National Museum of Natural History Annual Report 2006

National Museum of Natural History A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 0 6 | N AT U R E A N D S O C I E T Y

Photograph from the Frederick Wulsin Photographic Collection, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University [56-55-60/15669.1]

Janet or Frederick Wulsin, Rural Tibetan kitchen, September 1923

National Museumof Natural History

Annual Report 2006

N A T U R E A N D S O C I E T Y

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2 National Museum of Natural History • www.mnh.si.edu

The Museum’s 5.9 million visitors in the past year made itthe most visited museum in theUnited States, and our researchand collections were broadlydisseminated during more than12 million visitor sessions tothe Museum’s web sites.Museum scientists continue to

explore the natural world, documenting biodiversity, conductingresearch related to human health and the effects of climate change,exploring the evolution and extinction of life on Earth and celebrat-ing the diversity of human cultures through exhibitions and festivals.

Our 2006 Annual Report provides an overview of the Museum’s widerange of activities, including the impact of our research in meeting the needs of society. For example, the exhibition Arctic: A Friend ActingStrangely showed the impact of global warming on the Arctic ecosystemsthrough scientific data and testimonies from Native peoples. This pres-entation was a powerful reminder that the planet is constantly changingand that our actions can have a profound effect on the natural world.

As a research institution, the Museum’s 126 million specimens and objects comprise the largest natural science collection in the world, and pro-tecting the integrity of this extraordinary resource willalways be our chief concern. To ensure the long-termconservation of our collections, we are building a $44

million expansion of our Museum Support Center inSuitland, Maryland. More than three million collection

records have been made available electronically to provide

scientists worldwide with even greater access to Museum collections,and this number will continue to grow.

Looking ahead, there are many exciting projects underway. InNovember 2007, we will open a pavilion with live butterflies to tell thestory of co-evolution between plants and animals. A major renovationof our first floor is taking place as we complete construction of the newOcean Hall, scheduled to open in September 2008.

The generosity of our supporters is critical to the continued development of the Museum’s research, collections, exhibitions andeducation outreach programs. The Human Origins Initiative hasbecome a reality through individual gifts from board members DavidH. Koch and Dr. Peter Buck. A gift from The Tiffany & Co.Foundation established an endowment and permanent presentationcase for the National Gem Collection. In addition, a gift from theAlfred P. Sloan Foundation will support rapid, accurate identificationof animal and plant species using DNA sequences.

We would like to recognize the dedication and assistance of our previous Board Chairman, Marshall Turner, and our outgoing boardmembers, David Dilcher and Edward O. Gaylord. Their fine workon behalf of the Museum warrants our sincere gratitude. It is alsoour pleasure to welcome Kathryn S. Fuller, David H. Koch, SenatorPatrick Leahy and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, all of whomjoined our Board in 2006. To our supporters, we thank you for allthat you do to help us increase our understanding of nature and therole each of us has in protecting it.

Roger W. Sant Cristián Samper Chairman of the Board Director

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN & DIRECTORJa

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WE ARE PROUD to report that 2006 was a very good year for the National

Museum of Natural History.

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3ANNUAL REPORT 2006

Studying the Natural World to Safeguard Our Future

Understanding the natural world and our place in it informseverything that the Museum does, including extensive

scrutiny of three of today’s most significant scientific concerns:protection of human health, the maintenance of biodiversity, andthe impact of climate change.

BIODIVERSITY & VITAL ECOSYSTEMSSustaining biodiversity is vital to the health of humans and the well-beingof the planet. Unfortunately, the world continues to lose plants, animalsand habitats at an alarming rate. “We are facing a major biodiversity crisis,” asserts Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues, Associate Director for Researchand Collections. “Biodiversity is the raw material making up the world’secosystems that humans depend upon for survival. Yet we have barelyscratched the surface in identifying every living species on Earth.”

For example, only five percent of theEarth’s oceans have been examined,leaving vast amounts of habitat to exploreand countless new species to discover.Our life support system and our futurehealth depend on the oceans’ vitality:

providing food and livelihood, influencingclimate and weather, and yielding abundant oxygen. The Museum’sOcean Initiative and the Ocean Hall in development aim to advancethe scientific understanding of the oceans and increase public awarenessthat oceans are a global system essential to all life, including our own.

In another biodiversity initiative, Museum researchers are takingmolecular samples from all available animal and plant species and linking them to photographs, descriptions and other scientific information to build the largest database of its kind. Using this database, scientists working in the field will be able to instantlyaccess the data on animals, plants and other organisms for numeroususes, such as guarding against invasive species, identifying disease

carriers and monitoring endangered species and habitats. Along theway, important ecological and evolutionary discoveries will be madeand better means to conserve and manage organisms and ecosystemswill be developed.

HUMAN HEALTH Emerging infectious diseases not only affect individual health, but alsohave an adverse impact on our economy. Understanding the source andspread of disease plays a vital role in helping safeguard both human andanimal populations from the continued threat of evolving diseases. Inan increasingly critical effort, Museum researchers are analyzing themolecular sequences of live specimens and historical collections in orderto shed light on vectors of disease.

In researching one particularly common vector of disease—the southern house mosquito—researchers have found genetic variationsin the mosquitoes that affect the insects’ ability to carry the parasitethat causes human filariasis (elephantiasis). Their research has alsorevealed that bird introductions have the ability to move parasitesaround the world, an important finding for healthcare policy makersin this time of avian flu and other emerging infectious diseases.


“If we remain

ignorant of

biodiversity, we

undercut the future

of humanity.”DR. CRISTIÁN SAMPER

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biodiversity& human

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CLIMATE CHANGE Climate change is another societal issue with dramatic biological consequences that the Museum is addressing in multiple disciplines. Mostscientists agree that during the past century a significant increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has caused a gradual warming of Earth’satmosphere and oceans. The consequences of climate change are currentlybeing most strongly felt in the Arctic, where over the last several years thetemperatures have been rising quickly and the greatest reductions in sea icehave been recorded since the advent of satellite records in the 1970s.Melting ice threatens the livelihood of Arctic indigenous peoples such asthe Inuit. They worry that their dietary staples, such as seals, caribou andwalruses, may become rare or totally unavailable. Most climate modelsproject sustained sea ice losses, and scientists are concerned that the formation of new sea ice in the winter will not keep up with the rate ofmelting in the summer. Museum researchers are studying the humanaspects of these alarming phenomena, which were brought to the publicin the Museum exhibition Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely.

Museum paleobiologists and paleoanthropologists are investigatinghow long-term physical changes of ancient global geography andclimate have affected the evolution of plants, animals and humans;how ecosystems have responded to these changes; and how theseresponses have affected today’s patterns of biodiversity.

Museum scientists have studied fossil leaves from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), an episode of carbon release

and global warming 55 millionyears ago during which Earth’saverage surface temperature rapidly rose four to eight degreesCelsius and remained that wayfor about 100,000 years. Fossilleaves collected in Wyomingreveal that the geographic distri-butions of many plants changed rapidly in response to the PETM, withsome species from the southern U.S. invading the northern RockyMountains and other species crossing Arctic land bridges.

The PETM global warming period is relevant to our future. Notonly was it a rapid climate change like today’s warming, but the hugeamount of carbon that was released into the atmosphere during thePETM is similar to what we estimate humans are going to produceduring the next 500 years. By studying the PETM, scientists can seewhat effects future global warming might have on biological systems,and also how the Earth’s climate system adjusts to sudden change.

THE MUSEUM’S ROLE IN INFORMING THE WORLDAt the National Museum of Natural History, we share the results of ourresearch in the hope that when people around the world better under-stand the workings of our planet, they will make more informed person-al decisions and formulate policies that benefit the whole of humanity.


The Beaufort Sea in winterand summer. Many scientistsbelieve that the Arctic Oceanmay become completely ice-free in summer in just a few decades.

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“Throughout history,

climate has been

inextricably linked to

biological diversity,

evolution and human

development.”DR. HANS-DIETER SUES

National Museum of Natural History • www.mnh.si.edu

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5ANNUAL REPORT 2006

Global Climate Change & its Effects on Northern Peoples

From April to November 2006, the exhibition Arctic: A FriendActing Strangely illuminated the changes in Arctic climate and

weather patterns and its often-dramatic impact on the people acrossthe Earth’s polar regions. These changes have been observed by scientists and northern residents alike, all of whom are seeking tounderstand what is happening and determine what can be done tokeep pace with the new reality of Arctic environmental change.

Specifically, temperatures have been rising; Arctic sea ice and land glaciers are shrinking rapidly; and permafrost soil has begun to melt. Inresponse, plant and animal distributions have begun to change. Arcticwaters are warming and animals are changing their migration routes.Some of these changes have costly implications and bring hardship topolar communities, particularly to Arctic indigenous people whosewell-being and economies depend primarily upon local resources.

Northern residents and polar scientists are concerned about thesocietal implications of such a rapid shift in Arctic environment.Moreover, transitions in the Arctic may be early warning signals ofthe types of changes that are likely to affect other parts of the worldin the coming decades. These changes raise an important question:How should we prepare for change?

“This exhibition came out of our strong belief that Arctic residentsshould be given the chance and the means to tell to the public whatthey see happening to their environment,” says Dr. Igor Krupnik,one of the exhibition’s organizers. “We would love for Museum visitors to be touched by changes in peoples’ lives in distant lands,so that when they hear information about environmental processesthey can see the impacts through the eyes of others.”

Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely was a joint outreach effort by theSmithsonian, NOAA Arctic Research Office, NSF and NASA underthe interagency SEARCH (Study of Environmental Arctic Change)program. Curators Krupnik and Dr. William Fitzhugh of the

Museum’s Arctic Studies Center were assisted by a team of scientistsfrom the Museum and the other partner institutions. Special thanksgo to many Arctic residents from Alaska, Siberia, Canada, northernScandinavia and Greenland, whose knowledge, observations, imagesand objects were invaluable in producing this exhibition.

The exhibition website launched in early 2007 and includes NationalScience Standards-based educational activities for teachers, informaleducators, and families. A smaller version of the exhibition will travel to various northern destinations later in 2007.http://forces.si.edu/arctic/

FORMATION & EVOLUTION OF EARTH & SIMILAR PLANETS

Arctic warming is causing a change incaribou and reindeer migration routes,a significant concern for people whodepend on them for survival.Smithsonian scientists are studyinghow reindeer herding people, likethese Netnets children from ArcticRussia, are adapting to climate andsocial changes.

climatechange

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“Climate has

influenced Arctic

cultures for thousands

of years. What we’re

seeing now is,

perhaps, the tip

of the climate

change iceberg.”DR. WILLIAM FITZHUGH


Atmosphere: Change is in the Air

In the multi-faceted exhibit, Atmosphere:Change is in the Air, scientific research stories

and objects from the collections of the Museum’sdepartments of Paleobiology and MineralSciences collections helped illustrate the range ofatmospheric processes that are critically impor-tant to life on Earth and how changes in theatmosphere affect plants, animals and people.

