There is an increasing global demand for existing natural history information for use in education, conservation, and policy formulation. Museum specimen collection records, being voluminous, are particularly significant in addressing such demands. This is even more critical in developing countries where daily human life is intimately linked to the environment. We demonstrate how existing museum specimen collection records were mobilized to highlight important animal pollinators in three East African countries. The bulk of the records were obtained from a specify database of existing zoological collections held at the National Museums of Kenya, and the rest were from such alternative sources as published material, discussions with pollination experts, and online taxonomic portals and other tools. Identified to genus or species level, pollinator-ranking criteria encompassed region-wide distribution, number of plants pollinated, importance index of plants pollinated, and plant dependency on pollination. Overall, insects, especially Apis mellifera, were the most important pollinators in the region, pollinating the largest number of plants of diverse domestic, socioeconomic, and ecological significance. The results underscore potential use of specimen recordbased informatics to guide agricultural and economic policy in East Africa.
Mobilizing digitized museum specimen records to highlight important animal pollinators in East Africa
Year: 2014
