USDA-ARS Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory
Modified
13 June 2014
Description
The U.S National Pollinating Insects Collection provides the basis for systematic and biological studies on pollinating insects from many parts of the world. The collection was started in 1947 by G.E.Bohart. It has expanded rapidly through acquisitions of biological material and exchanges with other institutions. Bohart contributed many specimens, as have P.F. Torchio, F.D Parker, V.J. Tepedino, and T.L. Griswold. Since the 1990’s, the lab has been involved in numerous landscape scale inventories including National Parks, BLM lands and private land holdings.
Two separate data entry work flows were employed for data capture, which differed fundamentally on whether the material had been determined to species level or not. Retroactive data capture incorporated loaned specimens, publication records, and previously non-databased specimens in the U. S. National Pollinating Insects Collection, all of which follows after the identification process. Publication records were treated similarly to retroactive data capture except each record represents a summation of males and females with identical collecting event data. Beginning in 2005, new specimen records were batch entered into the database for projects and opportunistic collection events alike. Specimen identification and subsequent update to the database occurred after record and event metadata had been entered. New specimen collections also had a work flow that resulted in a greater number of data quality checks by technicians and primary researchers.
Records with questionable data on original insect labels were included in the dataset but distinguishable by notes in the DWC field “Identification Qualifier”. Records captured from publications are highlighted in the Darwin Core [DWC] fields “Associated References” and “Occurrence Remarks” as well as a denoted with a “PUB” prefix in the catalog number.