From April to November, dynamic displays—including movies, inter-active computers and striking graphics—demonstrated the effects ofthe atmosphere on human health and the environment around theworld. Stunning visuals from NASA demonstrated the interaction ofthe atmosphere with various global systems, and the latest results fromNASA’s Aura satellite were revealed.

“We emphasized the public health and environmentalaspects to help people understand what changes in theatmosphere—like ozone depletion and poor air quality—really mean to them,” says exhibition curator Dr. PatrickJ. Neale.

A part of the ongoing Forces of Change series, Atmosphere:Change is in the Air was developed by scientists at theMuseum, the Smithsonian Environmental Research

Center (SERC) and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, inpartnership with NASA Goddard’s Aura Satellite Mission. Specialassistance was provided by Dr. Patrick J. Neale, SERC; Dr. ErnestHilsenrath, NASA Goddard Aura Satellite Mission; and StephanieStockman, NASA Goddard Aura Satellite Mission.http://forces.si.edu

This Dynamic Planet

Anew map, This Dynamic Planet: World Map ofVolcanoes, Earthquakes, Impact Craters, and Plate

Tectonics, was created by Dr. Tom Simkin and PaulKimberly of the Museum’s department of MineralSciences, along with Dr. Robert Tilling, Dr. Stephen Kirby,and Dr. David Stewart of the U. S. Geological Survey andDr. Peter Vogt of the U. S. Naval Research Laboratory.

The map’s first two editions made it the best-selling map in the historyof the USGS. This third edition includes authoritative, high-resolutiontopography, bathymetry, tectonic-plate-boundary data and a wealth ofexplanatory panels on the back. Forty thousand copies were printed, andthe accompanying website designed by Kimberly and Simkin was effectively launched from the Department of Mineral Sciences website.

The map shows Earth’s most prominent features when viewed from adistance and more detailed features upon closer inspection.The back ofthe map zooms in further, highlighting examples of fundamentalprocesses while providing text, timelines, references and other resourcesto enhance the understanding of Earth.

The website’s interactive maps invite visitors to make their ownregional maps, using whichever “layers” they choose. Users can alsofind data for any volcano, earthquake or impact symbol via the“Identify” tool. The recent activity shown on this map provides onlya present-day snapshot of Earth’s long history, helping to illustratehow its present surface came to be.www.minerals.si.edu/tdpmap/index.htm

FORMATION & EVOLUTION OF EARTH & SIMILAR PLANETS

understanding earth

Saharan dust heads for the Caribbean

Ozone damage to leaves hampers plant growth

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7ANNUAL REPORT 2006

Google Earth Volcano Update

Millions of Google Earth users can now access the volcano layer of the Smithsonian’s GlobalVolcanism Program. It features a volcano placemark layer that was designed by the program

staff and programmed by webmaster Ed Venzke. Clicking on each volcano triangle pops up a “balloon”with the Smithsonian logo, a photo, summary information about the volcano, and links to the GlobalVolcanism Program website and those of other U.S. and international volcano observatories. GoogleEarth now highlights Smithsonian data on more than 1,500 volcanoeswith known or possible activity during the past 10,000 years.

“The very high number of ‘balloon hits’—approximately 1000 per hour—underscores the public’s fascination with volcanoes and the utility of virtualglobes in exposing society to scientific data,” says Museum volcanologistLee Siebert. “This has been a tremendous educational tool.”

After downloading Google Earth, the volcano layer can be accessed by click-ing on “Geographic Features,” or by downloading directly from the GVPwebsite www.volcano.si.edu and clicking on “Google Earth Placemarks.”

Global Volcanism on Disc

The Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program (GVP) releasedVolcanoes of Central America, a CD-ROM produced by Lee

Siebert, Paul Kimberly and Dr. James Luhr of the GVP, ChristinaCalvin of Brown University and Dr. Guiseppina Kysar Mattietti ofGeorge Mason University. Third in a series partially funded by theU.S. Department of Energy, Office of Geothermal Technologies,the effort involved collaboration with volcanological colleagues inGuatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

Volcanoes of Central America contains an extensive compilation of theGlobal Volcanism Program’s data and images on one of the world’smost active volcanic regions. A map-driven interface enables usersto select each of the 126 Holocene and Pleistocene volcanoes ofCentral America. Users can view data about individual volcanoes,

chronologies of known eruptions during the past 10,000 years andnearly 1,000 images of Central American volcanoes and their dra-matic eruptions. The CD includes more than two decades of cur-rent eruption summaries from monthly Smithsonian bulletins,along with the GVP’s petrologic, bibliographic and map databases.It also features Eruptions Through Time, a program that sequential-ly plots all eruptions since 1960 on a physiographic map of Mexicoand Central America.

Volcanoes of Central America brings together a broad spectrum ofSmithsonian GVP data on volcanoes in an easily-accessed format asa resource for volcanic and geothermal studies, for public officialswith responsibility for volcano hazards assessments and for anyonewho is interested in the volcanoes of this active region.

geohazards


DISCOVERING & UNDERSTANDING LIFE’S DIVERSITY

Coral Evolution and Modern Threats

Corals provide the infrastructure for the most diverse ecosystemsin the oceans: the tropical reef environments. Today corals face

tremendous pressures from human activities and are threatened withextinction. If all corals were to become extinct, the repercussions wouldlikely affect all life on Earth. Understanding these basic life forms is,therefore, essential to our future.

All corals in the sea, particularly the familiar kinds that form reefs,have hard external skeletons. But some close relatives of corals, theanemones, do not have external skeletons at all. Inside their bodies,however, the two groups are similar and have long been thought tobe related. Could anemones be corals that lost their skeletons longago through evolutionary processes?

In an article by zoologist Dr. Allen Collins and colleagues inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors hypothe-size that the loss of the coral skeleton of stony corals (Scleractinia)during the Cretaceous Period 110 to 132 million years ago created“naked corals.” While this has long been suspected, there has neverbeen any strong evidence to support the idea.

Collins, of the National Systematics Laboratory of the NOAA’sNational Marine Fisheries Service and Adjunct Scientist at theMuseum, and Dr. Mónica Medina generated molecular data—complete mitochondrial genomes from both stony corals andanemones—and conducted phylogenetic analyses that provided thefirst clear evidence that one group of stony corals is more closelyrelated to an anemone group (Corallimorpharia) than it is to a second coral group. With this strong evidence, the scientists concluded that while some corals continued their evolution as stonycorals with skeletons, another lineage of corals lost its skeleton giving rise to the “naked corals” still in existence today.

Most interesting was the finding that during the time period inEarth’s history when corals most likely lost their skeletons, theatmosphere had high carbon dioxide levels. High atmospheric carbon dioxide levels alter ocean chemistry, negatively impactingthe ability of corals to grow skeletons. Naked corals may haveescaped extinction by adapting to these conditions.

“Today, corals and other animals with calcareous skeletons are facing similar conditions. As our activities increase atmospheric carbon dioxide, ocean chemistry is changing, becoming moreacidic,” Collins says. “This places pressure on corals because it interferes with their ability to secrete skeletons. Could some specieslose their skeletons? Those that cannot adapt or persist will becomeextinct. Widespread coral extinction would have profound impactson human well-being.”

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“With this change in

habitat, corals that

cannot either adapt

or persist will

become extinct.

Widespread coral

extinction would

have profound

impacts on human

well-being.”DR. ALLEN COLLINS

Corals and naked corals, likethese examples from the shallow waters of Japan, havecomparable bodies. TheTubastrea coral (left) has a hardexternal skeleton covered by athin layer of greenish brown tissue. In contrast, naked coralslike the Discosoma (right) havesimilar internal anatomy but lackcalcified skeletons.

habitat change


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Understanding the Spread of Infectious Disease

Recent news reports tell of evidence of avian flu and the potential for the spread of disease. A study published in the high-impact

scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, byDr. Robert Fleischer, Head of the Smithsonian Molecular GeneticsProgram with joint appointment with the National Zoological Park,along with Smithsonian Fellows Dr. Farah Ishtiaq and Jon Beadell,and others, makes it clear that bird introductions have the ability tomove parasites around the world, a finding of some importance in thistime of emerging infectious diseases.

Using molecular methods, the authors explore whether overall avianmalaria parasite prevalence differs between introduced commonmynas and those in their native range, and whether mynas carryparasite lineages with them to their introduced region or obtainthem once they get there.

The original native range of the common myna is India. The studyfound that some introduced populations—Australia and SouthAfrica, for example—had equivalent parasite loads to those found inIndia, while others—such as Fiji and Hawaii—had few or no bloodparasites. Additionally, while mynas apparently brought parasiteswith them from India to their new homes in such places asAustralia, South Africa and New Zealand, the molecular datarevealed that they also likely picked up new parasite types whenthey arrived. These findings indicate a potential mechanism for thespread of avian flu or other emerging infectious diseases.

According to Fleischer, “To our knowledge, this is the first comparativestudy conducted on blood parasites in an avian host that has been introduced from one to multiple regions.”

Mosquito Introductions as Vectors of Disease

When invasive species can threaten human health, the envi-ronment and even our economy, the importance of

understanding emerging pathogens and their animal vectorsbecomes increasingly clear. Dr. Robert Fleischer, Dr. DinaFonseca and Julie Smith of the Smithsonian Molecular GeneticsProgram and colleagues are shedding light on one pervasive vectorof disease—the southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus.

The team focused on one of the best known introductions of mosquitoes where the mosquito is the sole vector of deadly avian malaria and a major vector of avian poxvirus: that of C. quinquefasciatusto the Hawaiian Islands from Mexico in 1826. To determine whetherMexico was the sole source of current Hawaiian mosquito populations,the team performed a worldwide genetic survey of mosquito species and

found that C. quinquefasciatus has divergent Old and New World genet-ic signatures with further distinctions between East and West African,Asian and Pacific/Australian populations. These findings demonstratethat the original Mexican mosquitoes in Hawaii have been almost com-pletely replaced by ones introduced from Australasia. The worldwidedivisions also correlate with the source and spread of human filari-asis—an infection by parasitic worms carried by mosquitoes thatcan cause skin swellings, blindness or elephantiasis—suggesting variations in which mosquitoes carry theparasites. The scientists also discovered that most ofthe C. quinquefasciatus arriving in Oahu viaaircrafts appear not to reproduce—animportant observation in the fightagainst invasive pest species.

human health

Avian malaria infecting the red bloodcells of a Myna

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ANNUAL REPORT 2006 9


The Flatworm’s Potent Neurotoxin Even though many marine flatworms are conspicuous inhabitants ofcoral reefs, their ecology remains mostly unknown and many remain

undescribed. In an article inProceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences, researchtechnician Raphael Ritson-Williams, Dr. Mari Yotsu-

Yamashita and Dr. Valerie Paul (head scientist of the SmithsonianMarine Station at Ft. Pierce) describe the feeding ecology of a previ-ously unknown flatworm.

