D3522: Big Bee at the University of New Hampshire

The taxonomically important holdings of the 130-year-old Don Chandler Entomological Collection (UNHC) have been largely inaccessible to researchers and the general public resulting from largely analog functioning. The UNHC currently participates in 3 NSF-funded projects: Terrestrial Parasite Tracker, Lepidoptera of North America Thematic Collection Network (LepNet TCN), and Extending Anthophila research through image and trait digitization (Big-Bee). To progress these projects, the UNHC has employed undergraduates, including new and past UNH alumni, to digitize vertebrate parasites, New England Lepidoptera, and Anthophila specimens and generate high-resolution images. Students are crucial in developing workflows, including cell phone staged specimen imaging, Macropod high-resolution imaging system, flatbed scanner slide imaging, Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy 3D reconstruction of micro-CT data, and the application and testing of biodiversity software TaxonWorks. TaxonWorks allows remote access to the UNHC and will encourage the dispersion of information. This work has provided a unique opportunity for students. Undergraduate research opportunities in the biological sciences rarely allow exploration of software testing and protocol development.