Collaborative Research: The Deep South Plant Specimen Imaging Project

在奥斯汀·马斯特博士的指导下，佛罗里达州立大学获得了一笔赠款，用于协调一项合作努力，将美国东南部一些草本植物的图像和数据放到网上。该地区是该国最大的生物多样性热点之一，拥有近3000种本土植物。该项目将利用生物多样性信息学工具，向全世界的观众提供标本标本图像和数据。来自佛罗里达州、阿拉巴马州和密西西比州的五家机构将为标本制作高质量的图像，并将使用自动光学字符识别系统(Herbis)从标签中提取数据。这些图像将提交到一个开放的网络图像库(MorphBank)，数字内容将通过全球生物多样性信息基金(GBIF)门户网站传播。合作努力将在装备、培训标本馆工作人员和协调网络活动方面利用规模经济优势，以汇集这一地区性生物信息学资源。该项目将让本科生参与成像和数据库工作。这些在线信息对环境经理和规划者来说将是有价值的。一个项目将为该地区的初中生和高中生制定教案。

A grant has been awarded to Florida State University under the direction of Dr. Austin Mast to coordinate a collaborative effort to put images and data from a number of herbaria in the southeastern U.S. online. The region is one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the country and home to nearly 3,000 species of native plants. The project will bring biodiversity informatics tools to bear in making herbarium specimen images and data available to a worldwide audience. Five institutions from Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi will make high quality images of the specimens, and an automated optical character recognition system (HERBIS) will be used to extract data from the labels. The images will be submitted to an open web image repository (MorphBank), and the digital content will be disseminated through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) portal. The collaborative effort will take advantages of economies of scale in terms of equipping, training herbarium staff, and coordinating web activities to assemble this regional bioinformatics resource. The project will involve undergraduate students in the imaging and database work. The online information will be valuable to environmental managers and planners. A project will develop a lesson plan for middle school and high school students in the region.