Station Linné’s Insect Collections

In collaboration with the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, and with financial support from the SLU Swedish Species Information Centre in Uppsala, Station Linné has built one of the world’s largest wet collections of insects, with a strong emphasis on Swedish material.

Support for biological collections from the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative enables the curation and digitisation of both the research station’s wet and dry collections. Station Linné has also adopted a collections management policy developed in accordance with the guidelines of the Swedish National Heritage Board.

An extensive and fully traceable collection

All material is carefully labelled, making it possible to trace every individual among the tens of millions of insects in our collections and link it to its associated metadata.

Most of the insects are preserved in unsorted samples, many of which have been metabarcoded. However, a substantial proportion of the collected material has been pre-sorted to at least order level, and much of it has been sorted further to family or subfamily level.

It is important to note that processed bulk samples are only mildly lysed. The insects therefore remain in the samples in a condition that largely corresponds to that of the originally collected material.

An international research resource

Station Linné’s collections attract considerable interest from taxonomic experts around the world. To date, hundreds of experts from at least 25 countries have contributed to the identification of our insects.

Molecular methods now make it possible to generate species lists directly from bulk samples without prior taxonomic sorting. These data are published open access and are freely available online.

Despite Sweden’s strong tradition in systematics and taxonomy, molecular methods have also highlighted the substantial gaps that remain in our knowledge of insect diversity – even here in Sweden, the homeland of Linnaeus. Preliminary results indicate that as many as a quarter, and possibly up to half, of Sweden’s insect species may remain undiscovered and, in many cases, scientifically undescribed.

Access to unsorted samples

The growing interest in our collections also means that the material must be handled with great care. It is therefore not permitted to open an unsorted, metabarcoded bulk sample simply to extract a particular taxon, regardless of how interesting the sequenced material in that sample may be.

If a researcher is interested in a particular record, species or genus, the sample must first be sorted according to Station Linné’s established workflows. This minimises handling and damage to delicate taxa, which might otherwise easily be damaged or disintegrate when a sample is searched.

If you are interested in particular specimens or taxa, please contact us so that we can discuss the best way to make the material available.

Loans and species identification

Researchers receiving material from Station Linné for identification are expected to provide a species list, preferably within one year of receiving the material or, by prior agreement, following an extension of the loan period.

Each loan is accompanied by an Excel file in which the borrower records the scientific genus and species name, author and year of description, number of specimens, sex, metadata, determinavit (the name of the person who made the identification), and the year in which the identification was made.

Different taxa originating from the same wet sample must be kept separate after identification and individually labelled in order to be regarded as identified specimens for curatorial purposes. If the material is subsequently mixed together again, the link between the individual specimens and their identifications is lost, meaning that they may have to be identified again at a later date.

Material that may be retained

Insects from Station Linné are sent to you in your capacity as a taxonomic expert on the groups concerned. As an expert, you may retain a proportion of the material you have identified.

Specimens representing the only known occurrence of a species in the loan – so-called singletons – must always be returned to Station Linné. If a species is represented by only a small number of specimens, no more than every second specimen may be retained. This means that at least specimens numbered one, three, five, and so forth must be returned to Station Linné.

All remaining material must also be returned, including unwanted or unmounted specimens. This may include, for example, readily identifiable species occurring in large numbers in the samples, or specimens for which the sex could not be determined. The material is preserved for future research and other scientific purposes.

Long-term management of the material

Identified specimens will ultimately be incorporated into either the collections of the Swedish Museum of Natural History (NRM), which has priority, or Station Linné’s own collections. Identified material must, however, always first be returned to Station Linné.

The resulting species lists also make important contributions to the ongoing work of the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative, whose ambitious long-term objective is to survey and scientifically describe all multicellular animals, plants and fungi occurring in Sweden.

Interested in working with our collections?

Are you a taxonomic expert interested in material from Station Linné’s collections? Or do you have questions about a particular sample, taxon or record?

Please get in touch – we look forward to hearing from you!