Museums document these occurrences and facilitate broader research on morphologic and systematic relationships, stratigraphic and geographic distributions and other aspects of the history of life. In addition, museum collections remain the primary source of information on the geographic and stratigraphic range of a species and on patterns of co-occurrence of taxa for studies in paleoecology, paleoclimatology and paleobiogeography. Museum specimens are often an important source of information for geological studies as well. Yet new research questions often demand new collections. The advent of punctuated models of speciation in the 1970's required a level of stratigraphic resolution rarely found in museum collections and generated many new collections as paleontologists examined the tempo of speciation in the fossil record.
Museum collections continue to play a vital role in more synoptic studies.
The systematic and stratigraphic information provided by museums and their research departments will continue to provide the primary evidence documenting the history of life. Through their expertise in systematics, such institutions will continue to serve an important role in training successive generations of systematists. Yet the reputation and ultimately the funding of any institution depends upon the scientific reputations they establish. For museums, these reputations are based not on collections or exhibits, but ultimately upon the intellectual vitality of their research programs. A new generation has been trained who approach systematics with new techniques, and a greater emphasis on more explicit, testable patterns of phylogenetic reconstruction.