Most free-living marine flatworms eat organisms that cannot move toescape, but this flatworm ate at least 11 families of mobile mollusks.Through chemical analysis, the authors discovered it uses the potentneurotoxin tetrodotoxin to paralyze its prey.Tetrodotoxin was one of thefirst marine natural products to be structurally characterized, and thiscompound is still used extensively in research on the nervous systembecause it blocks sodium currents in nerves. Tetrodotoxin is a complexbut widespread compound found in more than 10 major groups ofmarine and terrestrial animals, the best known probably being theJapanese delicacy Fugu (puffer fish) and the deadly blue-ringed octopus.

Bee Origins & DiversificationWith more than 16,000 species, bees are the largest and most importantgroup of pollinating insects. They originally evolved more than 140 million years ago, presumably in synchrony with the flowering plants.Understanding the co-evolutionary history of bees and flowering plantsrequires a robust evolutionary history for both.

A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by ResearchEntomologist Dr. Seán Brady and colleagues from Cornell Universitypresents the first robust evolutionary history for all major lineages ofbees. The authors gathered and analyzed DNA data from 94 species,representing all 21 subfamilies of bees as well as closely related wasps.

The new bee evolutionary history has particular implications forunderstanding early bee diversification, historical biogeography, thebee fossil record and bee interactions with flowering plants. Thiswork helps to explain the chronological appearance of bee fossils,suggests an African origin for bees and indicates that host-plantspecificity may be an ancestral trait for bees.

“Many crops are pollinated by a variety of bee species, but many beepopulations are declining drastically, affecting their ability to pollinatethese agriculturally important plants,” Brady points out. “Under-standing the evolution of bee diversity will help us to better understandthe relationship between bees and the plants they pollinate, hopefullyallowing us to reverse this pollinator decline.”

New Discoveries Illuminate Ant EvolutionThe evolution of agriculture in antsconforms to two broad patterns:“farming” as practiced by fungus-growing ants and “herding” aspracticed by trophobiont-tendingants. Fungiculture has evolved onlyonce within the ants, but tropho-biosis has evolved multiple times. In trophobiosis ants acquire honey-dew, the sugar-rich fluid excreted by sap-feeding insects; in return, theants protect these insects from parasites and predators. For most ants,trophobiosis is optional, but in a very few ant species, trophobiosis isessential. In Acropyga when virgin queens depart on their matingflights, they do so carrying the trophobiont between their mandibles.

A publication by Dr. Ted Schultz, Smithsonian Postdoctoral FellowDr. John LaPolla and colleagues sheds light on the evolution of these obligatorily trophobiotic ant species. The study analyzed a dataset comprised of both morphological and molecular data. In the publication, evidence is presented in favor of Acropyga being monophyletic, hence trophophoresy has evolved only once within theFormicinae and twice within the ants overall. Their results may suggestthat trophobiosis was the first form of agriculture to evolve in ants.


“This research

highlights how little

we know about the

diversity of our

oceans and the

critical role of natural

products in the

ecology and

behavior of marine

organisms.”DR. VALERIE PAUL

Flatworm consuming a live cowry,leaving an empty shell

evolutionR

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11ANNUAL REPORT 2006

Understanding Extinction

Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250Million Years Ago by paleontologist Dr.

Douglas H. Erwin is a book-length review of thepossible causes of a catastrophic extinction event thatunfolded at the end of the Permian Period 250 millionyears ago, resulting in the loss of virtually all livingspecies. Some 95 percent of marine species and 65percent of terrestrial vertebrate species went extinct,and insects suffered their greatest mass extinction inEarth’s history.

Written as a mystery story for the general public, thebook asks the question: what could have triggeredsuch a massive loss of life? A far greater crisis than the extinction ofthe dinosaurs 65 million years ago, plants and animals came closerto complete extinction than at any point since they first evolved.

The multitude of geologic events during the Permo-Triassic interval has made establishing what causedthe extinction very difficult. Proposed causes haveincluded the impact of a meteorite or comet, climatedestruction and acid rain from massive volcanism inSiberia, the oceans losing their oxygen and snuffingout the animals that require it, and a combination ofseveral interacting and mutually reinforcing events.

Today geologists recognize this extinction event as a fundamental turning point in the history of life, bringingthe world of the Paleozoic to a close, and in the aftermathof the extinction, constructing the world of today. Erwin

comments, “This was the greatest biodiversity crisis of the past 550 million years, and as an evolutionary biologist the really fascinating question to me is how life recovered after the mass extinction.”

Interpreting Nature’s Revelations

The greatest mass extinction of the last 600 million years ofEarth history was an event when, by some counts, nearly 95

percent of species disappeared. This mass depletion of land andmarine organisms occurred at the end of the Permian Period, 250million years ago. Understanding these mass extinctions is critical,but how can scientists be sure of their evidence?

A paper by paleontologist Dr. Conrad Labandeira and colleagues inthe journal Palaios examines plant fossils in South Africa’s KarooBasin, one of the few basins worldwide in which the land-based fossilrecord for this critical time interval is exposed and well-preserved.Comparing fossil plant remains from numerous localities within theKaroo Basin allows scientists to better understand how plants, insectsand especially their associations were impacted by the extinction at the

end of the Permian Period and how they diversifiedagain during the subsequent Triassic Period.

The authors address previous claims that a regionalextinction of plants resulted in a change in the patterns of rivers and streams in the Karoo Basin.“It is possible that the extinction event may havevaried regionally in magnitude and timing, and theeffects on land may or may not coincide with theeffects documented in the oceans,” Labandeira concludes. However, the changing landscapethrough time did have an effect on which plant assemblages becamefossilized, and hence conclusions about extinction based on survivingfossils have to be made carefully.

“Given our current

biodiversity crisis,

we have a

remarkably poor

understanding

of how biological

diversity is

constructed. Mass

extinctions provide

an excellent

laboratory to study

these processes.”DR. DOUGLAS ERWIN

Dr. Conrad Labandeira collecting fossilplants in the Karoo Basin, South Africa

extinction

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Barcoding and Identifying SpeciesAlthough central to much of biological research, the iden-tification of species is often difficult. DNA barcoding uses

a short gene sequence from a standard part of the genomeof animals, plants and microorganisms as a “biomarker” that

is unique for most species on Earth. However, the effectivenessof such DNA barcoding for identifying specimens in species-richtropical regions is still relatively untested.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entomologist Dr. John M. Burns and colleagues show that DNA barcodes effectively discriminate among species in three families of Lepidoptera,including skipper butterflies, from Area de Conservación Guanacastein northwestern Costa Rica.The authors found that 97.9 percent of the521 species recognized by prior taxonomic work possess distinctive barcodes, and that the few instances of overlap involve very similarspecies. If these results are general, they offer further evidence thatDNA barcoding will significantly aid species identification and discovery in tropical settings.

Sloan Grant Supports the Consortium for the Barcode of LifeThe Smithsonian Institution received a grant of $1.5 million fromthe Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for continued support of theConsortium for the Barcode of Life and CBOL’s Secretariat Officehosted by the Museum.

“Natural history museums are treasure troves of information about the diversity of life on the planet,” says Museum Director Dr. CristiánSamper. “DNA barcoding is a new tool that will help us unlock this biodiversity treasure, and it will accelerate our efforts to discover newforms of life. Improving our knowledge of biodiversity is the critical firststep in preserving and managing the diversity of life on the planet.”

DNA barcodes are being used by taxonomistsand others to identify the species towhich an organism belongs, and thetechnique has the potential tosolve some important real-worldproblems such as identifyingagricultural pest groups like fruitflies or a medically importantgroup like mosquitoes.

Virtual Plant Species Collection on DVDA two DVD set containing 78,736 images of plant type specimenswas produced by the Museum’s Department of Botany. This virtualplant species collection contains a user-friendly interface designedby Botany’s Information Management Head, Ellen Farr, and herstaff. Alice Tangerini, staff illustrator and Curator of Botanical Art,provided the artwork and graphics and Collections Manager RustyRussell supervised the overall production.

Dr. Cristián Samper presented the DVD set at the Conference of theParties to the Convention on Biological Diversity with the message:“To conserve and manage your sovereign biological resources, youneed to understand the species in your care, and to better understandspecies, you need type specimens.”

NMNH Type Specimens Available to the PublicIn 2006, 57 percent of the Museum’s biological type specimen collections—181,678 type specimens—were made available to thepublic online. Important specimen collections data from the departments of Botany, Invertebrate Zoology and VertebrateZoology were also made available, bringing the total online specimen records to 2,869,637. To search these important collectionrecords, visit http://acsmith.si.edu/.


“Improving our

knowledge of

biodiversity is the

critical first step in

preserving and

managing the

diversity of life on

the planet.”DR. CRISTIÁN SAMPER

documenting biodiversity

A male skipper, one of four look-alikespecies that fly in the same area butdiffer clearly in their DNA barcodes

Ken

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aim

Dan

iel J

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n


Checklist of the Terrestrial Vertebrates of the Guiana Shield, edited by Dr. Tom Hollowell and Dr. Robert P. Reynolds, USGS BiologicalSurvey Unit and Smithsonian Adjunct Scientist, and sponsored by theMuseum’s Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program,documents 1,850 species of terrestrial vertebrates of northeastern SouthAmerica with a biogeographical focus that is a first step toward think-ing in terms of ecosystems, evolution and systematics rather than sim-ple lists of organisms. It was produced using information from researchexpeditions and collections at NMNH and museums worldwide, and itis already being used to examine levels of indigenous species and speciesturnover rates, as well as locating areas most in need of additional study.

Squirrels: The Animal Answer GuideDr. Richard Thorington andKatie Ferrell have produced anauthoritative and engaging guidein their book Squirrels:The AnimalAnswer Guide. The book presentsfascinating aspects of squirrel biol-ogy—form and function, coatcolor and genetics, behavior, ecol-ogy, reproduction and develop-ment, foods and feeding, squirrelproblems from a human view-point and human problems from asquirrel’s viewpoint—in an under-standable set of questions and answers. Fully illustrated, it also pro-vides a comprehensive review of the literature on squirrel biology, theinterrelationships between fossil history and current distribution,between anatomy and ecology and ecology and behavior, and revealsthe group’s worldwide diversity with 278 species on five continents.According to Thorington, “We wanted to use the popular subject ofsquirrels to teach ecological and evolutionary perspectives, which weconsider very important to society.”

