Facilities

It is prepared to increase plants and plants of the shadow formative. It consist of seven units in addition to a store and an office. The units are of fixed temperature to suit the different types of plants. It provides plant samples for practical classes; Biology 1, Biology 2 and Plant Physiology. There is also a room for research projects.

About the MuseumThe Biology Museum was established as the Museum of Natural History in 2006. The museum has a collection of insects and few of other animal species collected since 1974. Major collections of Insect started in 1974 by Prof. Mohammed Redha Abdo. The museum is an important source of fauna specimen records. Recently, students use museum specimens in several biology classes, including Biology II, Basic Ecology, Desert Biology and Environmental Management and Conservation. Other students and the local community are welcomed to visit the museum and use the specimens as references.

Goals 

• The museum's primary goal is to provide a well collection of specimens that can serve as a material for research and education; 

• The museum has an ever-increasing responsibility for the conservation of animal specimens; 

• Furthermore, museum collections serve as the primary sources of information about biodiversity in Qatar; 

• The museum is to demonstrate and educate about the value of natural-history museums.

General Regulations

1. The only people with unlimited access to the collection without previous arrangement are members of the museum staff who work with the collection or Biology faculty who have been instructed to its use. All other visitors are not to open specimen cases or handle specimens without permission from the museum staff; 

2. Visitors to the collection who are unacquainted with its arrangement or without professional experience in a vertebrate research collection should always be guided or thoroughly instructed in the use of the collection by a member of the museum staff; 

3. Investigators from other departments and institutions should request in advance from museum staff permission to visit and use the collection. This request should specify the reason for the visit and the taxa to be examined;

4. Biology faculty should inform the museum staff about intended class visits; this would allow us to plan for your visit; 

5. Specimens are removed from the collection only for use in research or in special cases for artwork, class use, or educational displays. In any of these instances, previous arrangement is necessary;

6. Avoid drinking or eating in direct proximity to specimens. 

Collection

The Biology Museum collection is housed in two rooms: D225, D224

Location

The Biology Museum is located in the University of Qatar, Men’s Building, corridor 4, Rooms 225D, 224D.

If you would like to visit the Biology Museum, kindly contact:

Fatima Al-Khayat

Office Location: SE 216

Office Tel: (+974) 4403-4544

Email: falkhayat@qu.edu.qa 

Fatma Al-Abdulla

Office Location: SC 122

Office Tel: (+974) 4403-4554

Email: falabdulla@qu.edu.qa

The herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts, usually in a dried form or mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in alcohol or other preservative. Herbarium may include pressed and mounted plants, seeds, wood sections, pollen, microscope slides, and fluid-preserved flowers, fruits and photos. Herbarium is considered as an information bank because it includes huge data about the country, its neighbor and all over the world.

Importance of Herbarium

1- The identification of plants which are collected from field trips and compare them with the reserved plants at herbarium;

2- Herbarium helps scientists to study and identify (a) economic plants which are used in as medicine, food and feed (b) plants which have improve the fertility of soil (c) trees planting and the beautification of the cities.

There are about 1700 herbaria in the world which are run by governments, universities, research institutes or individuals. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Herbarium as the largest one over the world, has a central role for research on plant and mycological biodiversity on earth, with 7 million specimens, including approximately 350,000 type specimens. The second largest herbarium in the world is Komaroff Herbarium in Russia which has 6,000,000 samples.

Qatar University Herbarium is located on the 2nd floor (Corridor #2) at the Biological sciences Department in the men building. It has about 1523 samples including plant seeds, fungi, marine algae. Plant samples were collected from many places such as India and Yemen during the scientific trips done by then Botany Department students. Herbarium was supervised by many professors of Ecology, taxonomy and flora.

Many books were published about Qatari plants such as:

Flora and Ecology in Qatar

Environment and Plants in the state of Qatar

Pollen grains in Qatari Plants

In addition, different books were published in the chemistry of wild plant, ornamental and forage plants in Qatar.

In 2005, Herbarium Committee was established from faculty staffs and technicians at the Biological & Environmental Sciences Department. The tasks of this committee are:

1. Build database for wild plants in Qatar;
2. Document electronically the herbarium;
3. Enrich the herbarium with plant samples from either Qatar or it neighbors;
4. Study the changes that could happened in Qatari wild plants as a result of Agricultural, industrial and urban expansions;
5. Build a website for Qatar University herbarium to connect it with other GCC herbarium to exchange experiences and information about extinct wild plant in the region. As well as to study the ornamental plants, forage plants and trees which could be cultivated in the desert area.