Safeguarding of the genetic resources of e conomically important agricultural species has developed into multi-billion-dollar global industries driven by collecting , evaluating, storing, and distributing cryopreserved germplasm maintained in repositories. These efforts have combined public research innovation with commercial development and provide a wide variety of approaches, platforms, and technologies from which to build new global genetic resource industries. Overall, the value of germplasm repositories and the urgent need to develop them is being realized by the broader scientific community, especiall y for established, minor, and emerging invertebrate biomedical models. Beyond the actions of individual entities, development of repository syste ms for protection of resources would be most productive at the levels of communities and community networks to facilitate the translation from research to applicatio n, enabling efficient use of material, and to improve generalizability. Germplasm repository systems that are generalizable across a variety of organisms would support development of new repositories and provide a way to address multi -taxa challenges. An islands-to- archipelago model could be useful for building repository system s to protect the genetic resources of aquatic invertebrates. In this, parallel and cross-cutting efforts would occur simultaneously for multiple organisms. Thus, instead of developing a new “island language” for each organism, communities would work together to create languages compatible with others on neighboring islands to form an “archipelago” (Figure 1). Th is would include development of communities , technologies , and community-level cryopreservation pathways. Model organism communities face similar problems in protecting genetic resources – rapid expansion of genetic lines followed by deep regret for the lack of maintenance and protection pathways. By recognizing an archipelago rather than separate islands, invertebrate research communities can address problems before they occur. Furthermore, by including established repository concepts in development of new pathways, we can leverage existing resources and information to bring much-needed generalization , scalability, and application to minor and emerging model organism communities.