Marine Nematode Checklist Marine nematodes—a majorgroup of worms—are typically themost abundant multicellular animals of the marine environmentwith possibly as many as 100 million species. Dr. Duane Hopesubstantially contributed to theunderstanding of the marine environment with An annotatedchecklist of the marine nematodes ofthe western North Atlantic and Gulfof Mexico in a special issue of theJournal of Nematology. Since only4,000–5,000 species are known,the checklist is an essential reference for future assessments of the diversity and distribution of nematodes in this region.

“Although

nematodes are critical

organisms in most

ecosystems and of

great societal

concern as parasites,

we have documented

less than one percent

of those in the marine

environment and

have much to learn

about their ecology

and diversity.”DR. DUANE HOPE

documenting biodiversityDocumenting the Biodiversity of Northeastern South America

Mor

ag W

illiam

s


Changing Nature

Transitions: Photographs by Robert Creamer features nearly 40images exploring Robert Creamer’s fascination with change,

bringing an arresting dignity to plants and animals past their prime,capturing an artist’s appreciation for the shapes and patterns ofnature and expressing a teacher’s enthusiasm for discovery.

Many of the images employ objects from the Museum’s collections—everything from bird skins to animal bones. The exhibition is on viewfrom October 2006 through June 24, 2007. He explains, “I selectobjects based on my intuition of what they might become in the daysand weeks ahead, looking for the decisive moment and point of viewthat reveals something new.”

The arresting detail and luminosity of these photographs stems froma lifetime behind a camera and a recently discovered tool—theflatbed scanner. Creamer found that, unlike a camera, the scanner

does not focus on one point but instead renders the entire surfacecrisp and sharp. He began using the scanner on a whim after findinga dead hummingbird in his neighborhood. His careful use of richblacks or negative space helps to emphasize the light of his subjectand allude to the mystery of an ever-present dark.

In 2005, he scanned a variety of objects and specimens at theMuseum’s Naturalist Center. That led him to scan the scientific collections housed at the Museum, which brought about this exceptional exhibition. In addition to curator Robert Creamer, theexhibition team included Jackie Weisz, project manager, SarahGrusin, writer, and David Wiley, designer.

According to Creamer, “I enjoy exploring the transitory nature of beauty and am constantly enthused by the serendipitous understandingsand new relationships that this technique reveals to me.”



Climate Change & Human Evolution

Climate and biological evolution have interacted throughoutEarth’s history. In an article in Science, Dr. Anna K.

Behrensmeyer discusses cause and effect relationships between climatechange and human evolution, and the challenges of relating differenttypes and scales of paleoclimatic evidence. For example, marine corescan establish ancient climate trends more clearly than terrestrial stratathat contain early human fossils, but changes recorded in the oceansmay not be the same as climatic effects on land.

The challenges of interpreting climate signals from the deposits ofancient lakes are exemplified by the Pleistocene OlorgesailieFormation in Kenya, where ancient strata record many fluctuationsbetween lake and dry land. By studying the details of these layers,scientists decipher the scale and magnitude of their climate signals.

Behrensmeyer stresses the need to integrate evidence for environmentalchange from local, regional and continental scale sources. Stratigraphicsequences from different regions of Africa, together with better marine

core data, provide ever-stronger evidence for large-scale climate change.This improved paleoclimatic evidence can then be used to test for correlations with key evolutionary developments. “Synchronous” events inthe geological and paleontological records from different parts of Africacould provide stronger evidence for climatic cause and evolutionary effect.

Clues Plants Leave Behind

How can scientists tell what ancient peoples ate? How do weknow when humans began to farm rather than gather wild

foods? What was the ancient climate like?

Many clues can be found in the study of phytoliths—microscopicpieces of silica that form in the cells of many kinds of plants that areleft behind when they die and decay. Remaining well-preservedthrough very long periods of time, phytoliths can be used to identifyplants in archaeological and other ancient contexts and are a powerfultool in reconstructing ancient environments and human uses of plantsin the past.

Using more than a hundred images, Dr. Dolores Piperno providesa helpful summary in her book Phytoliths: A Comprehensive Guide for Archaeologists and Paleoecologists. Phytoliths were first used inarchaeology by Piperno and others for documenting prehistoricagriculture in tropical zones where other types of plant fossils hadlong-decayed from the humid climate. Now phytoliths are beingapplied in all types of environments. This review and synthesis ofworldwide studies on phytoliths will be invaluable for those work-ing directly with phytoliths and for those who rely on the results ofanalyses of these microfossils for their own research.

H U M A N D I V E R S I T Y & C U LT U R E C H A N G E

our ancient past

Only 9000 years ago, LakeNakuru in Kenya was part of amuch larger freshwater lake thatlapped onto the volcanic ridgesin the background. Changes inglobal climate at the end of thelast Northern Hemisphere glacialperiod are correlated with thismajor period of lake expansionin East Africa, suggesting thatearlier ups and downs of the riftvalley lakes may also be relatedto global climate change.A

nna

K.

Beh

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domestication


Eastern North America: Center of Domestication

The Intersection of Genetics and Archaeology

Twenty years ago, Museum archaeologist Dr.Bruce D. Smith first postulated eastern

North America as an entirely independent centerof plant domestication, adding it to the list of otherpreviously identified world regions in Asia, Africaand the Americas that had witnessed the inde-pendent transition from hunting and gathering tofarming. In the past five years, however, a numberof genetic and archaeological studies have calledfor a reconsideration of eastern North America asa center of domestication, suggesting that it may initially havereceived domesticated crop plants introduced from Mexico insteadof experiencing independent domestication of local crop plants.

In an August article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,Smith addresses this recent challenge and provides a synthesis of the

currently available archaeological and genetic evidencefrom Mexico and eastern North America regarding theinitial domestication of the four plant species identifiedas potential eastern domesticates—squash (Cucurbitapepo), sunflower (Helianthus annuus), marshelder (Ivaannua) and chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri). Withnew accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dates,Smith confirms the initial independent domesticationof all four species in the East between 5,000 and 3700years ago, while also documenting the misidentification

of the early domesticated “sunflower” in Mexico.

According to Smith, “When considered together, genetic and archaeo-logical evidence strongly supports the independent domestication of allfour of these plants in the eastern United States, and reconfirms theregion as one of the world’s independent centers of domestication.”

“Documenting Domestication: The Inter-section of Genetics and Archaeology,”

co-authored by Museum archeologists Dr. MelindaZeder and Dr. Bruce D. Smith with Dr. EveEmshwiller and Dr. Daniel Bradley, was published asthe cover article in the March issue of Trends inGenetics. The article examines the various ways inwhich archaeologists and geneticists document the process of plant and animal domestication, highlighting areas of cross-illumination between genetics and archaeology in tracking theorigin and diffusion of domestic species.

This is the first such article to bring together researchers workingon plant and animal domestication who are using both

archaeological and genetic approaches. Trends inGenetics is a leading review journal for currentresearch in genetics, developmental biology and

genomics. The article draws from a major volume of collected papers entitled Documenting

Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms,co-edited by the article’s four authors and published by the

University of California Press in 2006.


Degrees of map shading indicatethe genetic influence of zebu cattle,originally from India, on modern cattle populations, reflecting theirancient points of entry into Africa aspart of a flourishing Indian Oceantrade network that arose around 5000 years ago. Genetic and archaeological evidence for the originand dispersal of domesticated crops,like millet and bananas, and livestocksuch as donkeys, horses and camels,provide special insight into the firstglobal economy that spanned muchof the ancient world and profoundlyaffected the course of human historyacross this broad area.

Three-thousand-year-old sunflowerachene provides evidence for theinitial domestication of this speciesin eastern North America. All present-day domesticated sunflowers are derived from wildpopulations that still exist in theMidwestern United States.

Sco

tt W

hita

ker


The Nile’s Canopic Channel, Revealed

Smithsonian geoarchaeologist Dr. Jean-Daniel Stanley and hisassistant Thomas F. Jorstad have been investigating two

Greek cities—Herakleion and Canopus—which now lie at waterdepths of nearly seven meters in Abu Qir Bay off Egypt’s NileDelta. These trade centers were positioned near the mouth of theCanopic, the Nile River’s major branch. From the Canopic, a majorcanal provided the fresh water supply to the Greek port city ofAlexandria on the desert coastline west of the Nile Delta.

The Canopic channel flowed to the Mediterranean coast, but becameinactive and was abandoned in the 5th Century A.D. Its channel,now completely buried by Nile silt, is not visible on aerial photo-graphs or satellite images. But by applying images from the ShuttleRadar Topography Mission (SRTM), coupled with ground-basedgeologic investigations such as sediment cores, Stanley and Jorstad

have now identified the positionof the Canopic channel. TheSRTM data reveal two sinuouschannel traces of this Nilebranch, one located next to theburied commercial PtolomaicRoman city of Schedia. Thefinding is published in an articlein Geoarchaeology.

According to Stanley, “The dis-covery of the location of theCanopic channel—which served from Greek to Ptolemaic times asone of Egypt’s major transport byways—now provides baselines forrenewed archaeological exploration in this sector of the Nile Delta.”

Urban Dwellers, not Nomads

The Mongol empire founded by Chinggis Khaan (Genghis Khan)was the largest contiguous empire in human history. While

scholars have regarded the empires of the Mongols and their predecessors as being nomadic, highly mobile political confederations,recent research now suggests otherwise. In the December 2005 articlein Antiquity, anthropologist Dr. Daniel Rogers and colleaguesErdenebat Ulambayar and Mathew Gallon report on their discoveriesregarding the inner mechanics of Mongol empires.

Contrary to earlier interpretations, Rogers’ American–Mongolian teamfound that the large political confederations which characterized thegreat Inner Asian empires of the first and second millennia A.D. madeuse of highly sophisticated urban places as central points of trade,administration, agriculture, craftsmanship and military operations.

The advanced planning and design of these centers featured impressive monuments thatserved a variety of functions, open spaces withinthe walls for tent neighborhoods and extensiveirrigation systems beyond the city walls. Rogers’study demonstrates that past interpretations ofthe Inner Asian empires have overemphasized thenomadic aspects of the economy.

“The great empires of antiquity that originated onthe steppes of Mongolia provide a tremendous lessonabout human adaptability and environmental consequences,” says Rogers.

Divers discovering the Egyptian godHapi, once positioned along theCanopic Nile but now submergedoff the coast of Egypt.

Dr. Daniel Rogers at Khar Balgas

F. G

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ancient societies

The use of coca is widespread in Andean South America and of considerable antiquity. In coastal Ecuador, use frequently

included oral application of an alkali derived from shells. Scholarshave suggested that coca use may have been responsible for excessivecalculus deposits on some skeletons recovered archeologically,presumably reflecting direct deposit from the oral use of the alkali.To examine this hypothesis, samples were examined through the use of scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS).

