is part of the daily routine of this research.
The main objective of this book is to unveil this scientific universe based on natural history collections at the beginning of the 21st century. A single volume is not enough to deal with all of these scientific and societal issues, but it does allow us to present a representative sample. We will see that the collections constitute an important medium for knowledge. Their fundamental quality lies in the preservation and permanence of specimens that can be revisited in the light of new questions and new technologies. In this conception of science, the data obtained remain always available, structured and re-analyzable.
The chapters deal with various subjects and focus either on a scientific problem, a specimen, a group of organisms or a set of collections. What they all have in common is the recognition of the value of collections as revealed by science. On the one hand, the collections serve as a medium for the knowledge of life, humankind and the universe. On the other hand, the constitution of collections, their raison d’être, their management and their future are also objects of scientific and ethical questioning in perpetual renewal.
1.3.1. Being able to return to the object: one of the major contributions of natural history collections
In Chapter 2, Grandcolas summarizes and analyzes the concepts that led to the creation of collections and classification systems of life and minerals. In this conception, collections are representative of a science based on the unlimited possibility of returning to an object of study. His analysis highlights a paradox in the situation of collections in relation to current science. On the one hand, they have never been so necessary to shed light on scientific issues in an emergency. On the other hand, they risk being rapidly replaced by a science based on billions of data produced by methods that do not allow any return to the specimen, such as data from participatory sciences or metagenomics. The challenge is being able to produce knowledge without any traceability or possibility of revision or refutation, the opposite of what has been built over several centuries of natural history research. There is therefore an urgent need to find strategies for reconciling these different types of data, which some consider, respectively, as “quality data” versus “Big Data”.
Being able to re-examine objects and associated materials is thus an inseparable aspect of the research on collections and is therefore part of most of the studies in this book (for a broader overview, see Chapter 15 by Robuchon et al.). Nevertheless, the following three chapters illustrate this element of the research on collections well. The rediscovery of the blue diamond, one of the two extraordinary gems of Louis XIV, represents an excellent example in this respect. Stolen in 1792, this diamond was considered lost until very recently. Detailed analysis of a wealth of documentation, the rediscovery of a clay cast and the ability to examine the modified diamond after the theft have confirmed earlier hypotheses about its whereabouts, and also allowed the reconstruction of a zircon copy including many of its unique characteristics (see Chapter 3 by Farges).
The second example is the study of the Chachapoya mummy (see Chapter 4 by Thomas et al.). This artifact, which is part of the museum and scenic history of the Musée de l’Homme and which inspired one of the most remarkable paintings in the history of art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries – Edvard Munch’s The Scream – is now part of the history of modern science on Amerindian people. Recent studies and the use of new technologies have made it possible to examine the interior of the body and to understand how this people lived and the causes of their death.
The third example concerns new studies on human skulls, probably one of the most heavily examined artifacts in the history of science (see Chapter 5 by Friess and Galland). This study shows how new methods of 3D morphometry have provided new insights and contributed to a better understanding of important issues in the evolution of human diversity, including the relationship between skull shape and geographical distribution and linguistic diversity.
1.3.2. Collections at the heart of highly innovative research thanks to new technologies
Another aspect of innovative uses of collections is the importance of technologies to access information that could not be acquired before. Chapter 6 (by Invernón et al.) shows how a study of hyperaccumulators of metals and rare earths in herbarium plates was possible using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. The results indicate how the herbarium can be used to identify not only useful species for the remediation of heavy metal contaminated sites but also to search for locations where the concentration of certain metals and rare earths may be significant. These fluorescence techniques as well as X-ray microtomography are also of great interest in the study of fossils, because they allow the visualization of structures invisible to the naked eye or through other traditional methods (see Chapter 7 by Charbonnier and Forel). Many diverse research are possible because of these new technologies (systematics, study of development or ancient paleogeography, etc.).
Another facet of the new questions and new technological possibilities is the creation of innovative collections. Collections that are initially intended to meet very specific demands open up a new universe of knowledge and experimentation. An excellent example is illustrated in Chapter 8 (by Duperron et al.) with the collection of live strains of cyanobacteria and microalgae, created to serve as a reference for ecotoxicological tests and environmental diagnostics. Duperron et al. show that this collection, in addition to its use in systematics, is of major interest in research facilitated by high-throughput “-omics” approaches. For example, it allows us to study the interactions between organisms, because the associated cyanosphere and phycosphere are preserved with the specimens. It also facilitates research into bioactive metabolites, mainly for pharmaceutical purposes, which are explored in an increasingly greater detail thanks to new technologies. Another example is presented in Chapter 9 (by Gerbault-Seureau and Dutrillaux) through the collections of cryopreserved cells and tissues of homeothermic vertebrates. This very rich, but still little exploited, collection represents an important source of cellular material, with its recent DNA and RNA of fibroblasts, available for research. Preserving tissues and cells of protected species is all the more interesting as these vulnerable species have small populations. Studies on living tissues of these species can be conducted repeatedly, after cell culture, without causing any harm to living individuals.
While cryopreserved cells and tissues do not enable the revival of homeothermic animals, seeds kept in natural history collections offer this possibility. Scientists have thus set themselves the goal of reviving extinct species whose seeds are preserved in the herbarium (see Chapter 10 by Muller et al.). This innovative approach obviously requires expertise in the reproductive physiology of the target species. This chapter therefore presents the first results of an ambitious project that is a precursor to a type of research that will probably become very widespread in the coming decades.
1.3.3. A resource for global change research
One of the major challenges in studying global change is establishing baselines from which we can see the magnitude and direction of ongoing changes. Global changes, and in particular climate change, are measured on time scales much longer than our contemporary observing systems that, for example, come from stations
