Millions of irreplaceable biodiversity specimens have been re-homed at a new CSIRO facility that the agency says will support research to better understand and manage Australia’s natural environment.<\/p>\n
Named ‘Diversity’, the $90 million National Research Collections building in Canberra features temperature-controlled vaults that are bushfire and pest-resistant while designed to preserve 13 million specimens for future generations.<\/p>\n
Among the specimens, which have been collected over 150 years, are 55,000 birds, 17,000 orchids, 2.4 million moths and seven million beetles.<\/p>\n
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Director Clare Holleley says the collection could help the CSIRO to notice trends in biodiversity. (ABC News: Monte Bovill)<\/p>\n
Dr Clare Holleley, who is the director of vertebrate collections, says the facility serves as a “time machine for Australia’s biodiversity”.<\/p>\n
“What this building captures is the full diversity of Australian fauna and flora,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s taken snapshots of specimens over time, and when we put all of those little snapshots together, it puts together a picture of how Australia’s biodiversity is changing.<\/p>\n
“We can learn from those trends and potentially predict what is going to happen in the future.”<\/p>\n
‘A library of our biodiversity’<\/p>\n
The collections include 99 per cent of Australia’s native birds, as well as exotic bird species, skeletons, mammals, reptiles stored in ethanol, eggs and frozen tissue.<\/p>\n
Relocating the specimens took about a year.<\/p>\n
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Butterfly specimens on display at the CSIRO’s new facility. (ABC News: Monte Bovill)<\/p>\n
The official opening of the facility coincides with National Science Week, described by CSIRO chief executive Doug Hilton as an “exciting” moment.<\/p>\n
“It’s a little bit like a gallery or a museum that holds our national heritage \u2026 it’s a library of our biodiversity,” he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Hilton described the facility as “cutting-edge”, featuring new genomics laboratories and digitisation facilities that will allow scientists to extract and share more information from research specimens.<\/p>\n
“If we can’t understand how things are changing over time, it’s very hard to conserve things for the future,” he said.<\/p>\n
“What we have here is a facility that holds specimens in a highly secure way and allows us to digitise and automate digitisation in a way that is just the envy of the world.”<\/p>\n
‘Our science has to adapt’<\/p>\n
Chief executive Doug Hilton says the CSIRO needs to tackle “productivity, sustainability and our sovereign science capacity”. (ABC News: Monte Bovill)<\/p>\n