On natural history collections, digitized and not: a response to Ferro and Flick

Abstract

Ferro and Flick (2015) describe their efforts to estimate the distribution for a species of rove beetle via the study of specimens from entomological collections, and compare these results to digitally accessible open data. Their study provides an informed and accurate case study that contrasts targeted data capture with generalized public repositories of digital specimen data. However, we feel the conclusions on how global biodiversity data aggregation and publication work require clarification and correction of common misconceptions that we believe will interest those concerned with the future of natural history collections and taxonomy.