Environmental specimen banking and co-operation between different institutes

Project

Increased requirements for better environmental services have raised needs to improve Internet -based information availability and co-operation between environmental institutes. To fulfil these needs concerning sample material collected in different experiments and monitoring programmes, the Finnish Forest Research Institute and the Ministry of Education set in 2003 a research and development project "Environmental specimen banking and co-operation between different institutes" as a part of the national Biodiversity and Monitoring Programme in Finland (MOSSE 2003 - 2006). Project focuses on long-term storage of environmental samples and co-operation between the institutes involved in specimen banking in Finland. Main target of this project is to develop an operations model to improve and unify the storage and use of environmental samples collected in separate monitoring programmes and studies. One standpoint in the model will be that the existing specimen material could be utilized much more intensively in research and education. More efficient use of the specimen and specimen data need improved and open information availability in different data processing systems and databases. The project has shown that most of the specimen material stored for future needs could be concentrated to facilities designed particularly for the long-term preservation of organic material. For that reason, practical work of the current project consist development of the Paljakka ESB due to improvements in sample storage and information services in specimen database. All the observations and advancements in the Paljakka ESB are utilized in the final operations model. The project has also shown that all sample information could be connected to different international data processing systems and programmes more effectively by centralized, non-separate up-to-date databases and uniform datanet. In addition to data recorded in electric format, all the sample information (manuals and documents, results, publications etc.) printed on paper could be centralised to specimen bank libraries (information related to old sample series is often available only in paper format). Fair instructions for preservation and use of stored specimen and open data availability would increase both national and international co-operation in specimen use, and increased data availability could be more effectively utilized in education.

The operations model of the current project will be completed by the end of year 2006 and main results of the project will be presented in meetings and symposiums as well as Finnish popular articles and journals. Recommendations as "future steps" for the development of specimen storage and use in Finland will be given.

Operations model include separate sections for:

1. sampling and sample storage in Finland,
2. sample preservation methods,
3. specimen banks and specimen banking programmes,
4. instructions for sample storage and utilization,
5. information availability and
6. sampling in environmental monitoring.

Photos: Erkki Oksanen and Jarkko Utriainen