Collaborative Research: Ranges: Building Capacity to Extend Mammal Specimens from Western North America

合作研究：范围：建设能力以扩展北美西部的哺乳动物标本

• 批准号: 2228389
• 负责人: Cody Thompson
• 金额: $ 8.77万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-01 至 2027-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2228389&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Ranges; Building; Capacity

The specimens contained in natural history collections contribute to scientific progress and social wellbeing. Their unique value comes from the high-quality information they contain and the documentation indicating how they were collected. Of particular value are trait measurements that document how species interact with each other and how they vary though time, for example, when responding to environmental changes. Unfortunately, traits for museum specimens are often only available in non-digital and non-standard formats. This limits the ability of researchers to find and use them to their full potential. This award will establish the Ranges Digitization Network (“Ranges”). The goal of the network is to digitize traits from over one million mammal specimens in 19 U.S. natural history museums. The network will produce datasets that are in standard format and easy to find in online biodiversity platforms, such as iDigBio. This will allow researchers to build better baselines for biodiversity and improve predictions of how mammals respond to changing environments. Ranges will also spark collaboration among the museum community and data scientists, creating solutions usable broadly. The network will employ a diverse human workforce in digitization and research tasks, and it will engage the public through citizen science activities and museum exhibits. This will address a major remaining digitization challenge for U.S. museums, to expand utility of specimens and use them to create new scientific knowledge. Digitization of U.S. natural history museums over the past two decades has improved data sharing and research capacity in the life sciences. Among the most important data associated with museum specimens are the morphological and reproductive traits of individuals. These traits are informative about ecology, evolution, and responses of organisms to environmental change. Unfortunately, traits from specimens remain incompletely digitized across museums and hard to locate on the internet. This inhibits their discovery and use at a time of pressing global change. Ranges will digitize and publish traits from approximately 1.2 million non-marine mammal specimens from western North America. The project focuses on this region due to its complex topography and climate, and because it is a center of mammalian biodiversity. The specific goals of the network are to extend existing software tools, develop new standards for mammal trait data, and coordinate digitization across museum partners. New, digital trait data on biodiversity data platforms such as iDigBio will transform data accessibility and foster new evolutionary, ecological, and biomedical research. Ranges will also collaborate with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to ensure compatibility with trait data collected throughout the lifetime of that network. Using the above approaches, Ranges will lay a foundation for building an extended specimen network for mammals.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.

自然历史收藏中包含的物种有助于科学进步和社会福祉。它们的独特价值来自它们所包含的高质量信息以及表明它们如何收集的文档。特定价值的是特征测量值，这些特征测量值记录了物种如何相互相互作用以及它们如何变化，尽管时间在响应环境变化时。不幸的是，博物馆物种的特征通常只有非数字和非标准格式。这限制了研究人员找到和利用它们的能力。该奖项将建立Ranges Digitis网络（“范围”）。该网络的目的是在美国19个自然历史博物馆中对100万个哺乳动物标本的特质进行数字化。该网络将生成标准格式的数据集，并且在在线生物多样性平台（例如IDIGBIO）中易于找到。这将使研究人员能够为生物多样性建立更好的基准，并改善对哺乳动物如何应对不断变化的环境的预测。范围还将激发博物馆社区和数据科学家之间的合作，从而广泛地创建解决方案。该网络将在数字化和研究任务中雇用潜水员的人类劳动力，并通过公民科学活动和博物馆展览来吸引公众。这将针对美国博物馆的剩余数字化挑战，以扩大标本的效用并使用它们来创建新的科学知识。在过去的二十年中，美国自然历史博物馆的数字化提高了生命科学的数据共享和研究能力。与博物馆标本相关的最重要数据之一是个体的形态和生殖特征。这些特征关于生态学对环境变化的生态，进化和反应的信息丰富。不幸的是，标本的特征仍然不完全在博物馆中数字化，并且很难在互联网上找到。这抑制了他们的发现和使用，并在压迫全球变化时使用。范围将数字化和发布来自西部西部约120万个非海洋哺乳动物标本的特征。该项目由于其复杂的地形和气候而着重于该地区，并且由于它是哺乳动物生物多样性的中心。网络的具体目标是扩展现有的软件工具，为哺乳动物特质数据开发新的标准，并在博物馆合作伙伴之间协调数字化。关于生物多样性数据平台（例如IDIGBIO）的新数字特征数据将改变数据可访问性，并促进新的进化，生态和生物医学研究。范围还将与国家生态天文台网络（NEON）合作，以确保与该网络一生中收集的特征数据的兼容性。使用上述方法，范围将为建立哺乳动物的扩展标本网络奠定基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准来评估诚实的支持。