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，以协调一项合作努力，将美国东南部一些植物标本馆的图像和数据放在网上。该地区是该国最具生物多样性的热点地区之一，拥有近3,000种本土植物。该项目将利用生物多样性信息学工具，向全世界的受众提供植物标本图像和数据。来自佛罗里达、亚拉巴马和密西西比的五个机构将制作标本的高质量图像，自动光学字符识别系统（HERBIS）将用于从标签中提取数据。这些图像将提交给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。这项合作努力将利用规模经济的优势，在装备、培训植物标本室工作人员和协调网络活动方面汇集这一区域生物信息学资源。该项目将涉及成像和数据库工作的本科生。在线信息对环境管理者和规划者将是有价值的。一个项目将为该地区的初中和高中学生制定一个课程计划。

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.