Elemental analyses of samples of large dental deposits from archeolog-ically recovered skeletons from Ecuador dating between 500 B.C. and1532 A.D. were compared with analysis of normal calculus depositsand tooth structure of individuals from North America (modern and

pre-contact) and of samples of alkali recovered from Ecuadorian artifacts thought to have been employed in coca use.

Analysis showed homogeneity among all dental samples in deposits andstructure and revealed that they are distinct from the pattern revealed inthe analysis of the artifact alkalis. Thus there is no evidence from ele-mental analysis that large deposits of calculus on the teeth are producedfrom the alkalis associated with coca use. These findings were publishedby Dr. Douglas Ubelaker, curator of physical anthropology, and a col-league in Latin American Antiquity.

According to Ubelaker, “This study was possible because of theavailability and long-term curation of well-documented humanremains and artifacts from ancient Ecuador.”

Coca Chewing in Ecuador


In an issue of Anthropological Linguisticspublished in January 2006, Dr. Ives

Goddard, Senior Linguist in the Departmentof Anthropology, shows that many more lan-guages were spoken by the Native peoples ofthe Southeast at the time of first Europeancontact in 1540 than previously thought,making the Southeast a region with great andas yet largely unknown linguistic diversity.

For more than a hundred years, the convention-al view has been that all languages once spokenin the Southeast belonged to a relatively small

number of language families, of which Muskogean and Siouan were themost widespread. Goddard’s new assessment supports the presence ofMuskogean and Siouan-Catawba languages only in relatively restricted

areas, as shown on the new map published in Southeast, volume 14 of theHandbook of North American Indians.

Early observers of the Native peoples on the lower Mississippi and theGulf coast and in south Florida and the Carolinas emphasized theirgreat linguistic diversity, often within small areas. The reality is,though, that a very large number of these languages, spoken by smalllocal populations and in some cases by larger groups, are undocument-ed. Significantly, it also is likely that additional language families wererepresented among these lost languages.

According to Goddard, “This re-evaluation shows that the extinctionof languages in the area was much more severe than previously thoughtand that the crisis of language endangerment, now recognized asthreatening the catastrophic loss of knowledge about basic human abil-ities, began in the earliest years of the modern European expansion.”


The languages and major languagefamilies of the Southeast at their earliest documented locations(parentheses mark unattested languages).

Calculus deposits on teeth; artifactabove contains alkali related to cocachewing

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lake

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cultural development

Lost Languages in Southeast


In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out from St.Louis at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson to explore the

vast, newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Lewis & Clark: The NationalBicentennial Exhibition, commemorating this legendary journey,ended its five-city tour at the Museum from May 12 throughSeptember 10, 2006. It featured more than 400 artifacts—including75 objects from the Smithsonian collections—that illustrated cultur-al encounters along the pair’s journey. The core of the exhibition wasformed by artifacts, artwork and documents organized by theMissouri Historical Society.

The exhibition presented a ground-breaking reinterpretation of theLewis and Clark story, emphasizing their role as scientists and theirunusual powers of perception and description in such fields and eth-

nology and botany. It also compared the assumptions of Lewis andClark and the Native Americans they encountered on such topics aspolitics and diplomacy, gender, geography, health and botany.

Lewis & Clark was organized by the Missouri Historical Society inpartnership with: the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,the American Philosophical Society, the Beinecke Rare Book andManuscript Library of Yale University, the Library of Congress, theNational Archives, the Oregon Historical Society, the PeabodyMuseum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, theSmithsonian Institution and the Thomas Jefferson MemorialFoundation, Inc. Generous support from Emerson made this exhi-bition possible. The National Park Service and the state of Missourialso provided support.

Vanished Kingdoms: The Wulsin Photographs of Tibet, China and Mongolia, 1921–1925

During the 1920s, American explorers Janet Elliott Wulsin andFrederick Roelker Wulsin, Jr., led two major expeditions into

western China, Inner Mongolia and the borderlands of Tibet. TheNational Geographic Society commissioned their most ambitiousjourney, the Central China Expedition, to document the cultures ofthese regions which were rarely visited by Westerners. Their nine-month sojourn took them across the Alashan Desert and into the highmountains of Gansu and Qinghai provinces.

From May 22 through October 9, 2006, Museum audiences viewed39 color images derived from rare lantern slides taken by the pair.The Wulsin expeditions also amassed hundreds of botanical, biolog-ical and anthropological specimens, some of which were in the exhi-bition. Most importantly, their photographs portrayed the people,the landscape and the architecture as they existed 80 years ago.

Initially, the images were captured on two-inch bytwo-inch glass lantern slides which were thenpainstakingly hand-colored by Beijing artisans, result-ing in an intriguing juxtaposition of Chinese designsensibilities and an American photographer’s eye. ThePeabody Essex Museum, which organized the travel-ing exhibition in conjunction with the PeabodyMuseum of Archaeology and Ethnology at HarvardUniversity and the Aperture Foundation, commis-sioned renowned digital artist Fernando Azevedo tocreate archival inkjet prints of the slides.

Dr. Stephen Loring curated the exhibition with the assistance ofJackie Weisz, project manager, David Wiley, designer, CharlesNoble, fabrication and Meg Rivers, exhibit assistant.

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Bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

Shepherd and yurt, April 1923


Mutual Understanding Through the Art of Photography

In West Africa, the word “griot” means “storytellerwho preserves and performs the oral histories of

village and family.” In January 2005, the Academy forEducation Development, a Washington, D.C.-basednonprofit, conducted a Visual Griot workshop inTominian, Mali. Malian and American photographersguided Malian students to capture their lives on film—enabling them to portray their value systems andhonor the traditions of their villages through photo-graphs. The students, most from villages with no run-ning water or electricity, documented their rural reali-ties in Mali. The stunning result is an exhibition of 49black and white photographs that highlight the workof 22 student artists ranging in age from 10 to 16.

The photographic medium allowed students to tellstories that transcend language barriers and cultures,

while the workshop instilled the confidence, self-esteem and critical thinking skills necessary to provoke self-exploration and expression. The imagescome across as strikingly honest and aestheticallypowerful, especially since their subjects—theirfriends, families, homes and villages—are importantto them. Each student photographer composedobject labels with commentary about their images,allowing ample opportunity for the artists to speakout about their world.

The photographs were exhibited in Bamako, thecapital city of Mali, after being shown in their original villages. The exhibition opened itsAmerican tour at the Museum on October 2, 2006,and runs through April 29, 2007, when it will travel to other venues, including schools, in the U.S.

Mongolia Family Festival

In October, the Museum came alive with the sights and sounds ofMongolia when it celebrated Mongolia’s 800-year anniversary of

nationhood. The weekend festival embraced all things Mongolianthrough music and dance performances, games and artistic endeavorslike mask making and felting, films and lectures, archaeology researchdisplays, photography, historic costumes and a display of a traditionaldwelling called a ger. The Smithsonian Associates hosted a lectureseries that focused on topics such as Chinggis Khaan (Genghis Khan),Mongolian history, dinosaur discoveries, arts, cultures and archaeology.A special film lecture, Mongolian Image in Western Cinema, was held andaward-winning Mongolian films were screened.

The Mongolia Family Festival was a joint project of the Smithsonian’sNational Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian Associatesand the Embassy of Mongolia.

“Genghis Khan is not everyone’s cuddly hero, but the opening ofMongolia to the West has produced surprisingly positive ideasabout his role in shaping the modern world,” notes Dr. WilliamFitzhugh. “The Festival highlighted not only Mongolia’s historyand cultures, it brought Mongolia closer to home, especially inWashington, which is now one of the largest population centers forMongolians in the United States.”


“Training young

people in visual

literacy allows them

to document their

lives—representing

an important

and innovative

development

strategy for youth

empowerment.”DR. MARY JO ARNOLDI,

Curator of African Ethnology

Life in the ger, a traditionalMongolian home

cultural diversity

Don

ald

E. H

urlb

ert

Young workshop participants createdimages, such as this one by Cristineof Damy Village showing girls makingshea butter.


Alaska Native Peoples and the Smithsonian Collections

Organized by anthropologist Dr. AronCrowell and sponsored by the Museum’s

Arctic Studies Center’s Anchorage Office, SharingKnowledge opened on April 30, 2006, in Anchorage,Alaska. The exhibition featured 14 extraordinaryobjects from the Museum and the NationalMuseum of the American Indian (NMAI).

The objects—arctic clothing, implements and ceremonial regalia—werepresented in the context of tradition, cultural identity and contemporarylife. Items included an 1893 Tlingit battle helmet that is a masterwork of expressive sculpture, an Iñupiaq feast bowl with walrusivory carvings of real and mythical sea mammals, richly beadedGwich’in Athabascan moccasins, and a ceremonial seal intestine parkadecorated with sea bird beaks and feathers from St. Lawrence Island.This exhibition was a preview of the 650 additional objects that willcomprise a large permanent installation scheduled to open at theAnchorage Museum in 2010.

To develop the exhibitions, curators worked withmore than 40 elders and other representatives ofAlaska’s 20 indigenous cultures to record in-depthdiscussions about the use, meaning and artistry ofhundreds of items stored at the Museum andNMAI, which together hold more than 30,000ethnological objects from Alaska.

The results of the project, including elders’ commentaries and a richarray of images and contextual information, are posted on the newSharing Knowledge web site, http://alaska.si.edu. As the site grows, itwill offer a global portal to the Smithsonian’s arctic collections.

“Conversations with Alaska Native elders and scholars will continue,”says Crowell, “and having the Smithsonian collections in Alaska willreally enhance this dialogue. It’s exciting that so much of the region’scultural and artistic heritage will be available for study and learning.”

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

The Smithsonian filled the month of May with festivities forAsian Pacific American Heritage Month. Asian cultures were

spotlighted in more than 20 events, including films, performances,talks, tours and family programs. On May 5, the Museum celebratedthe fifth anniversary of Asian Performances with traditional dancesby the Thai Youth Performing Arts of Wat Thai of Washington,D.C., USHAS Entertainment Troupe and the Washington KoreanDance Company. The three events were coordinated by MuseumScientific Illustrator Vichai Malikul and the Museum’s Asian PacificAmerican Heritage Committee (APAHC).

On May 12, the 20th anniversary of Asian Arts andCrafts Demonstration Day was held in the MuseumRotunda. Museum visitors enjoyed Asian arts and craftsdemonstrations like Cambodian stone and metal sculp-ture,Chinese paper folding, Japanese doll making,Koreancalligraphy, Mongolian mask making and painting,Philippine weaving,Thai fruit carving and silver working.The May 12th reception was co-sponsored by the RoyalThai Embassy, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Thais for ThaiAssociation, the Office of the Director of the Museum and APAHC.TheMuseum’s Department of Public Programs co-sponsored both events.

“We can shoot this

arrow up in the air.

How far will it go?

That’s the future.

