Description
The Quaternary Environments (QE) lab has three types of collections, the Reference, the Working, and the Archival. The Working and Archival Collections are comprised of thousands of recovered plant microfossils, such as pollen, and plant and animal macrofossils such as seeds, leaves, and snail shells. These plant remains are associated with current (Working) and former (Archival) student and research-based projects from over 380 study sites throughout Alberta, Canada. The projects and associated material spans the postglacial interval, about 13,000 years ago to the present. The Reference Collections are comprised of 10 collections represented by modern and palaeoenvironmental samples of plant and animal remains, including the Pollen, Seed, and Mollusc Reference Collections. These small specimens, anywhere from microscopic to a few millimeters, can provide us with extensive information about past forests and habitats, peoples’ use of the landscape and plants (e.g., berry collecting), and changes in the environment over time. Research conducted and utilizing these collections at the museum currently focuses on the reconstruction of past landscapes in the Canadian Rockies during the past 12,000 years through the identification of subfossil pollen grains and plant macrofossils from lake sediments, organic deposits, 7,000 years old ice patches, and 10,000 years old busy-tailed woodrat middens. We can also use Reference Collections to conduct modern studies such as the type of pollen transported by pollinators in the prairies, and what type of pollen mites ingest for food. Working Collections: soil, sediment, and ice samples, including lake sediment cores and glacial ice cores. Study sites span the postglacial interval (about 13,000 years to present) and are mainly located in Alberta, Canada. Archival Collections: specimens (e.g., seeds, pollen, charcoal, tephra, and shells) extracted from samples, and identified and counted. Most specimens are microscopic to few millimeters and numerous (few to thousands of specimens per sample), with some larger specimens such as wood logs. Seed Reference Collection: 2,858 samples comprising seeds and fruit from 1,339 unique species (57% of Alberta's total recorded vascular plant species), average seed/fruit size is 3 mm. Pollen Reference Collection: 1057 pollen slides from 636 unique species (27% of Alberta's total recorded vascular plant species, both native and established introduced species), average pollen grain size is 35 microns (0.035 mm). Mollusc Reference Collection: Over 32,125 shell specimens of mainly aquatic snails native to Alberta’s Parkland Natural Region.
Enregistrements de données
Les données de cette ressource occurrence ont été publiées sous forme d'une Archive Darwin Core (Darwin Core Archive ou DwC-A), le format standard pour partager des données de biodiversité en tant qu'ensemble d'un ou plusieurs tableurs de données. Le tableur de données du cœur de standard (core) contient 2 795 enregistrements.
1 tableurs de données d'extension existent également. Un enregistrement d'extension fournit des informations supplémentaires sur un enregistrement du cœur de standard (core). Le nombre d'enregistrements dans chaque tableur de données d'extension est illustré ci-dessous.
Cet IPT archive les données et sert donc de dépôt de données. Les données et métadonnées de la ressource sont disponibles pour téléchargement dans la section téléchargements. Le tableau des versions liste les autres versions de chaque ressource rendues disponibles de façon publique et permet de tracer les modifications apportées à la ressource au fil du temps.
Versions
Le tableau ci-dessous n'affiche que les versions publiées de la ressource accessibles publiquement.
Comment citer
Les chercheurs doivent citer cette ressource comme suit:
Tirlea D (2023): Quaternary Environments Collections (Royal Alberta Museum). v1.1. Royal Alberta Museum. Dataset/Occurrence. https://doi.org/10.5886/cj3nbd
Droits
Les chercheurs doivent respecter la déclaration de droits suivante:
L’éditeur et détenteur des droits de cette ressource est Royal Alberta Museum. Ce travail est sous licence Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC) 4.0.
Enregistrement GBIF
Cette ressource a été enregistrée sur le portail GBIF, et possède l'UUID GBIF suivante : 0b8c492d-e69a-4d2a-81f2-dc4ea94f6b08. Royal Alberta Museum publie cette ressource, et est enregistré dans le GBIF comme éditeur de données avec l'approbation du Canada Biodiversity Information Facility.
Mots-clé
Occurrence; Vascular Plants; Seed; Fruit; Pollen; Leaves; Macrofossils; Microfossils; Palaeoenvironment; Palaeobotany; Museum Collections; Specimen
Contacts
- Fournisseur Des Métadonnées ●
- Créateur ●
- Personne De Contact
- Personne De Contact
- Utilisateur ●
- Personne De Contact
- Conservateur ●
- Personne De Contact
Couverture géographique
The QE collections are primarily comprised of specimens collected from Western and Central Canada with primary focus on specimens from Alberta (90%), followed by Saskatchewan (6%), British Columbia (2%), and other parts of Canada (<1%). Limited specimens are available from outside of Canada (1.5%; USA, Europe, Africa). Many of the species collected are distributed in other parts of Canada and North America and include native, cultivated, and introduced species. Collections are obtained from field work within Alberta and adjacent provinces, subsampling of registered herbarium material or other research-based institutes in Canada, and through donations (e.g., Botanical trades via Index Seminum (Seed Indexes) catalogues).
