On the relevance of regional collections

Abstract

Biological collections are the basis of the Earth’s biodiversity knowledge and most of them are regional collections. Here we present two collections from the Federal University of Espírito Santo—Mammal Collection (UFES-MAM) and the associated Animal Tissue Collection (UFES-CTA)—which have been the main repository for mammal specimens collected in Espírito Santo, mostly georeferenced (~ 90%), and available in public databases. Thus, our objective with this essay was to point out the contributions of these collections to the knowledge of the diversity of mammals in the Atlantic Forest. At the same time, we present the contributions they return to society and the scientific community, highlighting the main obstacles and challenges those regional collections face. Despite being regional, UFES-MAM and UFES-CTA stand out nationally for having biological material from a wide variety of species—mainly rodents, marsupials, and bats—also counting on a series of primate tissues collected during the outbreak of wild yellow fever in Southeastern Brazil from 2017 to 2018. These collecting efforts contributed to 42 new mammal species records for Espírito Santo, and 25 species that had already been registered in the state but were listed only in out-of-state collections or reported in literature without voucher specimens. We hope that the information reported here are examples of good practices and increase knowledge and visibility of the rich collection that these regional collections house.