The unexpected benefits of taxonomic-collectioning

Mycologists out on a fungal foray (baskets not obligatory). CC MJ Richardson.

  He* who has joined with companions in a botanical party, and with them often visited native spots of beauty, and gathered their treasures, can truly know the feelings of delight that arise in the breast, feelings by no means of an evanescent nature, but lasting during life - and at once recalled by the sight of the specimens which were collected. An occasional glance at a Herbarium, will call forth many a pleasing recollection, many a circumstance otherwise forgotten. One little plant will often tell a tale of adventure, and revive many an agreeable association of persons, places, and incidents.
 Thomas Bruges Flower in 'The Flora of Wiltshire' (Wiltshire Arch. and Nat. Hist. Magazine, v4. 1858) *He probably meant it in a non-gender-specific way really, but it was 1858 so maybe we ought to let him off. (Did you notice has one of those mad Nominative Determinism surnames?)

His point (and mine), is that getting outside and seeing what species are out there (especially in the company of like minded people), can have excellent long-term effects on your state of mind.

I know this collection is one of your assignments (and so you may feel it is only adding to the pressures you are under), but in my own experience I think it has elements which are quite stress-reducing.

I'm a bit of a serial course-taker, and a while ago I was studying part-time over at one of the other campuses. Everything started off very positively, but half-way through I got really confused and anxious about what I was doing (to the point where I'd sometimes avoid coming in, and that, as I'm sure you know, is not a good idea, as speaking to people always helps sort things out. It worked out ok in the end btw). So I think this assignment is good because once you've settled on a group to collect, what you have to do is very well set out. That clarity makes things a bit easier, and causes less stress.

Being outdoors is good for you. CC image John Chroston.

Also, as you're taking an environment-related course, I guess I don't need to labour the point that going outside and wandering about has great benefits for mental wellbeing. It's not just the sunshine (if there is any) and the fresh air. It's that when you notice plants and animals getting on with their own business, it tends to put a refreshed sense of perspective on things. The current political chaos, the looming gas bill, the argument with your flatmate - they seem less important against the grand scheme of things. All that muddle in your brain gets a chance to clear, like silt settling out in a beaker of water. Plus, you can feel extra virtuous, as your wandering about actually counts as studying, so there's no guilt for "wasting time" away from your desk.

A positive element of this assignment is the element of choice. You come to this course with existing interests and prior experiences, and might want to draw on those to inspire which group to choose. You might want to pursue something requiring skills you already have (maybe you enjoy fiddly practical tasks), or that will encourage you to get out to habitats you're interested in. Or, you might want to try something entirely new: don't be deterred by prior ideas of what you're good at, as the human brain is amazingly flexible (at any age!). Have confidence.

I can imagine the mental benefits of going out in a boat (not so confident of a fish's perspective of angling though). This Chinese depiction by Ma Yuan is from 1195AD!

 I hope you'll feel my colleagues and I can provide a supportive environment and you'll find the lab a pleasant retreat in which to work. I think you may also find yourself helping, and being helped by your coursemates, as you learn to find and identify your chosen plants or creatures. This is definitely A Positive Thing too. Yes, you can be competitive in a nerdy I've-got-more-species-than-you sort of way. But this isn't a 'zero-sum game' where one person's success knocks marks off another's work. Co-operatively sharing your new-found skills reinforces your learning (and makes you feel happy too).

Another aspect of 'snailing' or 'ferning' or whatever it is you choose, is it can really take you out of yourself. I mean that focused state of mind when you're entirely engrossed in what you're doing. Maybe it'll happen when you're out searching for specimens, but I definitely experience it when I'm hunched over the microscope in the lab, staring at the keys and scribbling into my notebook. (I recognise it elsewhere from when I'm being arty, drawing and painting - maybe you have your own version too). It happens when you're absorbed in making sketches and descriptions from your own close observations, and checking and comparing the details of your specimen back and forth with the drawings and descriptions in the ID books. You're not thinking about anything else, and it's like a puzzle to be solved. Sometimes you can get cross when you can't work out the final answer, though even then you'll have been usefully observing and recording new and interesting things (in the case of the microscopic worlds of lichens, beetles and so on, probably features you'd never have suspected). But when your efforts result in triumph, and you get a successful identification, then you will feel rightly chuffed, and I think that's a very satisfying sensation.

This isn't your brain on drugs - this is your brain whilst doing your taxonomic collection. Probably.

So, I hope you'll enjoy and value the process of learning during this assignment, and see its own rewards. That you'll be driven (at least partly) by more than handing in the required objects at the end. You can also go on to use your skills for a wider purpose (as you can read about here) - but I will ramble further about that on another occasion.