That’s what we were

here for—future

generations need to

know our cultures.”TRIMBLE GILBERT,

Gwich’in Athabascan contributor

cultural diversityD

awn

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Mad

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USHAS Entertainment Troupe


Heritage Health Index Report

A Public Trust at Risk: the Heritage Health IndexReport on the State of America’s Collections detailsfindings from the first comprehensive survey everconducted on the condition and preservation needsof collections in U.S. institutions. HeritagePreservation conducted the survey in associationwith the Institute of Museum and LibraryServices; the Museum’s response was preparedunder the leadership of Carol Butler, Chief ofCollections and Registrar.

The most urgent preservation issues cited are environmental controland improper storage—one of the greatest hazards to collections.Findings from the survey have influenced collections funding deci-sions and strategies at the Museum, which has ordered new cabinetsfor the marine mammals, the collection most in need of better stor-age. This is the first phase of a larger project; additional funding willbe required to adequately house the collection.

For the summary and full report, visit www.heritagepreservation.org/HHI/index.html.

Significance of Kennewick ManOnce the scientific team studyingthe Kennewick Man skeletalremains completed the secondphase of research, MuseumAnthropologist Dr. DouglasOwsley presented the findings atthe annual American Academy ofForensic Sciences conference inFebruary 2006. This phase of the research focused on how geological, pedological (soil formation processes), biological(plant and animal) and humanactions affected the skeletal remains of Kennewick Man from the timeof his death some 9,300 years ago until the 1996 recovery along theColumbia River in Kennewick, Washington.

Major media organizations worldwide covered Owsley’s historicreport, including: CNN, FOX News, NBC, MSNBC, CBS News, ABC,USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, TheHouston Chronicle, The Sacramento Bee and The Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Naturalist Center Anniversary In December, the Naturalist Center celebrated 30 years of public service. Since its beginnings in 1976, the Naturalist Center’s vast public study collection has enabled hundreds of thousands of visitors to identify objects and do research, has trained teachers to use Museumobjects more effectively, and has helped the public understand the learning potential of museums. Over the years the Center has conducted 1,500 school programs totaling more than 100,000 hours of hands-on problem solving activities in science, social studies and art for tens of thousands of students and teachers.

The Naturalist Center is managed by Richard Efthim, ProgramDirector, Helene Lisy, Assistant Manager, and Suzanne Hiller andMiriam Westervelt, the teachers-in-residence in 2006 fromLoudoun County Public Schools.

N E W S & E V E N T S

“The examination of

Kennewick Man

promises important

new scientific

insights into

the peopling of

the Americas.”DR. DOUGLAS OWSLEY

Dr. Douglas Owsley at work Chi

p C

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Chi

p C

lark

Chi

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lark

23

Insect Zoo Celebrates 30 YearsOn August 23, 1976, in response to visitors’enthusiastic response to temporary exhibits inprevious summers, the National Museum ofNatural History opened its first permanent,live insect exhibition: the Insect Zoo. By thelate 1980s, the exhibition needed completerenovation. Former Insect Zoo Director SallyLove led the development team that openedthe O. Orkin Insect Zoo in September of1993, funded by Orkin Pest Control, Inc.

Today, the Insect Zoo is an engaging educational experience overseenby Nathan Erwin, Manager, Museum Technicians Daniel Babbittand Liesel McCurry, and more than 50 volunteers. The current exhibition highlights the biological diversity of arthropods, their rolesin ecosystems and hands-on activities for visitors.

Discovery Room OutreachThe Discovery Room continuesto reach out to non-traditionalvisitors, making it accessible andstimulating for groups that mightnot otherwise spend time there.In July, the room hosted 35 stu-dents from the Maryland Schoolfor the Blind, who were guided to

touch and explore objects from the natural world, including bird feath-ers, whale baleen and teeth, skulls and echinoderms. The activity wasdeveloped by Mollie Oremland and led by Amy Bolton with assis-tance from Research and Collections staff and volunteers.

In December, the Discovery Room, in conjunction with the Museum’sLatino Program, hosted a group of ESOL (English for Speakers of OtherLanguages) students from Montgomery County Public Schools and theirfamilies for a vocabulary-building activity. The students and familiesworked together to identify animals on the room’s Biodiversity Wall.

14th Environmental Film Festival In March, the Museum again presented moreprograms than any other institution participatingin the Environmental Film Festival in theNation’s Capital. From the opening day’s movingpresentation of the James Smithson BicentennialMedal, to pioneer Bolivian documentary filmmaker Jorge Ruiz, to the final evening’sscreening of acclaimed contemporary Frenchfilm actor, producer and director Jacques Perrin’s1989 Monkey Folk, the Museum offered a

selection of some 23 international films to appreciative audiences.

Latino Program Events & The Smithsonian Jazz CaféIn 2006, the Museum’s Latino Program sponsored several public outreach events to attract multiculturalaudiences to the Museum, including a series ofprograms on the biodiversity of Mexico’s oceans,lectures on the cultural and biological diversityof Peru, Brazil and Guatemala, and two con-certs at the Smithsonian Jazz Café featuringpopular vocalist and flutist Verny Varela andAfroBop Alliance, one of the top Latin Jazzgroups in the country.

The program also collaborated in the development of Colombia at the Smithsonian,produced by the Smithsonian Latino Centerand presented at the Smithsonian Castle.The exhibition showcased the Colombian collections held by the Smithsonian Institution.Natural History was represented by 32 specimensthat highlighted the Museum’s wide range of biologicaland geological collections from Colombia.

ANNUAL REPORT 2006

Insects from Colombia at theSmithsonian

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Sixth Annual Smithsonian Botanical Symposium The Museum’s Department of Botany, in conjunc-tion with the United States Botanic Garden and theNational Tropical Botanical Garden, hosted IslandArchipelagos: Cauldrons of Evolution, on April 21 and22, 2006. Speakers addressed the evolution, ecologyand conservation of biotas on the world’s mostimportant island chains. More than 125 participantsattended the symposium, which opened with a reception at the U.S. Botanic Garden and concludedwith a dinner in the Museum’s Rotunda.

Astrobiology Science ConventionDr. Richard Potts, director of the Museum’s Human OriginsProgram, gave the Convention’s opening lecture, Influence of theEnvironment on Human Evolution, on March 26, 2006. Two dayslater, more than 600 attended a reception at the Museum where Dr.Ed Vicenzi introduced shuttle astronaut Ken Reightler, President ofLockheed Martin Space Operations, and Jack Schmidt, lunar astro-naut of Apollo 17 fame. A private screening of MagnificentDesolation: Walking on the Moon 3D followed.

Arctic Studies SymposiaDr. Noel Broadbent co-organized a symposium, Nordic and SaamiReligion in the Viking Age, held April 20th at the University ofMaryland and funded by the National Science Foundation.Broadbent spoke on “Sacred Sites, Settlements and Place-Names:New Perspectives on Saami Prehistory in Sweden,” and Dr.William Fitzhugh gave a talk on “Arctic Belief Systems from aCircumpolar Perspective.” On April 21st the Arctic Studies Centerpresented The Archaeology of Iron at the Museum. Dr. StephenLoring, who organized the symposium, gave the introduction anda talk on “The Cutting Edge: 18th Century Labrador InuitMetallurgy.” Broadbent and Fitzhugh were also speakers.

Museum Hosts Collections WorkshopNatural Collections Descriptions (NCDs) were the topic of a Juneworkshop funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.NCDs are business-card-like records that will make researchresources available via the web, providing the ability to link muse-um, library and archive holdings for resource discovery. Workshopparticipants are developing a record schema that will be submittedto the Taxonomic Databases Working Group, an internationalgroup that sets standards for biological data.

S C I E N T I F I C C O N F E R E N C E S

Dr. Mike Maunder of FairchildTropical Gardens

Dr. Richard Potts (right) with students at Olorgesailie, southernKenya, where Potts’s team is investigating the past 1 million yearsof climate change and its effect onhuman evolution.

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Awards & AchievementsAt the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) meeting in PuertoRico, Dr. Bruce D. Smith was honored at the Society’s FryxellSymposium as the previous year’s winner of the prestigious FryxellAward for Interdisciplinary Research. The symposium was entitled:Advancing Our Understanding of the Human-Plant Dynamic:Papers in Honor of Bruce D. Smith. A reception for Smith followedthe symposium.

The Panamanian government bestowed its highest civilian award,the Orden Vasco Núñez de Balboa, to Dr. Dolores Piperno inrecognition of her work documenting and understanding Panama’spast. The ceremony took place in August at the Presidential Palacein Panama City.

Dr. Cristián Samper, Museum Director, has been elected to theAmerican Association of Museums (AAM) board for a three-yearterm. The mission of AAM is to enhance the value of museums totheir communities through leadership, advocacy and service.

The 12th International Symposium on Trichoptera, held this yearin June in Mexico City, was named in honor of Dr. Oliver Flint—officially entitled, Oliver Flint 12th International Symposium onTrichoptera. Flint was also awarded a plaque for his outstandingachievements in his research concerning Trichoptera, the insectorder that contains caddisflies.

The Trustees of the Paleontological Research Institution (Ithaca,New York) selected Dr. Thomas R. Waller as the 2006 recipient ofthe Gilbert Harris Award, given annually to recognize excellence incontributions to systematic paleontology. The award is bestowed toa scientist who, through outstanding research and commitment tothe centrality of systematics in paleontology, has made a significantcontribution to the science.

International Congress of the InternationalUnion for the Study of Social InsectsHeld once every four years, the 15th Congress took place inWashington, D.C., from July 30 to August 4, 2006, drawing approxi-mately 700 social insect biologists from around the world. Co-sponsoredby the Museum and co-organized by Department of Entomology ChairDr. Ted Schultz, the Congress began with a gala reception at theMuseum and was preceded by a weekend of Museum events, includinglectures by E.O. Wilson and a family festival, Smithsonian Ant Explorers,in the Insect Zoo. The Congress included a symposium organized byResearch Entomologist Dr.Seán Brady and talks by Museum scientists,including Dr. John LaPolla, Brady and Schultz.

Stardust MissionIn November 2006, Drs. Ed Vicenzi and Glenn MacPherson participated in the NASA-sponsored final workshop concerning the preliminary results of the Stardust Mission. They are studyingsamples using the Time of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer(ToF-SIMS) and the new analytical Field Emission-ScanningElectron Microscope (FE-SEM) in the Department of MineralSciences. Particles and chemical trails caught by the spacecraft represent the first extraterrestrial samples returned to Earth since theMoon landings of the early 1970s.

R E C O G N I T I O N

E.O. Wilson lectures at IUSSI

Dr. Bruce D. Smith

Dr. Oliver Flint

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ANTHROPOLOGYDonated by Leonard Dutton, the Museum received an archeological collection of forty Clovis stone artifacts and 3,531 mammoth bonesthat were excavated by Dr. Dennis Stanford and Russell Graham onthe Dutton ranch near Idalia, Colorado, from 1976 to1979. This col-lection of 11,000-year-old faunal remains and Clovis tools relates to thePleistocene-Holocene transition and the peopling of the New World.

