Membership and Cooperations (a selection)

Leibniz Association

Synthesys

Visit the Museum für Naturkunde - with SYNTHESYS!

SYNTHESYS (EU FP7: Integrated Activities) is now up to support collection-based research projects for another four years (2009-2013). Within SYNTHESYS, the Museum für Naturkunde is leading the "German Taxonomic Facility" (DE-TAF) and coordinates the Joint Research Activity 5 (JRA 5) "Development of high-throughput methods for DNA isolation from invertebrates with muco-polysaccharide rich tissue". If you want to know more about SYNTHESYS or if you want to apply for a research grant to visit the Museum für Naturkunde, please go to www.synthesys.info. For further information about the programme and the facilities at the Museum für Naturkunde please contact our SYNTHESYS-Office.

Geoscientific coordination platform Geo.X

The Museum für Naturkunde is a member of the Geo.X coordination platform of the two German federal states Berlin and Brandenburg. Geo.X was founded on 3.3.2010 and brings together the geoscientific competences of the Free University of Berlin, the Humboldt-University of Berlin, the University of Potsdam, as well as the Museum für Naturkunde (Leibniz Association) and the German Geoscience Center (GFZ, Helmholtz-Association) in the fields of research, teaching, and infrastructure.
The Museum´s General Director, Prof. Dr. Reinhold Leinfelder, is a member of the Board of Trustees of Geo.X. Prof. Dr. Uwe Reimold and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kiessling are members of the steering committee, and PD Dr. Lutz Hecht is the Geo.X coordinator at the MfN.
Further information is available at the Geo.X homepage.

DNFS - Consortium of German Natural Sciences Research Collections

The Museum für Naturkunde is a member of the "Deutsche Naturwissenschaftliche Forschungssammlungen" (DNFS), i.e. the Consortium of German Natural Sciences Research Collections. Eleven large research collections in Germany joined together in this consortium, which forms the largest infrastructure in Natural History in the world, as it combines more than 100 Million specimens from the Zoology, Botany, Palaeontology, Anthropology, Geology and Mineralogy disciplines.
The DNFS focuses the scientific expertise of their members to deal with prominent issues such as climate and environmental change, as well as their impact on evolution, biodiversity and ecosystems. Part of the mission of the DNFS is also to advise governments. Prof. Dr. Reinhold Leinfelder, the General Director of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, is the current Chairman of the Consortium.

GBIF – Global Biodiversity Information Facility

The central aim of the GBIF initiative is thus to make the already existing data readily available in the internet. The German GBIF coordinators have furthermore decided to extend the collecting of data records to the palaeontological collections of Germany. A new GBIF node will therefore be set up at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin in the next future. For further information please contact .

The Museum für Naturkunde is already now one of the most important data contributors to GBIF in Germany. The single databases which allow access to the digitalized collections of the museum are listed here.

Further information can be obtained from GBIF Germany or GBIF international

IZGeVA – Interdisciplinary Centre for "Genetic Variability and Adaptability"

This centre was founded in May 2006 at the Humboldt University to combine the expertise of researchers from several disciplines in order to study details of the genetic basis of life, particularly the coding and regulation of genetic information. A major aim is to gain a better understanding of how living organisms have been able to adapt for many millions of years to the manifold challenges posed by an ever changing environment and which role single genes played in this process.

Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Genetische Variabilität und Anpassungsfähigkeit

ICDP
International
Continental Scientific
Drilling Program

The „International Continental Scientific Drilling Program ICDP“ is a scientific endeavour that aims at contributing to the development of responsible management strategies in the use of mineral deposits and the conservation of the environment.

ICDP-Homepage

CETAF – Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities

The Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) is a network of large European natural history museums and botanical gardens. CETAF supports projects e.g. on the digital inventory of natural history collections and on the development of measures to preserve the collections.

DIVERSITAS

about the origin of biodiversity and the possible effects of ongoing changes.

Homepage DIVERSITAS

ICZN – International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature

All species that have been scientifically described bear formal names which are used globally in the communication of scientists. Internationally binding rules of nomenclature guarantee that all names in zoology are unique and distinctive. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (http://www.iczn.org/) publishes the rules of nomenclature and adapts them to suite new requirements. The Museum für Naturkunde supports the work of this Commission as an „ICZN Affiliate“.

