GenBank and vouchers

[Robin Leech]

John,
How does Clemson put a claim on specimens to be voucher specimens if ALL examined specimens come from other sources (i.e., borrowed material)?
Robin Leech
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Morse 
  To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG 
  Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2000 10:58 AM
  Subject: Re: GenBank and vouchers


  Another way to educate about vouchers is to require graduate students to voucher their thesis organisms.  Here in the Entomology Department at Clemson, we included several years ago in our Graduate Student Guidelines a requirement that students must voucher their MS thesis and PhD dissertation research species:

  "S.  Voucher Specimens from Thesis or Dissertation Research (Form ED-8)

  "1.  Representative vouchers of all subject insects studied for M.S. theses and Ph.D. dissertations are to be deposited in a suitable permanent institution according to its established procedures are to be referenced in the thesis or dissertation.    (The value of this career-long practice has been noted often in the Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America [e.g., 1975, vol. 21, pp. 157-159; 1978, vol. 24, pp. 141-142; 1984, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 8-11], to which articles the student should refer for details.)

  "The Clemson University Arthropod Collection is prepared to maintain voucher specimens.  Students should consult with the Collection's curator or technical staff for labeling and deposition procedures.

  "3.  Reference to the number of voucher specimens, their life history stage(s) or sex(es), and the institutional repository is to appear usually in the "Materials and Methods" section of the thesis or dissertation."

  (There is a space of the our Thesis/Dissertation Review form (Form ED-8) for students to indicate their voucher specimen repository and date of deposition.)

  Faculty in other biology graduate programs may want to consider this method of getting young scientists into the "vouchering habit" at an early stage in their careers.

  John Morse
  jmorse at clemson.edu

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  John C. Morse, PhD
  Professor of Entomology and Director,
  Clemson University Arthropod Collection
  Department of Entomology
  Clemson University
  Long Hall
  Box 340365
  Clemson, SC 29634-0365
  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
  office telephone: +864-656-5049
  home telephone: +864-646-3580
  office FAX: +864-656-5065
  email: jmorse at clemson.edu
  WWW: http://entweb.clemson.edu/
  (See "Entomology Information" for databases regarding the CUAC and the TRICHOPTERA WORLD CHECKLIST)
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