbaria to develop succinct strategic plans that include a vision, mission, strategies, and objectives; strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis; sustainability; and assessment and evaluation.¹⁴ Because strategic planning is a common practice for research institutions and universities, it is critical for a biological collection’s strategic plan to be part of the plan for the larger institution or to at least be closely aligned to the vision, mission, and goals for the larger institution. Developing an individualized strategic plan requires time, training, and input. Biological collections that do not have the resources to develop a plan could be helped if other collections make their strategic plans publicly available. Sharing strategies to achieve a goal is common practice for federal research institutions and is required or promoted by federal funding agencies and certain universities; such examples could inspire and be used by the broader collection community (North Carolina State University 2017–2022 strategic plan from the Department of Biological Sciences;¹⁵ 2015–2020 strategic plan for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science¹⁶). Involving an advisory board of experts to help develop and implement the plan could be another way to benefit from the expertise of other biological collections personnel.

Emergency Preparedness

A disaster preparedness and emergency response plan¹⁷ is considered a core document for natural history collections housed in museums and is required for a natural history collection to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Developing a contingency and disaster recovery plan is also recommended for living stock collections (Parsons and Duke, 2013). Such a plan includes responses to natural, mechanical, biological, and human-caused emergencies and addresses the needs of staff, visitors, structures, and collections. However, a preparedness and emergency response plan by itself is no guarantee of successful response to a disaster; in the chaos of an actual emergency it may not be possible to access computers or files where a plan is stored. A regular review

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¹⁴ See https://www.idigbio.org/content/strategic-planning-herbaria-short-course-0.

¹⁵ See https://bio.sciences.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2017/08/Biological-SciencesStrategic-Plan.pdf.

¹⁶ See https://www.vims.edu/about/leadership_admin/dean/strategic_plan_2015/index.php.

¹⁷ See https://www.aam-us.org/programs/ethics-standards-and-professional-practices/disasterpreparedness-and-emergency-response-plan.

of the plan, perhaps with response drills, will keep the actions and supplies needed to recover and stabilize collections at hand in the active memory of collections personnel and allow those personnel to continually refine their plan. An understanding of the special needs of collections by local emergency response agencies may add to the success of a disaster response. In the case of a fire at The University of Vermont’s Pringle Herbarium, water damage from hoses was minimized because the local fire department had recently visited the facility as part of a routine check and provided protection against the heat of the fire with padding set onto the tops of the herbarium cabinets (David S. Barrington, The University of Vermont, Director, Pringle Herbarium, personal communication, 2020).

Duplicate Specimens

Depositing duplicate specimens at different institutions can help ensure that specimens are not lost entirely in the event of a disaster. The deposition of duplicate specimens is an established practice among strains of microorganisms, entomological specimens, and herbaria (Groom et al., 2014; OECD 2007; Rabeler et al., 2019). For living stock collections, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Best Practice Guidelines go a step further than recommending a duplicate of a specimen be held in a remote location; the guidelines also recommend that specimens be preserved in two or more formats, such as a cryopreserved specimen, lyophilized specimens, or as living cultures. These practices lessen the chance of losses due to power outages, fire, or other types of disasters. For example, copies of several living stock collections are now cryopreserved at the Department of Agriculture National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado (McCluskey et al., 2016), ensuring that these collections can be recovered following a disaster at the home institution. However, it is important to note that the deposition of duplicate specimens is not a practical or even possible solution for many types of biological collections because of already existing issues with space, funding, staffing, and rarity (e.g., dinosaurs or unique culture collection isolates). Nonetheless, when it is possible to have a remote archive of duplicate specimens, this mitigates the risk of specimen loss.

Establish Shared Standards and Technologies for Living Stock Collections

One way to improve the value of living collections is to have strict and consistent quality standards in place. Such standards can help ensure that resources and data are “fit for purpose”—that is, of the type and quality to meet the specific needs of users (Smith et al., 2014). Many companies and organizations follow International Organization for Standardization (ISO)¹⁸ standards, which provide a way to create the documents that provide requirements, specifications, guidelines, or characteristics to ensure that materials, products, processes, and

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¹⁸ See https://www.iso.org/standards.html.

services are a good fit for their purposes. Some ISO standards are specific for biological collections:

1. The ISO 9001:2015 standard provides basic guidance to organizations on how to set up a quality management system with commitment from senior management to support the collection (ISO, 2015).
2. The international biobanking standard ISO 20387:2018 provides additional guidance for a culture collection. The guidance in the biobanking standard solidifies what culture collections have been working toward based on best practices of culture collections around the world (ISO, 2018).
3. A standard that is currently under development, ISO/TC 276 Biotechnology, is intended to bring standardization to the field of biotechnology for biological data and sequence information, which will help to support the information that a culture collection is able to provide. These standards will assure that biological data are accurate and appropriately linked to the specimens and that they are disseminated in correct formats and for appropriate uses.

