New species of spineless sea creatures may be discovered at the Canadian Museum of Nature in a recently acquired collection of more than 1,000 specimens, says researcher Jean-Marc Gagnon.
The specimens will be stored at the museum’s research and collections facility in Gatineau. The goal of the facility is to maintain thousands of materials that will be used by researchers and scientists for many years to come. Many of this material can be used later to find new discoveries, says Gagnon.
Gagnon, curator of the Centretown’s museum’s invertebrate section received the huge shipment of crustaceans, invertebrates and shells from the estate of the late Dr. Don Steele, a former professor emeritus at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Steele died in March.
Along with the shipment of specimens came Steele’s field notes and research papers, which may help prove the existence of new species of invertebrates.
While Gagnon organizes the collection into groups of species, a fellow researcher will be looking at the genetics of the specimens. Together, they will be able to refer back to Steele’s papers and compare that data to their own research.
“We may find cryptic species, which means that visually we can’t tell them apart, but they are different enough genetically that they are a different species,” says Gagnon.
Over the past few weeks, Gagnon has not been able to work on the project, as the formaldehyde that is used to preserve the specimens has made the air in the storage unit toxic and unsafe to work in.
Once he is able to organize the collection, the data will be made available to the public, says Gagnon.
As the collection will be preserved for years to come, this information will be very valuable for any scientists who will use it in the future, says Mark Graham, vice-president of research and collection services at the Museum of Nature.
“Because he was an expert for such a long time there’s a lot of research that came with the specimens,” says Graham.
Unlike Steele’s collection, materials given to the museum do not often come with additional research, says Graham.
“It’s a detailed collection with in-depth information, and it gives a rich and valuable source of information about that part of Canada.”
Gagnon first became acquainted with Steele while doing his doctorate at Memorial. Steele was on the committee that accepted Gagnon into the university, and both have done extensive research on the anonyx nugax, a species of crustacean found off Canada’s shores.
Over the summer, Dr. John Greene, Gagnon’s former professor, and a close colleague of Steele’s for many years, contacted the Ottawa researcher after having been in touch with Steele’s son, who was looking for someone to take the collection.
Gagnon was in Newfoundland the same week Sean Steele and his wife were packing the office and was able to look at the specimens himself.
“His eyes lit up like a kid in the candy store when he saw all the specimens,” says Steele.
“He knew he wanted them. It was just a matter of logistics and whether the museum in Ottawa would want them,” says Steele.
Gagnon’s role as a curator at the collections facility is to evaluate collections and decide what value they’ll add to the museum.
“I felt that it was important to protect this collection, so we proceeded without the initial permission from the museum,” says Gagnon.
After his initial excitement wore off, Gagnon started organizing the packing and shipping of the specimens. Weeks later, they arrived in Ottawa and were officially accepted by the museum.
Gagnon says he was unprepared for the amount of specimens that Don Steele had collected over the years.
“I was naïve. Seeing all the shelving units filled with materials really opened my eyes to how much a researcher can accumulate in his career,” he says.
For Steele, it was important that his father’s collection would be going to a good use.
“A big part of my childhood was traveling to remote beaches and turning over rocks to find little critters that we would put in jars to look at under the microscope later,” says Steele.
He adds: “It was quite relieving to donate them to somebody that cared and wanted them. It was really honouring the legacy that he had.”