Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019 - 26

Features
Fig. 1. Georeferenced localities of mammals specimens from IAvH-M Collection.

we want to create an online photographic catalog of the
preserved specimens in the collection. Current projects of the
biological collections from the IAvH have been including a
citizen science component, as well as outreach and scientific
divulgation activities that help integrate our collection with
the community as a whole.
We have plenty of specimens from remote places affected in
the past by the violence, and today by deforestation. All of
these materials have not been revised, including the ones belonging to field expeditions from a few years ago. Therefore,
the IAvH-M collection needs more visibility in the scientific
community, improving the collaboration with other institutions and researchers, to adapt to new scenarios of post-conflict. Now, we are increasing the knowledge about Colombian
biota, but we are suffering the decline of our forest due to
the increase of deforestation rate and colonization of remote
places forbidden by the conflict for many years. For example,
Calle-Rendón et al. (2018) found that the Urabá region and
the Serranía de San Lucas were areas with a high richness
of sensitive species and primates, the most vulnerable group
to post-conflict changes. Also, eight cores of deforestation
had been increasing in 2018, and the Amazonian region was
the most affected (IDEAM 2018). We have to consider these
places as new targets of our field expeditions and research.
26 * SPNHC Connection

Finally, this work is an invitation to visit our collection and
to include IAvH-M specimens in the research agendas of
mammalogists worldwide. In the last few years the progressive plan of field expeditions across Colombia allowed us to
survey rewarding, unexplored areas where little research was
possible in the past due to the violence of the armed conflict
that afflicted Colombia.
Literature Cited
Arbeláez-Cortés, E., Acosta-Galvis, A.R., DoNascimiento,
C., Espitia-Reina, D. & A. González-Alvarado. 2017. Knowledge linked to museum specimen vouchers: measuring
scientific production from a major biological collection in
Colombia. Scientometrics 112: 1323. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11192-017-2461-4
Calle-Rendón, B.R., Moreno, F. & Hilário, R.R. 2018. Vulnerability of Mammals to land-use changes in Colombia's
post-conflict era. Nature Conservation 29:79-92.
Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales
-IDEAM 2018. Décimo Cuarto Boletín de Alertas Tempranas de Deforestación (At-D) Primer Trimestre 2018. Bogotá,
Colombia. 2p.
Nelson, G., Paul, D., Riccardi, G. & A. Mast. 2012. Five
task clusters that enable efficient and effective digitization

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2461-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2461-4

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019

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