Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: Bringing Asia to digital life: mobilizing underrepresented Asian herbarium collections in the US to propel biodiversity discovery

数字化 TCN：合作研究：将亚洲带入数字生活：动员美国代表性不足的亚洲植物标本馆藏品，推动生物多样性发现

• 批准号: 2101846
• 负责人: Erin Tripp
• 金额: $ 106.36万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-15 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2101846&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Digitization; TCN; Collaborative; Research; Bringing

Asia is the largest continent on Earth, and includes the world’s tallest mountains, lowest landscapes, and habitats ranging from arctic tundra to tropical rainforests and mangroves to deserts. The plants of this region are incredibly diverse in their identities and functions. More than one-third of the world’s 350,000 plant species grow in Asia and include tiny alpine cushion plants, medicinal herbs, ancient crops, and some of the planet’s tallest rainforest trees. But documentation of this diversity remains inaccessible and research about it is difficult because most herbarium specimens of Asian plants have not been digitized. The All Asia Thematic Collections Network (TCN) will mobilize online 15 million specimens of Asian plants currently housed in the US and around the world. The project will especially focus on digitizing specimens from the unique and critically endangered biodiversity hotspots of Southeast Asia and the Himalaya-Hengduan region. These mobilized digital data will accelerate research to conserve endangered plant species and understand the interacting effects of evolution and global environmental change on plant species diversity. The project will apply state-of-the-art informatics tools and high-throughput digitization methods to efficiently and affordably digitize an unprecedented number of herbarium collections. This effort will connect and build long-lasting relationships among 25 large and small consortium institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The focal areas from which specimens will be digitized encompass five biodiversity hotspots that include ~20% of the world’s vascular plant flora and historically spanned 3 million km² of primary vegetation that now covers less than 300,000 km². Fundamental biodiversity data for these biodiversity hotspots are lacking, along with the necessary baselines required to characterize species’ identity, range, and responses to ongoing climatic change. The overall goals of the All Asia TCN are to rapidly digitize herbarium specimens of Asian plants to advance biodiversity discovery and provide critical baseline assessments essential for establishing floristic change in the Anthropocene. The project will accomplish this by (1) digitizing 3 million Asian vascular plant specimens from U.S. herbaria; (2) developing and applying novel informatics tools and high-throughput digitization methods to massively scale herbarium digitization; (3) aggregating and mobilizing the digitized records from the project with those by international partners in China, France, the Netherlands, and Russia to establish a single online All Asia portal of ca. 15 million specimens; and (4) enhancing opportunities for early career learners in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by stimulating synergies between biodiversity and computer scientists who will use design thinking principles to create real-world informatics solutions to biodiversity challenges. To stimulate curiosity in plant diversity and botanical exploration among the general public, the consortium members will host several Asia-themed Notes from Nature virtual expeditions to facilitate additional specimen digitization by citizen-scientists. Digitized specimen data mobilized through this project will be shared and made available through iDigBio.org.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

亚洲是地球上最大的大陆，包括世界上最高的山脉，最低的景观以及从北极苔原到热带雨林和红树林再到沙漠的栖息地。该地区的植物在其身份和功能上越来越多样化。在亚洲，世界350,000种植物中有超过三分之一的植物种植，包括微小的高山靠垫植物，药草，古老的农作物和某些地球最高的雨林树。但是，关于这种多样性的文献仍然无法访问，并且很难进行研究，因为大多数亚洲植物的大多数都没有数字化。所有亚洲主题收藏网络（TCN）将动员目前在美国和世界各地安置的1500万种亚洲植物。该项目将特别关注从东南亚和喜马拉雅山区地区独特而濒临灭绝的生物多样性热点的数字化物种。这些动员的数字数据将加速研究以保护濒临灭绝的植物物种，并了解进化和全球环境变化对植物物种多样性的相互作用。该项目将采用最先进的信息工具和高通量数字化方法，以有效且负担得起的数字化史无前例的植物标本室收集。这项努力将在美国，欧洲和亚洲的25个大型和小型联盟机构之间建立并建立持久的关系。将物种将被数字化的焦点区域包含五个生物多样性热点，其中包括世界上约20％的血管植物植物群，历史上跨越了300万平方公里的主要植被，现在覆盖了少于300,000平方公里。缺乏这些生物多样性热点的基本生物多样性数据，以及表征物种对持续气候变化的身份，范围和反应所需的必要基准。所有亚洲TCN的总体目标是快速对亚洲植物的标本室物种进行数字化，以提高生物多样性的发现，并为建立人类世的植物变化至关重要。该项目将通过（1）数字化来自美国草药的300万亚洲血管植物物种； （2）开发和应用新颖的信息工具和高通量数字化方法，以大规模扩展标本室数字化； （3）与国际合作伙伴在中国，法国，荷兰和俄罗斯的国际合作伙伴中汇总和动员了该项目的数字化记录，以建立一个单一的在线在线所有亚洲门户网站。 1500万个标本； （4）通过刺激生物多样性和计算机科学家之间的协同作用，增强了科学，技术，工程和数学领域的早期职业学习者的机会，他们将使用设计思维原则来创建现实世界中的信息性解决方案，以解决生物多样性挑战。为了刺激公众对植物多样性和植物探索的好奇心，财团成员将主持几种以亚洲为主题的虚拟探险的注释，以促进公民科学家的其他标本数字化。通过该项目动员的数字化标本数据将通过idigbio.org共享并提供，该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准，通过评估诚实地认为通过评估。