Collaborative Research: Digitization and Enrichment of U.S. Herbarium Data from Tropical Africa to Enable Urgent Quantitative Conservation Assessments

合作研究：来自热带非洲的美国植物标本馆数据的数字化和丰富化，以实现紧急的定量保护评估

• 批准号: 2223881
• 负责人: Nicole Tarnowsky
• 金额: $ 26.5万
• 依托单位: New York Botanical Garden
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-15 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2223881&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Digitization; Enrichment; U.S.

Biological diversity has been the subject of hundreds of years of work by botanists and zoologists, accumulating rich stores of specimens and associated data in museums and herbaria around the world. These rich information resources, however, too often remain in analog format only, and have not been digitized and “enabled” in the service of science. This project aims to digitize, enrich, and share openly the rich data resources held in United States herbaria that correspond to plants of tropical Africa. By the close of the project, it will have captured data from 1.1 million herbarium specimens, and will augment digital accessible data records for the African continent by more than 15-fold. It will also have created a broad, international, intercontinental network of scientists and students interested in and experienced with management and analysis of such data. This combination of information resources and human capacity will enrich and improve biodiversity conservation planning across Africa. Herbarium specimens represent a rich source of data on plant diversity. This project will focus on the tropical African seed plant specimen holdings of 21 U.S. herbaria, which will be imaged, associated data captured, and data records georeferenced and quality-controlled. Imaging and data capture will be carried out at each of the herbaria, and data will be aggregated for efficient georeferencing. For most records, georeferencing will be performed automatically; however, a small portion will be georeferenced manually by plant scientists in Ghana, Rwanda, Malawi, and Gabon. Finally, project data will be subjected to detailed quality-control assessment, and served openly to the scientific community via a dedicated “African Plants” portal on Symbiota, as well as integration into iDigBio.org and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF.org). These rich data resources will be used to understand the conservation status of African plant species in much greater detail than has been possible to date.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.

生物多样性是植物学家和动物学家数百年来工作的主题，在世界各地的博物馆和草药中积累了丰富的标本和相关数据。但是，这些丰富的信息资源通常仅以模拟格式保留，并且在科学服务中没有数字化和“启用”。该项目旨在数字化，丰富和公开分享与热带非洲植物相对应的美国植物植物的丰富数据资源。到该项目结束时，它将捕获来自110万个标本室标本的数据，并将为非洲大陆的数字可访问数据记录增加15倍以上。它还将建立一个广泛的，国际，洲际的科学家网络以及对管理和分析此类数据感兴趣和经验的学生。信息资源和人类能力的这种结合将丰富和改善整个非洲的生物多样性保护计划。植物标本室代表了植物多样性的丰富数据来源。该项目将着重于21种美国草药的热带非洲种子厂标本持有量，该标本将被成像，捕获相关的数据以及获得的数据记录和质量控制。成像和数据捕获将在每种草药中进行，并且数据将汇总以有效地进行地理作用。对于大多数记录，将自动执行地理作用；但是，加纳，卢旺达，马拉维和加蓬的植物科学家将手动进行一小部分。最后，项目数据将经过详细的质量控制评估，并通过专门的“非洲植物”门户网站公开向科学界服务，并将其集成到idigbio.org和全球生物多样性信息设施（GBIF.org）中。这些丰富的数据资源将用于了解非洲植物物种的保护状况比迄今为止的可能性要大得多。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，被认为是珍贵的支持。