Mammals

Division of Mammals

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Division of Mammals
Museum of Southwestern Biology
1 University of New Mexico
MSC03-2020
Albuquerque, NM 87131
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Division of Mammals
Museum of Southwestern Biology
CERIA Building 83 Room 204
302 Yale Blvd NE
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131

Management Agency Collaborators


USGS Biological Surveys Collection

In 1994, vertebrates from the USGS Biological Surveys Collection, Fort Collins were moved to the MSB. From 1981 to 2006, Dr. Michael Bogan served as the Curator of that collection, now called the USGS Biological Surveys Collection, Albuquerque. The Federal collection contains over 26,000 specimens of dry and fluid-preserved mammals and is particularly rich in specimens from western Federal lands in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nebraska. The Federal collections and databases are now fully integrated and managed by the MSB. These are the second largest USGS biological collections outside of those managed by the Smithsonian Institution. USGS

USGS Molecular Ecology Laboratory, Anchorage

The Museum of Southwestern Biology has established a long and productive collaborative relationship with Dr. Sandra Talbot and the Molecular Ecology Laboratory in Anchorage. A series of UNM graduate students (Dr. Natalie Dawson, Dr. Andrew Hope, Jolene Rearick, and Jocie Colella) have gained valuable federal agency experience and exposure to cutting-edge molecular biology skills through short-term research projects that help USGS meet its mandate to provide impartial science information to Department of Interior management agencies for their decision making. Projects have focused on conservation genetics and pathogen discovery in mesocarnivores and their prey. USGS

United States Forest Service

The Museum of Southwestern Biology has a long-term collaborative relationship with the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. Through a series of Cooperative Agreements, the Tongass has sponsored more than 15 graduate students over the past 24 years in an effort to better understand the distribution, status and biogeographic history of the mammals of this incomparable coastal rainforest. The effort has resulted in more than 65 peer-review publications that establish and more complete understanding of endemism, pathogens, and connectivity of mammals across the Alexander Archipelago. USFS

New Mexico Department of Game and Fish

Dating back to the 1970’s, during the tenures of Director William Huey, Endangered Species Program Director Dr. John Hubbard, and a host of NM Game and Fish biologists like Greg Schmidt, the Museum of Southwestern Biology has worked closely with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to document the diversity of mammals in the Land of Enchantment.  This cooperative effort has resulted in one of the largest temporal and spatial archives of mammals in the American Southwest including especially powerful datasets of large predators such as bobcats, bears, and cougars.  NM dept game fish

United States Fish and Wildlife Service

Once common throughout portions of the southwestern United States, the Mexican wolf was all but eliminated from the wild by the 1970s. In 1977, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initiated efforts to conserve the species. In 1998, Mexican wolves were released to the wild for the first time in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area. The MSB serves as repository for all wolf mortalities in the wild or breeding facilities and our database, Arctos, helps to manage the myriad of data and publications that is generated on these organisms. We currently hold >1000 Mexican wolf specimens (skin, skeleton, tissue, or blood samples) spanning a temporal range of 90 years (1924-2014).

US fish wildlife

Alaska Department of Game and Fish

Over the past decade, a close collaborative relationship with managers and biologists in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has helped build the largest collection of Alaska mammals outside of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Especially important are series of carnivores that were salvaged from commercial trappers.  The MSB holds >15,000 specimens, many of which have associated parasites. AK game fish

Yukon Department of Renewable Resources

Long-term collaborations with Yukon biologists and commercial trappers has produced an excellent mammalian archive that will be critical to understanding rapidly changing conditions (e.g., climate warming and emerging pathogens) at high latitudes. This collaboration has resulted in about 4,000 specimens from the Yukon Territory, many with associated parasites. yukon government

Public Health/Biomedical Collaborators


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The MSB DOM has a long standing relationship with the CDC following collaboration on the 1993 Sin Nombre hantavirus outbreak in the 4 corners area. The DOM has served as a repository for disease investigation vouchers since that time.

Examples of collections based on outbreak investigations, or as a result of emerging disease research include:

Sweden 1993, 1999 – Hantavirus (400 specimens)
Bolivia 1994 - Hemorrhagic fever (185 specimens)
Zaire 1995 –Ebola virus (600 specimens)
Nicaragua 1995– Hantavirus (50 specimens)
Paraguay 1995 – Hantavirus (135 specimens)
Bolivia 2000 – Machupo virus (330 specimens)
Panama 2000-2014 – Hantavirus (7000 specimens)
Chile 1997-2007 – Hantavirus (7300 specimens)
Mongolia 1999, 2009-2013 – Hantavirus (5000 specimens)
China 1999, 2006 – Emerging diseases (500 specimens)

>18,000 specimens; >300 species

CDC

Instituto Conmemorativo Gorgas, Panama

An ongoing collaboration begun in 2000 (currently at 15-years) with the Panamanian Health Department and Dr. Blas Armien to monitor Hantavirus prevalence and mammalian reservoir species throughout the country has resulted in the largest collection of Panamanian mammals held in any collection.  The MSB holds approximately 7,000 specimens, all with associated Hantavirus sero-prevalence data.  Primarily composed of rodents from lowland areas of Panama, we are now increasing our surveys of higher elevation montane forests and increasing sampling of bats. gorgas

US Department of Agriculture National Parasite Lab

Dr. Eric Hoberg of the National Parasite Lab in Beltsville Maryland has been a long-time collaborator of the Museum of Southwestern Biology. In addition to being instrumental in facilitating the donation of the vast Robert and Virginia Rausch Parasite Collection, he has been collaborating with MSB mammalogists on a series of National Science Foundation sponsored inventories of Beringia (Siberia, Alaska and northwestern Canada).  His work has shown that mammalian hosts and parasites communities in high latitude ecosystems were structured in response to shifting climates (glacial and interglacial stages). These episodic cycles geographic expansion and colonisation linked Eurasia and North America across Beringia and produced a mosaic fauna, including considerable cryptic diversity among nematodes and cestodes. Our ability to determine these historical responses to shifts in global climate may provide a framework for forecasting the cascading effects of contemporary environmental change. USDA

John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii

Dr. Richard Yanagihara and colleagues at the University of Hawaii have collaborated with the Museum of Southwestern Biology and other museums to survey a large number of specimens of shrews (9 genera and 47 species), moles (8 genera and 10 species) and bats (26 genera and 53 species) that were collected in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America since 1980. To date, they have discovered 24 new hantaviruses in shrews, moles and bats that are more widespread and more genetically diverse than those previously reported from rodents. These new findings indicate that that the evolution of hantaviruses is far more complex than previously thought.  john burns