Computerization of the Type Specimen Collection of the Paleontological Research Institution

古生物研究所模式标本采集的计算机化

• 批准号: 0447298
• 负责人: Warren Allmon
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Paleontological Research Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-06-01 至 2009-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0447298&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Computerization; Type; Specimen; Collection; Paleontological

A grant has been awarded to the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) under the direction of Dr. Warren Allmon for partial support of computerizing and putting on-line records of the most important portion of the PRI collections, the 13,600 "type" specimens (those which have been published in the scientific literature as representative of particular named species and subspecies). Although the PRI Type Collection is but a small fraction of the Institution's total collection, which includes more than 2 million specimens, the types are the scientifically extremely important because researchers use them to represent named species and compare with other forms. The information that results is of basic value for biostratigraphy (using fossils to date rocks) and systematics (the study of the evolution and diversity of life). The award will be used by PRI to enter information and images from these 13,600 specimens into a database, and to make images and information available on a new website. The major scientific results of this work will be to make an important part of the PRI collection, which is among the 10 largest invertebrate paleontology collections in the US, available to the global research community. This will be relevant to a wide diversity of geological and biological research projects, and particularly to at least two areas of active and controversial paleobiolgical research to which PRI's collections are most applicable: 1) the connection between environmental change in marine ecosystems of the Western Atlantic over the past 65 million years; and 2) the patterns of evolutionary change among marine invertebrates in New York during the Devonian period (ca. 400-360 million years ago). The project will also provide for the "repatriation" of data to non-US countries from which many PRI specimens were collected, including Cuba, Trinidad, and Venezuela. By laying the groundwork for subsequent phases of computerization of other portions of the PRI collections, this project will begin the long-term process of making the entire collection much more widely available to K-12 students, students at nearby Cornell University and other colleges and universities, and the general public than has been possible before.

已向 Warren Allmon 博士领导下的古生物学研究所 (PRI) 提供了一笔赠款，用于部分支持 PRI 收藏中最重要部分的计算机化和在线记录，即 13,600 个“类型”标本（已在科学文献中作为特定命名物种和亚种的代表发表的标本）。尽管 PRI 类型收藏仅占该机构总收藏（包括超过 200 万个标本）的一小部分，但这些类型在科学上极其重要，因为研究人员使用它们来代表命名物种并与其他类型进行比较。所得信息对于生物地层学（利用化石测定岩石年代）和系统学（研究生命的进化和多样性）具有基本价值。 PRI 将利用该奖项将这 13,600 个标本的信息和图像输入数据库，并在新网站上提供图像和信息。 这项工作的主要科学成果将是向全球研究界提供 PRI 馆藏的重要组成部分，该馆藏是美国 10 个最大的无脊椎动物古生物学馆藏之一。这将与各种各样的地质和生物研究项目相关，特别是与 PRI 馆藏最适用的至少两个活跃且有争议的古生物学研究领域相关：1）过去 6500 万年来西大西洋海洋生态系统环境变化之间的联系； 2）泥盆纪时期（约400-3.6亿年前）纽约海洋无脊椎动物的进化变化模式。该项目还将向收集了许多 PRI 样本的非美国国家提供数据“返还”，包括古巴、特立尼达和委内瑞拉。 通过为 PRI 馆藏其他部分的计算机化后续阶段奠定基础，该项目将开始一个长期过程，使整个馆藏比以前更广泛地供 K-12 学生、附近康奈尔大学和其他学院和大学的学生以及公众使用。