By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project
As a cataloger with a liberal arts background working on a natural sciences project, I have learned a sizeable amount on the job. Some of this knowledge has been about the basics of scientific specialties but, more often than not, my new knowledge has been about the practical side of collecting.
- What kind of information do scientists of a specialization look for? For instance, ornithologists record the stomach contents when listing details about birds collected.
- How are specimens prepared? Stored? Shipped? I had not realized that for mammals collected, in some cases, only the skin was kept. Specimens like fish are often stored in jars of preservative solutions, that incidentally causes them to lose their color.
While working on a collection of Invertebrate Zoology, I came across a practical solution to a question I had not thought to ask – how would one collect a representative moment of biodiversity of a location? How does one document the fauna of a location as a snap-shot? Thinking over the methods of collecting and observations I have cataloged, I began to see the extent of the challenge.
For birds, I have seen materials for bird counts, bird-banding, and individual collecting. For marine biology, I have seen materials relating to dredging and fishing. These methods really seem best suited to documenting a type of wildlife found at a location. To use these methods to record a wide range of wildlife in an area would be time and labor intensive.
One method that provides an answer to this challenge is “rotenone sampling.” The account I read in the field notes described it as a relatively new method for collecting a “snapshot” of the fauna of a coral reef. Having never heard of this method, I did some research, and found more than I ever expected.
Rotenone is derived from the roots of tropical plants in the genus Derris, Lonchocarpus or Tephrosia in South America and Pacific Islands. It was initially recognized being used by native populations of the Pacific Islands and South America for fishing purposes. Rotenone works by blocking the cellular uptake of oxygen, and is an example of the use of plant poisons as a way of collecting specimens that are representative of a specific location. This method became more common after 1930. Rotenone is now an established method of location sampling and fish population management.
Over the last half century rotenone has become a collecting tool for field biologists as well as a method of fish management for a variety of organizations including state fish and wildlife departments and federal agencies. As one might imagine, this method of population management and sampling is closely regulated, and has inspired lively debate over the years. Yet over the last half century, state and federal agencies including the EPA have monitored it, and US Fish and Wildlife have discussed its proper utilization, proving it to be a useful tool for environmental study and management.