| Enveloppe géographique | Sud Ouest [40,313, -146,25], Nord Est [70,437, -50,801] |
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Couverture temporelle
| Date de début / Date de fin | 1943-07-01 / 2023-09-01 |
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Données sur le projet
The QE collections are related to museum activities such as research, field collections, and development of museum exhibits. Many of the Archived and Working collections are derived from student-based research projects in collaboration with external institutions (e.g., universities).
| Titre | Museum Collections |
|---|---|
| Identifiant | Various Projects |
| Financement | Funding for internal research projects and field collections is primarily supported by the Government of Alberta (the Royal Alberta Museum is part of the GoA). Other research projects, supported by the museum and associated collections, are funded externally through applied research grants, etc.. |
| Description du domaine d'étude / de recherche | The primary study area for collections and projects is within Alberta, Canada. |
| Description du design | n/a - various projects |
Les personnes impliquées dans le projet:
- Conservateur
Méthodes d'échantillonnage
Sampling for modern Reference material is based on targeting dominate species occurring at a study site to compare the modern landscapes to past landscapes (data from sediment and ice samples), and field work conducted by internal museum staff to sample plant material to fill in gaps in the current Reference Collections (e.g., aquatic vascular plants). Vegetation Materials Sampling Description (for seeds, fruit, pollen): 1. Plants with mature seeds and/or reproductive structures bearing pollen (dehisced anthers) will be identified, as well as a standard plant survey will be completed. 2. An inventory of the area will identify if there is a stable population of the targeted species. If less than 100 individual plants are in the area (within 1 ha), we will attempt to collect the target species at a different location. 3. Plant components (flowers, anthers, fruit, and seeds) will be collected. Approximately 20-40 flowers or seed-bearing structures, to a maximum of 10% of available flower heads, will be collected from several individual plants in the immediate area. Approximately 1-3 individual whole plants representing each target species will be collected as a voucher specimen. Plants collected will be less than 3% of that species occurring in that site. A whole voucher plant refers to the entire plant including the roots, stems, leaves and flowers and/or fruit. For large trees or shrubs, a clipping of the plant will be taken including a branch/twig, leaves and reproductive structures. If applicable, a piece approximately 10 cm X 10 cm of the bark will also be taken from large trees and shrubs using a sterile and cleaned knife. 4. In the field and during transport, plant material will be placed into labelled paper bag, plastic sample bag, and/or plant press. 5. Collected flowers will be stored in a refrigerator at our accommodations and at the Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) until processing for pollen. During transport to the RAM we will store plant material in a cooler with ice-packs. Collected whole plants will be stored in the herbarium press in a dry, well-ventilated location. The paper layers between the specimens will be replaced with dry ones on a daily bases. 6. Collected seed-bearing structures and voucher plant material will be stored in a dry, well-ventilated area until transport to the RAM where they will be processed for seeds / accessioned as voucher material. 7. At the RAM, seeds will be air-dried prior to being stored and accessioned. 8. At the RAM, flowers or pollen-bearing structures (cones) will be chemically processed to concentrate pollen. The pollen will then be placed in Silicone oil in labelled glass vials for long-term storage. 9. At the RAM, all plant material will be treated for pests, fungal, and other microbial activity by freezing the dried material in a freezer (-25˚C to -30˚C) for 2-3 weeks. 10. Prepared samples are stored long-term in appropriate housing (silicone oil for pollen, borosilicate vials for seeds/fruit/leaves) in environmentally-controlled collection rooms and cabinets.
| Etendue de l'étude | Various sites from primarily Alberta, Canada. The QE Reference Collections are used for species identification of recovered material from palaeoenvironmental projects. These projects are primarily focused on the reconstruction of landscapes, environments, and plant communities during the past 12,000 years in Alberta. Occurrences in this database are associated with plant seeds, fruit, pollen, and other plant fragments accessioned in the QE Reference Collections. The Occurrences here excludes palaeoenvironmental plant material sampled from lake sediment cores, wetland cores, sediment, and ice. |
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| Contrôle qualité | Voucher plant specimens associated with seeds, fruit, and pollen Reference Collections are collected and transferred to registered herbaria; quality assessment of selected specimens are assessed regularly for quality and identification confirmed |
Description des étapes de la méthode:
- See Sampling Description
Données de collection
| Nom de la collection | Seed Reference Collection |
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| Méthode de conservation des spécimens | Dried |
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| Unités de conservation | Entre (nombre minimal) 1 et (nombre maximal) 2 858 Vials |
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Métadonnées additionnelles
| Description de la fréquence de mise à jour | Collections associated with this resource are continually being updated and new specimens being added. Annual updates to the resource will be made with added entities as well as updates to taxonomy, collection data, and descriptions. |
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| Identifiants alternatifs | 10.5886/cj3nbd |
| https://data.canadensys.net/ipt/resource?r=seed-pollen-ram |