Collaborative Research: Collection Enhancement and Biodiversity Informatics for Pacific Northwest Macromoths

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).An award has been made to Washington State University for a collaborative effort with Western Washington University focused on moth biodiversity in the Pacific Northwest. This project will database the holdings of macro-moths in the James Entomological Collection (JEC) at WSU, and integrate substantial recent moth additions to JEC's holdings. The investigators will also digitize and database specimen records in the other major public and private moth collections in the region, to produce a database for ~1100 species of moths that will be both web-searchable (via http://entomology.wsu.edu/museum/index.html) and shared with established global biodiversity websites. This project will also create online biodiversity informatics tools for Pacific Northwest moths (see www.biol.wwu.edu/PNWmoths), including interactive keys, high-resolution images, and detailed species accounts and distribution maps.The Pacific Northwest moth biodiversity database will facilitate the work of systematists, inform regional conservation policies, and initiate the data basing of the entire JEC holdings. The online identification keys and species accounts will be designed for use by non-experts, making taxonomic knowledge available to a diverse array of stakeholders, including conservation managers, farmers, educators, and citizen scientists. The proposed collaborative project will benefit numerous undergraduate and graduate students, providing them with valuable experience in collection curation and data basing, specimen imaging, and biodiversity informatics.