In specific cases, such as when a user needs a stock microbial strain to diagnose a disease, the fit-for-purpose resource may need to be ISO certified. However, in most cases, formalized but non-certified quality control standards and best practices are sufficient assurances of quality. Networks of collections have proven to be particularly effective in raising quality control standards and elevating customer service. For example, the Mutant Mouse Resource and Research Center is a network of four major collections of mutant mice, with centralized ordering and quality control divisions. WFCC lists 23 regional and international networks of culture collections, including the United States Culture Collection Network. Several of these networks, including WFCC, have developed a shared set of best practice guidelines.

The Global Biological Resource Centre Network, an OECD-endorsed pilot project, is one particular project that may be a useful model for enhancing quality control in U.S. living stock collections. Arising from networked European Union (EU) collections, the Global Biological Resource Centre Network led to the creation of the EU-funded Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure (MIRRI) project (2012–present). With funding expected to exceed 1 million euros per year, the initial aims for MIRRI were to advance collections to become biological resource centers (BRCs), network BRCs, and interact with the user and regulatory communities (Stackebrandt et al., 2015). Examples of activities that benefited EU collections include the development and implementation of quality control practices to become ISO9001:2015 certified; cooperation on databases, websites, and marketing; and gauging and enhancing user satisfaction. These activities have helped advance the EU bioeconomy, supported innovation, promoted global cooperation, and helped both governments and collections meet global requirements such as the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from

their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity and biosecurity protocols. Comparable efforts in the United States would likely have a similar cost but have not yet been implemented.

Establishing a National Registry of Biological Collections

A registry of the biological collections held in U.S. institutions would enable users to discover and contact collections with holdings of potential interest, thereby increasing access to them. It would also improve the ability of biological collections with geographic, temporal, or other commonalities to find one another for potential collaboration and to identify the most relevant collections to include in such collaborations. A comprehensive collections registry could also facilitate an assessment of the infrastructure needs of all U.S. collections and perhaps help prioritize grant funding for infrastructure improvement. It might also facilitate the response of the collections community to emergencies caused by

natural disasters or infrastructure failure or to anticipate the orphaning of collections and advise on the best options for a collection transfer when needed. The ability of those in charge of a biological collection to compare their collection with others would help inform strategic planning. More communication among collections could lead to the development of more community-wide standards in curatorial practice and data management. The herbarium community already has such a curated registry, Index Herbariorum, which could be a model for a registry that includes all collections (see Box 4-6). WFCC also has a global registry of culture collections. However, the WFCC registry is an opt-in system, which leads to underrepresentation of some countries, underscoring the need for clear criteria for including a collection and for the active curation of registrant information.

Several previous attempts to create a global index of all collection types (e.g.,GRBio and Biorepositories.org) have failed to produce a comprehensive registry that is regularly updated with current information. iDigBio recently created a static list of collections in the United States, drawing on Index Herbariorum,

previous lists, and information gleaned from institutional websites, but this is only a start (see Box 4-7). In collaboration with Index Herbarium, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) plans to create the platform for a comprehensive worldwide biodiversity collections database (Hobern et al., 2019). A registry of U.S. collections could use the GBIF cyberinfrastructure but will still require a significant campaign of outreach to collections institutions to provide data and develop the tradition of updating the index as holdings and staff change. Similarly, an interest group of the Taxonomic Databases Working Group is working on a collections descriptors data standard for the description of collection-level metadata,¹⁹ which will provide a framework for specimen metadata that needs to be collected in order to provide a full assessment of the strengths and opportunities that these collections may provide to research and education.

CONCLUSIONS

As long as research, education, and the preservation of natural heritage are national and global endeavors, it will be imperative that the infrastructures for biological collections at both the individual and collective levels are improved and maintained. Given the negative consequences of the nation’s research efforts if biological collections are limited by poor infrastructure or perhaps are lost altogether, it is crucial that proactive measures be taken to strengthen the physical, digital (see Chapter 5), and intellectual (see Chapter 6) assets that support the long-term quality and curation of specimens and their associated data.

Owing to the diversity of collection types, there is no one-size-fits-all list of physical infrastructure requirements. The assessment of infrastructure needs must take place at the individual level. Unfortunately, most biological collections do not have sufficient resources for preventive maintenance or basic upgrades for existing infrastructure and technologies, let alone for major renovations or new facilities. Thus, biological collections would benefit from individualized strategic plans to outline how day-to-day needs will be met, including issues related to preventive maintenance and quality control, and also how to develop or expand infrastructure to meet future scientific needs.