Some admirable collections from 2018/19 to inspire you

Please do email me or pop in to OJ16, if you have questions or fancy a chat about any of this. This year we have lab space dedicated to this assignment - which is great! - so you will usually be able to use the microscopes, books and other equipment whenever you like (weekdays, usually 8am-5ish pm).  Do bring your specimens in - naturally I am always keen to see all your interesting finds, but I can also start you off on how to identify and preserve them (or alternatively I can disappear off and leave you in peace to concentrate, if you prefer).
Good luck, have fun, start now - Rhiannon 

One of last year's excellent Hymenoptera collections

Understandably, you may like to see some previous collections for inspiration. But unsurprisingly, the best collections are usually treasured by their owners (they really are), and taken home. I know some people have even brought them back out to impress at job and placement interviews (with success). So in lieu of seeing some of the best from last year in person, here are some photos.

Below is a spider collection which was given a First. It looks really good, doesn't it. Looking good isn't everything, of course. But it does give a good first impression that this student must have put in some consistent effort with everything else. That they've preserved and presented the specimens so carefully gives you confidence they've been thorough about collecting and identifying them. The taxonomically logical arrangement helps make Order out of Chaos for anyone looking at it (the most closely related species positioned next to each other).

Envisage a great looking collection from the start, and it will help you think about what you need to do to achieve that - the number of specimens, the types of places you'll need to go, the information to collect there, the method of preservation you'll need to use, etc.

Plus, if you have a final object in mind, it can help you realise the importance of time management. Last year I saw several people who'd put in huge effort collecting and identifying some amazing lichens, but left themselves no time to pull everything together at the end. They'd not given it much thought, and their last-minute presentation lost them marks that would have added up to an even better grade. Which was frustrating and a shame. So don't let this happen to you!

(This label isn't perfect but it's pretty much there)

The spider-collector cemented their good mark with an excellent monograph (given the equivalent of 80%). Wow (you may say) - how do I get such a good mark? Well, it sounds obvious but it really is this simple: Do What You're Asked To Do. (In this example, the marker noted the monograph "provided a good introduction to the taxonomic group, including the key features of the order and families from the collection." That's what the mark scheme required, and that's what the student did - and so they got a good mark. I know. It sounds bizarrely straightforward).

Handily, this assignment provides a quite specific break-down of what you need to do well for each element. (Perhaps it's easier to see how to get a good mark than when you're just given a single sentence title for an essay). The information is there in the materials you're given by Katy, so do read them. I like to think there's a lot of help in this blog too, and I will try to keep updating it this term.

Look at the artfully displayed and resolutely unmouldy Polypody fern above, from another collection that was given a First. This student was praised for the good quality, correctly identified and suitably diverse set of specimens. But crucially, they got extra-high marks for their monograph and field diary (the marker's comment said "Good detail and evidence of planning. Location photos and plant photos useful, as are sketch diagrams. Very good detailed notes from field, and for identification"). So that's another top tip: go and buy a notebook as the first thing you do, and record what you're doing as you go along. The notebook demonstrates your learning, but is also a way of keeping everything in order - you can draw on your notes to identify specimens, complete your labels, and help you write your monograph.

Here are some other ideas for presentation. This one is a beautifully retro habitat for a well organised, First class snail collection:

This collector's notebook explicitly shows her thought processes, in using a key to identify specimens. This would be a good thing to emulate. Note the nice labelled sketches.

Also earning a first, here's only half of a student's beautifully presented collection of marine molluscs:

and some pages from her interesting and attractive notebook.

You won't go wrong with some similarly thoughtful commentary, pictures and maps, and annotated illustrations of your own. Note that this sort of thing is best created as you go along, while it's all fresh in your head. Preferably, you'd always take your notebook into the field too, just to catch important and easily forgotten thoughts provoked by wandering somewhere new and finding something interesting. One day, doubtless we will all be creating multimedia electronic notebooks with videos and animated diagrams. But in the meantime try to bear with the paper version required. (At least paper notebooks will never have hardware / software problems a decade or ten down the line: scientists are finding useful information in 100 year old field notebooks using their eyeballs, but how many people are digging information off 20 year old floppy discs?)

This collection of seaweeds was given a very good mark, but my photos of it were awful. So I'd like to show you an idea of how it used a very professional-looking way of collecting together the large number of specimens (which as you see above were beautifully preserved on separate sheets of good quality paper, with what appeared to be typed labels -or maybe it was just a retro font that looked like typing, nice anyway). They were held in a 'drop front herbarium box' like this:

from Preservation Equipment Ltd though I'm sure other options exist

So that's an idea for anyone doing seaweeds, or ferns, or Asteraceae flowers - anything where you have lots of flat sheets. It might even work for winter trees. The drop front makes it easy to get the sheets out without damaging them (and it looks better than a lever arch file, you must agree).

For more inspiration, see the other posts I've written about 'how previous students got good marks'.

For a bit of advice on how to choose what to collect, you might want to read my various thoughts on the matter, and the general encouragement here. For more information on notebooks and what to put in them, try the link in the list on the top right. --->