Collaborative Research: The Deep South Plant Specimen Imaging Project

在Austin Mast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，将美国东南部许多植物标本馆的图像和数据放到网上。该地区是该国生物多样性最高的热点地区之一，拥有近3000种本地植物。该项目将利用生物多样性信息学工具，向全世界提供植物标本室标本图像和数据。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这些标本制作高质量的图像，并使用自动光学字符识别系统（HERBIS）从标签中提取数据。这些图像将被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设施（GBIF）门户网站传播。这项合作将在设备、培训植物标本馆工作人员和协调网络活动等方面发挥规模经济的优势，以汇集这一区域生物信息学资源。该项目将涉及本科生的成像和数据库工作。网上的信息对环境管理者和规划者很有价值。一个项目将为该地区的初中生和高中生制定课程计划。

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.