Most collections have mentored local high school students for the Alaska Statewide Science Symposium. The collections employ undergraduates to give them real world experience and aids them in getting funding for undergraduate projects. The collections have graduate students and post-docs that work on specimens in the collection.
And why do they have so many specimens and why does anyone care? Following are just a few of the many questions that the UAM Mammals Collection has helped answer. How do environmental changes affect genetic variation? Where have species gone locally extinct? How do species respond to climate change? What constitutes a geographic boundary in a marine environment? Have marine mammals changed their diets over historic time periods? How do size and shape vary within a species in different environments? How do small organisms adapt to low oxygen levels? What are the genetic consequences of being small, isolated population? How many times has social behavior evolved?
Instead of throwing away specimens, they are kept for repeatability of studies and to be available to answer future questions whether they arise next week or hundred years from now.
And if you want to see the collections, the museum holds regular open houses.
Posted on April 21 at 9:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Just a few examples of UAM student research:
http://www.uaf.edu/museum/mammal/Link_Ol...
http://users.iab.uaf.edu/~aren_gunderson...
http://www.uaf.edu/news/a_news/200605111...
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/AS...
Most collections have mentored local high school students for the Alaska Statewide Science Symposium. The collections employ undergraduates to give them real world experience and aids them in getting funding for undergraduate projects. The collections have graduate students and post-docs that work on specimens in the collection.
And why do they have so many specimens and why does anyone care? Following are just a few of the many questions that the UAM Mammals Collection has helped answer.
How do environmental changes affect genetic variation? Where have species gone locally extinct? How do species respond to climate change? What constitutes a geographic boundary in a marine environment? Have marine mammals changed their diets over historic time periods? How do size and shape vary within a species in different environments? How do small organisms adapt to low oxygen levels? What are the genetic consequences of being small, isolated population? How many times has social behavior evolved?
Instead of throwing away specimens, they are kept for repeatability of studies and to be available to answer future questions whether they arise next week or hundred years from now.
And if you want to see the collections, the museum holds regular open houses.
On University of Alaska Museum of the North's mammal collection is still growing