Natural history collections (NHCs) archive and provide access to biodiversity records by preserving biological, paleontological, and geological specimens and their associated data. Worldwide, there are thousands of NHCs curating over 2 billion specimens that represent over a million taxa (Mehrhoff 1997). Varying considerably in size and scope, NHCs are united in curating specimens and data in support of biodiversity research. Larger collections have been reviewed and identified as being important to biodiversity research (Miller 1991), whereas smaller regional collections, which make up the vast majority of NHCs, have not received the recognition they merit for their contributions to biodiversity research infrastructure. In the present article, we make a case for the critical importance of smaller regional collections in creating the Global Museum and the Extended Specimen Network (Bakker et al. 2020, Lendemer et al. 2020).

中文翻译：

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区域性收藏品是生物多样性研究基础设施的重要组成部分

自然历史收藏（NHC）通过保存生物，古生物学和地质标本及其相关数据来存档并提供对生物多样性记录的访问。在全球范围内，成千上万的NHC策划了超过20亿个样本，这些样本代表了超过一百万个分类单元（Mehrhoff1997）。NHC在规模和范围上千差万别，它们联合起来整理标本和数据，以支持生物多样性研究。大量收藏已被审查并确定对生物多样性研究很重要（米勒1991年），而构成NHC绝大多数的较小的区域性收藏却没有得到承认，因为它们对生物多样性研究基础设施的贡献。在本文中，我们论证了较小的区域收藏品在创建全球博物馆和扩展标本网络中的至关重要性（Bakker等。2020年，Lendemer等人。 2020）。