BOTANYA collection of 121 vascular plant specimens from the Marquesasand Hawaiian Islands, including types, were providedby the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

ENTOMOLOGYMore than 10,000 specimens—mostly ants—werecollected for the Museum by Jeffrey Sosa-Calvo, agraduate student working with Dr. Ted Schultz inSuriname, a poorly-represented country in theMuseum’s collection.

INVERTEBRATEZOOLOGYSpecimens of octocorals of thetypes described in the famous1899–1900 Siboga Expeditionwere donated by E. Beglinger ofthe Zoological Museum ofAmsterdam. This acquisitioncompleted the Museum’s collec-tion of type specimens of everyspecies in the genus Narella, animportant deep-sea octocoral.

MINERAL SCIENCESThe Museum’s Gems andMinerals division obtained asuperior example of elbaite withlepidolite from the PederneiraMine in Minas Gerais, Brazil.This dramatic piece will beplaced on public display.

PALEOBIOLOGYApproximately 783 fossil specimens of Tertiary and

Cretaceous crabs and worms from western NorthAmerica, Guam and Antarctica that have

been cited in several journal articles weregiven to the Museum. The Museum’sDepartment of Paleobiology is home to

the world’s largest collection of fossilanimals, plants and other life-forms

and a preferred public repository for typespecimens of extinct organisms.

VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGYDr. Carole Baldwin led ateam that included DavidG. Smith, Lee A. Weigt,Julie H. Mounts, and AmyC. Driskell in collecting larval andadult fishes, as well as digital color photographs of them, fromBelize for the Division of Fishes. Tissue samples from those fishesare being used to genetically match larvae to adults, and molecularand morphological study of specimens is being used to reanalyzespecies diversity of Belizean fishes.

C O L L E C T I O N S

Acquisition Highlights

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Leadership Gifts

The National Museum of Natural History is deeply grateful forthe generous new gifts and pledges of $1 million or more in

2006 from the following valued donors, whose thoughtful andwide-ranging support has been essential to advancing the Museum’sresearch and public learning initiatives.

THE TIFFANY & CO. FOUNDATION’S GIFT TOTHE NATIONAL GEM COLLECTIONThe Tiffany & Co. Foundation hasgiven $1.1 million to the Museum toestablish an endowment for theacquisition of important gem-stones for the Museum’s NationalGem Collection. Gemstonespurchased with the fund willcomprise The Tiffany & Co.Foundation Collection. The gift willalso make possible the creation of anexhibition case to display these and other gemstones in the National Gem Collection Gallery. Tiffany & Co.and the Foundation have been active supporters of the Smithsonian,the Museum and its National Gem Collection since 1983.

GIFTS TO THE HUMAN ORIGINS INITIATIVEThe past decade has set an extraordinary pace for new discoveriesabout human evolution that captivate our imagination. In 2006, theleadership gifts of two visionary members of the Museum’s Boardare enabling the Museum to expand its distinguished work in thisdynamic field of scientific research and to create an awe-inspiringexhibition and innovative education programs to respond to thepublic’s deep curiosity about our evolutionary roots.

With David H. Koch’s $15 mil-lion gift, the Museum is advanc-ing its planned exhibition, WhatDoes it Mean to be Human?,which will be presented in thenew David H. Koch Hall ofHuman Origins. Scheduled toopen in 2009, this exhibitionwill explore the evolutionaryhistory of human beings.

Dr. Peter Buck’s $15 million giftenables the Museum to establisha program of national outreachand education about human origins and a research endowment for thestudy of human evolution. The Museum will establish the Peter BuckChair in Human Origins in recognition of this gift.

ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION SUPPORTSDNA BARCODINGA grant of $1.5 million continues the Foundation’s support of aninternational initiative to advance rapid, accurate identification ofanimal and plant species using minimal DNA sequences. TheConsortium for the Barcode of Life, the organizing body for the ini-tiative, is hosted at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of NaturalHistory. This ongoing project is described on page 12 of this report.

M U S E U M S U P P O R T

DR. PETER BUCKDAVID H. KOCH


Museum Members in 2006National Museum of Natural History Donors The Museum gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the manyindividuals, foundations and corporations whose support has beenessential to advancing Museum initiatives in all fields.

$1,000,000 AND OVERDr. Peter Buck

David H. Koch

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

The Tiffany & Co. Foundation

$500,000 TO $999,999The Korea Foundation

$100,000 TO $499,999Anonymous (2)

A&E Television Networks

Mrs. Richard H. Benson

California Institute of Technology

Michael J. Collins ( James M. CollinsFoundation)

Columbia University in the City of NewYork

The Field Museum

Mr. and Mrs. Edward O. Gaylord

Mr. and Mrs. Alfred C. Glassell, Jr.

Idaho Power Company

Landmark Communications Foundation

Margery and Edgar Masinter

Janet and Jeffery Meyer

National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration

National Institutes of Health

National Science Foundation

Roger and Victoria Sant

The Schlinger Foundation

Mr. and Mrs. James C. Taylor

State of California

Summit Foundation

U.S. Department of the Air Force

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Department of Transportation

$50,000 TO $99,999American Society of Agronomy, Inc.

Richard and Rita Ashley

Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

George Mason University

C. Wolcott Henry (The HenryFoundation)

Indo-US Science and TechnologyForum

Edward and Nancy Rice and The RiceFamily Foundation

Smithsonian Women’s Committee

Species 2000

St. Lucie County School Board

Prehlad Singh Vachher, M.D.

U.S. Department of Commerce

University of Kansas

University of North Carolina

University of Utah

$10,000 TO $49,999Anonymous (4)

American Bankers Insurance Companyof Florida

American Hospital Association

Amylin Pharmaceuticals

Aramco Services Company

BASF Corporation

Max N. and Heidi L. Berry

Mr. David C. Blackburn

Capitol Services, Inc.

Carnegie Institution of Washington

Giuseppe and Mercedes Cecchi

The Colony Group

Corporate Office Properties Trust

Covington & Burling

Cuatrecasas Family Foundation

Curtis & Edith Munson Foundation

The National Museum of Natural History would like to recognize members of the Hope DiamondSociety, Director’s Circle and Benefactors Circle. Their generosity and continued support play a vitalrole in the success of the Museum’s outstanding research, collections, exhibitions and education. Inturn, Members are able to enhance their relationship with the Museum through behind-the-scenesaccess to our curators, collections and exhibitions.

DIRECTOR’S CIRCLEElizabeth Ballantine and Paul LeavittEd and Mary BartlettPeder and Clarissa BondeWinthrop and Sarah BrownAlfred and Kathryn ChecchiVirginia FultonC. Wolcott Henry Norman and Margaret Kinsey

Lt. Col. and Mrs. William K. KonzeVictor and Ada KugajevskyChip and Vicky Magid Gilbert and Jaylee MeadMichael MillerEdward and Nancy RiceAdmiral and Mrs. Tazewell Shepard William and Jo Ann StoreyRussell and Aileen Train

BENEFACTORS CIRCLESheldon and Paula ApsellJacqueline BergmanBonnie and Jere Broh-KahnDr. Cesar A. CaceresJohn D. ErwinJack Ferguson and Veronica SlajerJohn Hoskinson and Ana FábregasStanley S. Hubbard

Jed and Blythe Lyons Yolanda Moses and James BawekAubrey and Saskia RothrockJoyce and Jerald SachsKate and Theodore Sedgwick Ruth O. SeligSimon and Nancy Sidamon-EristoffFrank Swain and Sally WallaceRobert and Robin Wilder

HOPE DIAMOND SOCIETYGiuseppe and Mercedes Cecchi Robert and Rose CohenDr. Sylvia A. Earle Edward and Louise Gaylord

Cindy and Robin MartinDr. and Mrs. Jerold J. PrincipatoRichard Thompson Ann and Marshall Turner

M U S E U M S U P P O R T


Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Deichmiller

Dr. Sylvia A. Earle

Edison Electric Institute

Event Emissary, LLC

ExxonMobil Corporation

Fisher BioServices

Fort Pierce Community RedevelopmentAgency

Genentech, Inc.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Girardi and Keese

Global Events Partners, Inc.

Leroy H. Harvey, Estate of

Healthways, Inc.

History of Containerization Foundation,Inc.

Insurance Company of Florida

Inter-American Development Bank

Jagiellonian University

The John F. Kennedy Center for thePerforming Arts

Korean Air

Land O’Lakes, Inc.

The Link Foundation

M2 Creative, Inc.

Marpat Foundation, Inc.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Meniscus Limited

Mrs. Charles A. Miller

National Geographic Society

National Science Foundation

Navigant Consulting

Newmont Mining Corporation

Dr. and Mrs. Jerold J. Principato ( Jerold J.and Marjorie N. PrincipatoFoundation)

Psychogenics Inc.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & FlomLLP

Mrs. Jane A. Smalley and Family

Sprint Corporation

Sumner Gerard Foundation

Dr. and Mrs. F. Christian Thompson

Mr. Richard E. Thompson

Trust for Mutual Understanding

Ann and Marshall Turner

University of California–Davis

University of Maryland, BaltimoreCounty

U.S. Department of theInterior/National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior/USGeological Survey

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of State

Waddell & Reed Companies

Warner Brothers Television Inc.

$5,000 TO $9,999Ms. Elizabeth Ballantine and Mr. Paul

Leavitt

Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Bartlett III

Count and Countess Peder Bonde

Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop N. Brown

CGF Shoniya Fund

Alfred and Kathryn Checchi

Chesapeake Publishing Corporation

Robert and Rose Cohen

Mr. Max W. Corzilius

Desert Research Institute

Earthwatch Institute

Four Seasons Hotel

Ms. Virginia Fulton (The VirginiaFulton Charitable Gift Fund)

Geoff Howe MarketingCommunications

Mr. Alan D. Grinnell

Mr. and Mrs. Steven G. Hoch

International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Mr. and Mrs. Norman V. Kinsey

Lt. Col. and Mrs. William Karl Konze

M S Grand, Inc.

Mr. and Mrs. Creighton R. Magid

Mr. and Mrs. Frank N. Magid

Mr. Gurdeep Singh Malik

Mr. and Mrs. Robin B. Martin

Gilbert and Jaylee Mead

Mr. and Mrs. William C. Storey

Taipei Economic and Cultural Office inNew York

Taipei Economic and CulturalRepresentative Office in the U.S.

$2,000 TO $4,9992006 International Conference on the

Culture and History of Taiwan

Arthur and Mary Aufderheide

Bibliomania!

Dr. Amrik S. Chattha

The Citadel Group Foundation

Docents of the National Museum ofNatural History

Dr. and Mrs. Oliver S. Flint, Jr.

