2019 University of Michigan Herbarium (MICH) and University of Michigan Museum of Zoology (UMMZ) Annual Report

Abstract

The University of Michigan (UM) College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) supports two museums: the UM Herbarium (Herbarium) and the UM Museum of Zoology (UMMZ). The Herbarium and the UMMZ dedicate their efforts to study and understand the evolutionary origins, history, maintenance and conservation of the worlds’ biota. These two museums and its staff enhance and maintain research collections to support research, education and outreach at a local and global level.

2018 marked the first combined annual report for the Herbarium and UMMZ. The 2019 Annual Report improves the consistency in recording and reporting within divisions, and gives additional details about shared functions or special collections/labs across divisions. The annual report gives in-depth statistics on collections growth, transactions, digitization activities, online views and downloads of digital records through global aggregators and data portals. It also chronicles research, educational and outreach activities that took place in 2019 within and between our two museums at the RMC. Some noteworthy numbers in this report that serve to document the impact of our collections and associated activities for biodiversity research and education both locally, at Michigan, and around the world.

During 2019, 192 individuals including professors, graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, collection managers, project managers, technicians and volunteers were engaged in museum-related activities at the RMC. Nine different NSF-sponsored infrastructure grants for specimen digitization and five UM-sponsored/private grants (totaling $1,867,918) were active resulting in 179,535 specimen, 246,543 locality, and 535,767 attachment/image additions or modifications to collection object records in the database. Our digitization efforts have a profound impact on research and educational access to museum resources. The Herbarium and UMMZ records connected to global aggregators had 1,339,824,318 online views, with 1,796,168 records downloaded. The UMMZ microCT digitized specimens were downloaded 17,578 times with 3,877 download users. 73,792 new specimens (over 65,000 from the Insect Division) were accessioned into our collections and 12550 specimens were sent as a loan, gift or transfer.

During 2019, the EEB museums documented 312 visits comprising 756 individuals visiting the collections at the RMC for research and educational purposes. The annual report also provides information on the size, taxonomic breadth and geographic distribution of our digitized holdings available on Specify, a biological collections management system. As we are actively engaged in specimen digitization, this information captures a fraction, approximately 73%, of the combined Herbarium and UMMZ world-class collections comprising nearly 15,600,000 specimens.