Link to the international rules of nomenclature: Internationale Nomenklaturregeln

The Paleoreef Database

Reefs are fascinating ecosystems. Tropical coral reefs today are hotspots of species diversity in the sea much in the same way as tropical rain forests are hotspots of biodiversity on land. What’s more, fossil reefs are important sinks for hydrocarbonats. The study of fossil reefs requires a strongly interdisciplinary approach. Ecological and evolutionary changes in fossil reefs may also help to assess the current threat to coral reefs and to devise sensible measures for their effective protection.

Online-access to reef distribution on paleogeographic maps:

http://193.175.236.205/paleo/ [ID = paleo, Password = reefs]

For palaeontological data: http://paleodb.org

Query of reef data with the following query criteria in “fossil collection records”: Data authorizer: “Kiessling, W.”; palaeoenvironment: “reef, buildup or bioherm”

Koobi Fora Research Project

The Turkana Basin in East-Africa may be characterised as the "cradle of mankind": more than 200 hominid remains are recorded from rocks around Lake Turkana during the last 4 decades. Since 1968, the Koobi Fora Research Project is working on the origin and evolution of humans based on fossils from the Turkana Basin. In addition to hominid remains, fossil bivalves and gastropods are highly abundant in the rocks of the basin. The study of these fossils will provide further information on the evolution of the environment of early humans to support the work of the Koobi Fora Research Project.

For further information on the Koobi Fora Research Project: http://www.kfrp.com/

Excerpt of the annual report from 2006 with a report of the work of the Museum für Naturkunde in the Turkana Basin. here (pdf-file 71 KB)

LIPI - Indonesian Academy of Sciences

Since May 2007, the Museum of Natural History Berlin has a cooperation agreement with LIPI (Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia), represented by the "Research Center for Biology" in Bogor near Jakarta, in order to promote joint research and teaching projects on the biodiversity of the Indomalayan archipelago. This region comprises two of the world's 32 biodiversity "hotspots". An area qualifies as a biodiversity hotspot if it combines a very high proportion of plant species occurring only there - at least 1500 - with a loss of not less than 70% of its natural vegetation. With the cooperation agreement, the already existing exchange of scientists and material as well as the conduction of joint research projects since 1999 by single working groups (among others Glaubrecht et al. in cooperation with Ristiyanti M. Marwoto from Bogor) has been given a formal and far more extensive framework. Within the scope of this cooperation working groups both from the Museum of Natural History Berlin and other German universities have current projects on several groups of freshwater organisms: Molluscs (Dr. Matthias Glaubrecht, Dr. Thomas von Rintelen, Dr. Christian Albrecht), crustaceans (Dr. Christoph Schubart, Kristina von Rintelen), fishes (Dr. Fabian Herder, Dr. Uli Schliewen) and sponges (Dr. Carsten Lüter). The organisation of joint scientific meetings is another aim of the cooperation.
LIPI

AMMON - Online database for Palaeozoic ammonoids; Dieter Korn (Berlin) and August Ilg (Düsseldorf)

Currently the database comprises five ammonoid orders, 41 superfamilies, 151 families, 825 genera, and 4500 species from 8500 localities in 65 countries. 1830 references are linked to the localities and taxa. We implemented 1659 figures showing photographs, cross section, septum, and suture outlines as well as ontogenetic series yet.

Silpakorn University (Thailand)

Since 2008, scientists of the Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity at the Humboldt University Berlin (MfN) and the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, of the Silpakorn University (DoB-SU) in Nakhon Pathom, near Bangkok, have enjoyed an ongoing and productive scientific cooperation. In 2010 now both partner institutions have formally signed a memorandum of understanding. Biologists of the partner institutions, in particular Dr. Duangduen Krailas from the Silpakorn University and Dr. Matthias Glaubrecht (MfN), have agreed on exchange and co-supervision of PhD students from Thailand in context with the Thai Royal Golden Jubilee PhD program, as well as on conducting joint research projects including field campaigns in Thailand, building up of reference collections and on joint publications of the results of their biological, in particular malacozoological and parasitological research. Special focus of this cooperation is on limnic organisms, especially molluscs and in particular gastropods, such as Thiaridae, Paludomidae and Pachychilidae.