Bugs, plants and moss from Scottish collections to be digitised
Moths like these from the National Museums Scotland's collection will be digitalised
- Published
Hundreds of thousands of specimens from Scotland's natural science collections are to be made digital in a two-year project.
Around 700,000 plants, bugs and lichen are to be digitised as part of the major project which experts hope will tell them a lot about how biodiversity is changing.
More than 250,000 insects from National Museums Scotland (NMS) and 388,000 plant specimens from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh will become digitally accessible, along with specimens from other collections.
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NMS and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh will work together to create a network to add Scotland to the Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK (DiSSCo UK) project, thanks to more than £1.8 million in funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The project, which will run for two years at first, will also see digital records created for 85,000 plant specimens held by Glasgow Life, 1,200 insects from The Hunterian in Glasgow, 2,400 specimens algae and fungi from Shetland Museum and Archives, as well as 1,400 plant, lichen and moss specimens from The James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen.
What is digitising?
Plant specimens such as this one at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew often have handwritten notes as well as the pressed plant
Digitisation is the process of taking a physical object and turning it into a digital image or photo.
Many of the UK's natural specimens are hidden away in drawers and boxes in museum storage.
There are plants pressed and preserved on sheets of paper, insects captured and pinned with labels and millions of ancient rocks.
Around 388,000 vegetation specimens including lichen make up the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's collection
The process of digitising usually involves taking a high quality photo then adding the information contained on labels or notebooks to an online database.
DiSSCo UK is a £155 million, 10-year national programme to digitise and connect the UK's natural science collections.
Its aim is to make around half of the UK's natural science specimens digitally accessible.
The Natural History Museum reported in 2023 that a small amount, around only 10%, of the UK's natural history collections were digitised.
Why is it important?
National Museums Scotland have more than 250,000 insects in their collection
It's estimated the UK natural science collections hold more than 140 million items over a 4.6-billion-year history.
Researchers can use these collections to see how biodiversity has changed.
Digitising specimens means they can be accessed by anyone, anywhere and at any time making research and working together much easier.
An example is the Pelham-Clinton moth collection which is held at the National Museums Collection Centre in Edinburgh.
Edward Pelham-Clinton spent his time from 1930 into the 1980s collecting more than 35,000 moths and butterflies and writing down observations in field diaries.
Moths like these from the National Museums Scotland's collection will be digitised
Dr Nick Fraser, keeper of natural sciences at NMS and project co-lead, said: "Unlocking the full power of this archive means digitising every page of those diaries and every specimen label.
"That means that anyone, anywhere, can ask what was flying in a Scottish meadow in the 1950s, and compare it to what is flying there now which, in some cases, may be very little due to expanded human inhabitation and activity".
Speaking about the wider project he added:
"Having these records digitally available will allow us to unlock the critical information that these collections hold about changes in biodiversity over time and the impact of climate change on diverse ecosystems both here in Scotland and across the world."