Natural History Collections “Rarity”
•Type or single locality only (= single “subpopulation” =
single grid cell) or few collections/localities (e.g., 5 or fewer)
•Age of
collection(s)
•Caveats:
Taxonomic and collection artifacts
For
example, natural history collections allow us to identify “rare” species that are potentially at greatest risk of extinction and, therefore,
of the highest priority for conservation action. “Rarity” based
upon natural history collections can be assigned to those species known only
from a single collection
(their so-called “type”) or locality (which translates into a single
“subpopulation” in the parlance
of IUCN Red List criteria), or from relatively few collections/localities,
e.g., 5 or fewer. Collections also carry a temporal component,
such that species known only from older historical collections may deserve greater
attention. However, when we use
natural history collections for conservation
assessments, we must bear in mind possible artifacts stemming from both the
nature of the collecting endeavor
and the taxonomic process itself.