Miriam and Ronald Heyer

Mr. Harinder Kohli

Miss Marilyn C. Link

Malott Family Foundation

Dr. and Mrs. Sarabjit S. and Jaspal K.Neelam

North Carolina State University

Mr. Paul L. Peck

Dr. Cristián Samper and Adriana Casas

Saudi Arabian Airlines

Kate and Theodore Sedgwick

Ruth O. Selig

Mr. and Mrs. Peter R. Tyson

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

University of Oregon

Wesleyan University

Sam-kyun Yoon

$500 TO $1,999Anonymous (2)

American Entomological Society, Inc.

Atalanta Sosnoff Capital Corporation

Dr. Paul B. Barton

Dr. William M. Bass

Jacqueline Bergman (BJNB Foundation)

Mr. and Mrs. Jere Broh-Kahn

Ms. Elspeth Bobbs

Dr. Cesar A. Caceres

The Camp-Younts Foundation

Mr. Ashton de Peyster

Miranda and Robert Donnelley (TheDonnelley Foundation)

Elizabeth Duggal Taghipour and AlainTaghipour

Elon University

Mr. and Mrs. John D. Erwin

ExxonMobil Foundation

Jack Ferguson and Veronica Slajer

Steven Gaimari

Gem, Lapidary and Mineral Society ofWashington, D.C., Inc.

GlaxoSmithKline

John and Margaret Grey (The GreyFamily Foundation)

Ms. Sharon Lynn Hanger and Ms.Laura Heyer

Harbor Federal

John K. Hoskinson and Ana Fábregas

Stanley S. Hubbard

The Honorable L. William Lane, Jr.and Mrs. Lane (The Ambassadorand Mrs. L.W. Lane, Jr. Fund)

Jed and Blythe Lyons

James A. McComas

Elizabeth and Whitney MacMillan

Mr. and Mrs. Wendell Mohr

Dr. Emilio F. Moran

Dr. Yolanda T. Moses and Mr. JamesBawek

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (Ret.)

George and Linda O’Malley

National Museum of Saudi Arabia

Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey A. Rothrock III

Mrs. Dorothy Rouse-Bottom

Joyce and Jerry Sachs

Mr. and Mrs. Simon Sidamon-Eristoff

Mr. Jagdish Singh and Mrs. SatvinderKaur

Frank Swain and Sally Wallace

Robert and Robin Wilder

Susan R. Wirths

Yara North America, Inc.

From the group’s first grantin 1971 for the original InsectZoo to their visionaryendowment of the Museum’sResearch Training Program,the Smithsonian Women’sCommittee has touched thefull breadth of the Museum’sprograms for the last 35years. The Committee is thelongest, most consistentdonor in the Museum’s history and Director CristiánSamper presented thegroup’s President, Judy Lynn Prince, with a plaque to commemorate thistremendous milestone.

The SmithsonianWomen’sCommittee: 35years of support

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Financial SummaryTHESE CHARTS represent the National Museum of Natural History and the Museum Support Center’s pre-audit sources

and uses of fiscal year 2006 funds, excluding centrally provided support such as security, maintenance, capital facility

costs, human resources, accounting, legal services, contracting and business activities. Federal appropriations are the

source of support for most ongoing efforts such as long-term research, collections management, exhibits maintenance

and safety programs. Income from private gifts, grants and endowments supports some research projects and nearly

half of the Museum’s public program activities, providing vital funds for special exhibitions and an ambitious schedule of

exhibition renovation. Smithsonian business activities provide funds for short-term projects and some administrative

support. Federal grants and contracts underwrite several research projects.

USES OF FUNDSFacilities maintenance and safety programs $0.7

Administration $6.4

Public programs $7.4

Scientific research, collections and outreach $46.2

Total $60.7

SOURCES OF FUNDSFederal appropriations $48.1*

Gifts, grants, and endowment income $6.1

Unrestricted revenue $1.9

Federal grants and contracts $4.6

Total $60.7

N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F N AT U R A L H I S T O RY

*Total includes expenditure of prioryear obligations, transfers from otheragencies, and centrally administeredpool funds. Total FY 2006 appropria-tion for the National Museum ofNatural History and the MuseumSupport Center is $45.0 million.

Most Visited U.S. Museum The Natural Museum ofNatural History had5,874,485 visitors in 2006,making it the most visitedSmithsonian museum. Inthe fiscal year, it was themost visited in the entireUnited States.

Federal Appropriations79%*

FacilitiesMaintenanceand SafetyPrograms 1%

Public Programs 12%

Administration11%

Federal Grants and Contracts 8%

Scientific Research, Collectionsand Outreach 76%

Unrestricted Revenue 3%

Gifts, Grants, and EndowmentIncome 10%


Board and Staff MembersBOARD MEMBERS

Mr. Roger W. Sant Board ChairWashington, D.C.

Mr. Robin B. Martin Board Vice-ChairWashington, D.C.

Ms. Paula ApsellBoston, Massachusetts

Dr. Paul B. Barton Reston, Virginia

Mr. Kenneth Behring Danville, California

Dr. Peter BuckDanbury, Connecticut

Mr. Michael J. CollinsCoral Gables, Florida

Dr. Rita R. ColwellCollege Park, Maryland

Sir Peter R. CraneChicago, Illinois

Dr. David Dilcher (through September 2006)Gainesville, Florida

Dr. David Evans*Washington, D.C.

Ms. Kathryn S. FullerWashington, D.C.

Mr. Edward O. Gaylord (through September 2006)Houston, Texas

Mr. David H. KochNew York, New York

Senator Patrick LeahyWashington, D.C.

Ambassador William H. LuersNew York, New York

Dr. Emilio F. MoranBloomington, Indiana

Dr. Yolanda T. MosesRiverside, California

Justice Sandra Day O’ConnorWashington, D.C.

Dr. Jerold J. PrincipatoBethesda, Maryland

Dr. Paul G. RisserNorman, Oklahoma

Dr. Cristián Samper* Washington, D.C.

Dr. Shirley SherwoodLondon, England

Secretary Lawrence Small* Washington, D.C.

Mr. Marshall Turner (through May 2006)Round Rock, Texas * Ex-officio members

EMERITUS MEMBERS

Mr. I. Michael HeymanBerkley, California

Mrs. Jean LanePortola Valley, California

Mr. Robert MalottChicago, Illinois

Jeffery Meyer San Mateo, California

Dr. Cristián SamperDirector

Elizabeth DuggalAssociate Director for ExternalAffairs and Public Programs(from October 2006)

Susan FruchterAssociate Director for Operations

Dr. Hans-Dieter SuesAssociate Director for Researchand Collections

Robert SullivanAssociate Director for PublicPrograms(through October 2006)

Jerald SachsSpecial Assistant to the Directorfor Business Development andMarketing(through September 2006)

Ruth O. SeligSpecial Assistant to the Director

DEPARTMENT CHAIRS

Dr. W. John KressBotany(through September 2006)

Dr. Rafael LemaitreInvertebrate Zoology

Dr. Glenn J. MacPhersonMineral Sciences

Dr. Valerie PaulDirector Smithsonian Marine Station

Dr. J. Daniel RogersAnthropology

Dr. Ted SchultzEntomology

Rena SelimExhibits(from October 2006)

Dr. Richard VariVertebrate Zoology

Dr. Warren WagnerBotany(from October 2006)

Dr. Scott L. WingPaleobiology

SENIOR MANAGEMENT STAFF

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This annual report was produced and published by the National Museum ofNatural History’s Office of Public Affairs.

EDITORS

Randall KremerDirector of Public Affairs

Michele UrieSenior Press Officer

WRITING, DESIGN

& PRODUCTION

Creative ProjectManagement, Inc.creativeprojectmgmt.com

Cyndi Wood, President

Erin Wetherald & Cyndi Wood, Writers

Michael Molanphy, Designer

PRINTING

McArdle Printing Company

The Museum wishes to recognizethe passing of Elaine Hodges,Ellis Yochelson, Jim Luhr andJeffery Meyer. Their contribu-tions to Smithsonian science wereimmeasurable and their presencewill be missed throughout theMuseum community.


Looking Ahead TIFFANY & CO. FOUNDATION COLLECTIONIn April 2007, the Museum will unveil a newexhibition case for the display of gemstonespurchased with the Tiffany & Co. FoundationEndowment. These and future acquisitionswill comprise the Tiffany & Co. FoundationCollection and will become part of theMuseum’s National Gem Collection.

KOREA GALLERYThe Korea Gallery presentsKorea’s millennia of history andits distinctive culture throughceramics, paintings, textiles andsculptures, ranging from the6th century B.C. to the 21stcentury. Featuring culturalobjects and artifacts fromSmithsonian and other collec-tions, this new permanentgallery will open in May 2007.

BUTTERFLIES AND PLANTS: PARTNERS IN EVOLUTIONIn November 2007, the Museum will open a new exhibition thatutilizes Smithsonian research to illustrate how butterflies, plantsand other animals have evolved, adapted and diversified togetherover millions of years. Along with audio and visual presentations,visitors will be able to walk through a climate-controlled pavilionwith living displays of tropical butterflies and plants.

OCEAN INITIATIVEThe Ocean Initiative is a multi-disciplinary project to raise publicawareness of the ocean as a global system that is essential to all lifeon Earth. The focal point of the program will be a new Ocean Hall,featuring state-of-the-art displays, a deep ocean theater, a livingcoral reef model ecosystem and hundreds of specimens from theMuseum’s unparalleled marine collections. The 27,000-square-footexhibition hall will debut in September 2008.

HUMAN ORIGINS INITIATIVEUnder the leadership of Dr. Richard Potts, the Museum has launchedthe Human Origins Initiative, a multi-faceted program that investi-gates and explores the emergence of human beings. The centerpiece ofthe Initiative will be What Does it Mean to be Human?, an innovativenew exhibition hall on humanorigins scheduled to openin 2009.

N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F N AT U R A L H I S T O RYC

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Special Events

THE MUSEUM’S unparalleled collections and monumental architecture provide an ideal setting for after-hours special

events. Corporations and organizations making an unrestricted contribution to the Museum may co-sponsor a special

event in celebration of their gift. Event guests can enjoy cocktails or dinner in the grand four-story Rotunda and take

advantage of the Museum’s many exhibition halls, like the Kenneth E. Behring Family Hall of Mammals and the Janet

Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals. www.nmnh.si.edu/specialevents

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Cover photo

© Peter Hemming Photography

Back cover photo by Chip Clark

National Museum of Natural HistorySmithsonian Institution

10th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20560-0135

www.mnh.si.edu

Inuit ceremonial mask of a seal blowing air bubbles

National Museum of Natural History Annual Report 2006

Documents

Transcript of National Museum of Natural History Annual Report 2006