Constancea 83.15: SEAWEED COLLECTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM 12/17/2002 06:57:49 PM Constancea 83, 2002 University and Jepson Herbaria P.C. Silva Festschrift Marine Algal (Seaweed) Collections at the Natural History Museum, London (BM): Past, Present and Future Ian Tittley Department of Botany, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD ABSTRACT The specimen collections and libraries of the Natural History Museum (BM) constitute an important reference centre for macro marine algae (brown, green and red generally known as seaweeds). The first collections of algae were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and are among the earliest collections in the museum from Britain and abroad. Many collectors have contributed directly or indirectly to the development and growth of the seaweed collection and these are listed in an appendix to this paper. The taxonomic and geographical range of the collection is broad and a significant amount of information is associated with it. As access to this information is not always straightforward, a start has been made to improve this through specimen databases and image collections. A collection review has improved the availability of geographical information; lists of countries for a given species and lists of species for a given country will soon be available, while for Great Britain and Ireland geographical data from specimens have been collated to create species distribution maps. This paper considers issues affecting future development of the seaweed collection at the Natural History Museum, the importance and potential of the UK collection as a resource of national biodiversity information, and participation in a global network of collections. FOREWORD In the eighty years of Paul Silva's life the approaches to development and growth of Museum collections have changed considerably. No longer are they an indicator of the wealth and importance of the owner but are now considered part of a shared global resource. There is a responsibility recognised by collection managers not only to care for and maintain their collections but also to make them accessible and available. At the start of Paul Silva's career the cataloguing of collections was considered to be at best a laborious task and at worst an impractical task. Paul is one of the few to have successfully undertaken the manual organisation of large amounts of complex algal nomenclatural and taxonomic information. The many publications by Paul Silva dealing with such matters (as demonstrated in the recently published Catalogue of the benthic marine algae of the Indian Ocean, Silva et al. 1996) have created tools vital to the organisation of a large collection of algae and its associated information. The importance of specimen collections, their care and maintenance into the future, is implicit in his studies. Paul visited the Natural History Museum (BM) on several occasions and studied its collections. However, it came as a surprise that his name was not in the list of collectors listed in the Appendix (Table 1) and that no material of his is held. We would welcome any duplicate specimens of his that may be available! In the early 1950s Paul comprehensively revised the collections of Codium at BM. A typical specimen studied and annotated by him is shown in Figure 1; not 1/38 Constancea 83.15: SEAWEED COLLECTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM 12/17/2002 06:57:49 PM surprisingly he set an excellent example in being one of only a few workers who annotated every specimen studied with a comment as to its determination. This paper, dedicated to Paul Silva, considers briefly the seaweed collection at BM, its growth and development from past, present and future perspectives, and its relevance to contemporary issues. INTRODUCTION Floristic studies and research into problems in systematics and taxonomy have been the driving forces for the growth and development of the marine macro−algal (seaweed) collection at the Natural History Museum (BM). Algal collections held in museums, marine laboratories and universities form a large information resource. It is not possible to quantify the global size of this resource but BM holds approximately 350000 specimens of world−wide origin and this probably represents a significant proportion of the global resource of seaweed specimens. Since the amalgamation of the cryptogamic collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew with those of the Natural History Museum there has been an increasing demand for information on the marine algal collection now housed at BM. Only scant published information deals with the latter; Lankester (1904), Newton (1952) and Dickinson (1952) provided brief lists of collectors and collections while Koster (1962) collated some data on types. Stearn (1981) briefly mentioned marine algal collections in his history of the Natural History Museum, London. Tittley (1974) described the collection and activities of a nineteenth century phycologist (T.H. Buffham) who made a significant contribution to the development of the BM collection and to phycological knowledge and research at that time. The rapid advance of information technology and computing in the 1980s and 1990s facilitated access to collection information through construction of specimen databases and cataloguing projects that would have been difficult to complete using manual facilities. A start was made at BM in the 1980s to provide electronically collated information on type and historically important specimens (Tittley and Tyler 1983; Tittley et al. 1984, 1985, 1989). An innovative feature at that time was the preparation of geographical indexes to the collection (Tittley and Sutton, 1984; Tittley et al. 1984, 1985, 1989) of value in floristic and biogeographical studies. An under−rated value of preserved collections is that they are verifiable records of an alga's existence in time as well as space (Huxley and Bryant 1999). Collections and the associated data may therefore contribute to the recognition of change or stability, temporal and spatial occurrence, changes in alpha diversity, and environmental change. The use and value of herbarium and other specimens and associated data in environmental (Brooke, 2000a; Cranbrook 1997; Gellini and Paoletti 1993; Huxley and Bryant 1999; Tittley 1977, 2001a, b) and conservation (Snow and Keating 1999) studies is beginning to attract greater recognition. There will be an important role for museums in housing and maintaining selected voucher specimens. The role of marine sample collections generally, their value, use, and future has also recently been the subject of a review and forward look (Rothwell 2001; Tittley 2001b for algae). PAST The earliest collections The Sloane Herbarium at BM is probably the most extensive early assemblage of botanical collections made largely in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and includes many specimens of algae; it probably represents the beginning of marine algal (seaweed) study (Murray 1895). Dandy (1958) compiled an annotated list of the component collections and information on the contributors; algal specimens in the Sloane Herbarium originate from Britain and overseas. There are also some early specimens in the main marine algal herbarium. These early algal collections are not only important for nomenclatural and taxonomic research but also provide a historical insight into the marine flora of the past. The type of Sphaerococcus coronopifolius Stackhouse is a specimen in the Sloane Herbarium from Cornwall (volume HS 114 folio 12), and the lectotype of Phyllophora pseudoceranoides (S.Gmelin) Newroth &A.R.A.Taylor (Figure 2) is based on a specimen probably from Dover in the Buddle Collection of the Sloane Herbarium (HS 114 f. 27). The occurrence of 2/38 Constancea 83.15: SEAWEED COLLECTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM 12/17/2002 06:57:49 PM Padina pavonica (Linnaeus) Thivy at Harwich on the east−coast of England is confirmed by a specimen in the Sloane Herbarium (HS 114 f. 26; Figure 3). The location is beyond its present northern limit of distribution and analysis of past specimen and literature records of P. pavonia led Price et. al. (1979) to conclude that a contraction in range had occurred during past centuries. Price and Tittley (1972) observed that specimen and literature records of marine algae from the county of Kent in England are among the earliest for the British Isles and probably for the world. Although the Sloane Herbarium contains relatively few localised British specimens, many of those that are localised originate from Kent. The Sloane and main algal herbaria contain 24 species from Deal, Dover, Sheerness, and the Isle of Sheppey. Irrespective of whether or not material was collected as attached specimens or from the drift, most of the species preserved in the collections can be found on the Kent coast today. Fucus serratus Linnaeus, F. vesiculosus Linnaeus, Halidrys siliquosa (Linnaeus) Lyngbye, Laminaria digitata (Hudson) Lamouroux and Ulva lactuca Linnaeus characterise the littoral rocky shore biotopes of the Kent coast. Ceramium nodulosum (Lightfoot) Ducluzeau, Chondrus crispus Stackhouse, Enteromorpha prolifera (O.F.Müller) J.Agardh, Furcellaria lumbricalis (Hudson) Lamouroux, Halurus flosculosus (Ellis) Maggs & Hommersand, Membranoptera alata (Hudson) Stackhouse, Osmundea pinnatifida (Hudson) Stackhouse, Phyllophora pseudoceranoides (Figure 2), Plumaria plumosa (Hudson) Kuntze, Polyides rotundus (Hudson) Greville, and Porphyra purpurea (Roth) C.Agardh are common understorey species on the rocky shores of Kent. The foliose