Some aspects of infrastructure will benefit from shared community standards. This is particularly true for quality control for living stock collections, for which consistent genetic identity of the specimens within and between stock collections is crucial for research. Smaller living collections may not be able to afford the staffing and other costs for a quality assurance and quality control system and may not be able to meet the ISO guidelines. Strategic planning will be an important tool in guiding those living stock collections to adopt and maintain nationally accepted quality control standards. In addition, a community approach to developing “next best” protocols and best practices that can be implemented in a way that is commensurate with the available budget could allow such collections to distribute accurately identified pure cultures. For all collection types, a community approach as an additional layer to strategic

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¹⁹ See https://www.tdwg.org/community/cd.

planning could create mechanisms to pool resources and facilitate the development of best practices and training and ensure that the leadership of biological collections is well equipped to implement those collections’ plans.

Biological collections infrastructure also needs to grow in order to keep up with the advance and evolution of scientific research itself. The urgent need to continue collecting will require NSF and other funding institutions, as well as institutions whose mandates include collecting or generating new types of research specimens, to acknowledge and address growth as an important and necessary component of biological collections in the 21st century. Such institutions will also need to acknowledge the ongoing demands that collections growth places on infrastructure—demands that can only be ameliorated through infrastructure support and improvements. Such an acknowledgment will require the development of clear guidelines and metrics for growth.

It will also be important for the infrastructure needs of individual biological collections to be integrated into larger infrastructure initiatives of their host institutions and the community as a whole, especially those initiatives aimed at developing state-of-the-art research hubs that meet the needs of a dynamic scientific enterprise. In such endeavors, the institutional staff charged with maintaining institutional research infrastructure will need to understand the particular needs of biological collections in terms of environmental controls and other sensitivities that can affect preventive maintenance and quality control.

Finally, consideration needs to be given to biological collections as a shared and distributed scientific resource for the nation. This will require a consortium to create community-wide mechanisms to pool and share resources. Establishing a registry of biological collections in the United States will be an important step toward cultivating national attention and perspective. Such a registry could be used to conduct periodic community-wide assessments of infrastructure needs. NSF has the opportunity to provide the backbone to cultivate partnerships so that collections across the spectrum are involved in contributing to an emerging consortium.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE NEXT STEPS

Recommendation 4-1: The leadership (directors, curators, and managers) of biological collections should assess and define the infrastructure needs of their individual facilities and develop comprehensive strategic plans in accordance with those needs and their strategic missions. The strategic plans should outline approaches to:

• continually address ongoing preventive maintenance and, in the case of living collections, quality control requirements; and
• improve and potentially build new infrastructure, both of which actions are particularly important if collections growth is a component of the strategic mission.

Recommendation 4-2: Biological collections should take advantage of existing training opportunities and collaborative platforms at the national and international levels, such as those offered through the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development certification programs, especially as new aspects of the work evolve, such as regulations compliance, data management, and new techniques and materials for collections storage and documentation.

Recommendation 4-3: Professional societies, associations, and coordination networks should collaborate and combine efforts aimed at addressing community-level infrastructure needs of the nation’s biological collections, including:

• develop a platform to pool and share resources such as strategic plans, best practices, and training opportunities so that these can serve as resources for the broader biological collections community;
• develop and implement strategies to adopt quality control programs to improve uniformity among living stock collections and ensure the availability of high-quality biological resources that best fit the needs of the user;
• create a national biological collections registry to document the location, size, and holdings of the collections in the United States. The registry should be curated and updatable. In addition, proactive processes to identify collections should be established, ensuring that collections of all types are well represented in the registry; and
• use the national registry to conduct periodic community-wide assessments of needs to inform the development of both individual and community-level strategies to maintain and upgrade infrastructure.

Recommendation 4-4: The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Biological Sciences should continue to provide funding support for biological collections infrastructure and expand endeavors to coordinate support within and beyond the Directorate. Specifically, NSF should:

• support new and improved infrastructure to accommodate the pressing needs created by continued collections growth;
• require a specimen management plan for all research proposals that includes collecting or generating specimens that describes how the specimens and associated data will be accessioned into and permanently maintained in an established biological collection; and

• facilitate the creation and support of an independent consortium to develop collaborative platforms and mechanisms to pool and share resources for strategic planning, preventive maintenance, quality control and assurance, collections growth, establishing a national collections registry, and other community-level assets.