Collaborative Research: CalBug, an Interactive Database Using Arthropods to Examine Impacts of Climate Change and Habitat Modification

全球范围内，栖息地改变和气候变化正在以前所未有的速度发生。虽然预测未来环境的工具已经变得越来越复杂，但人们对生物多样性将如何应对新的环境知之甚少。目前的提案代表了加州八个昆虫学收藏品之间的合作，以将标本数字化，从而能够评估生物的分布是如何通过环境变化而改变的。它利用该州昆虫学收集的悠久历史，开发了一个数据库，其中包括上个世纪在重点地区收集的大约100万个地理参照标本。标本数据将用于地理空间分析，以了解物种分布与生境修改的类型和程度之间的关系。该项目将作为整合多个机构的数据并将合并后的数据纳入地理空间框架的模式。人类驱动的环境变化已经对生物系统造成了巨大的影响。为了了解生物多样性未来将如何应对环境变化，我们必须学习他们过去的反应。关于上个世纪栖息地改变前后环境中存在的生物，有大量数据可用；然而，这些信息大多隐藏在博物馆收藏品中，保存在数百万个标本的标签中。拟议的这些收藏品的数字化和地理参考将改变科学家和公众的研究能力和获取信息的机会。这将导致一个完全地理参考的数据库，目标分类群来自整个加州的自然保护区，将是可搜索的，并在网络可访问的地图上使用。该提案包括加利福尼亚州各种规模和观众的昆虫学博物馆，并向研究生和本科生提供分类学和系统学教育，同时使用生物信息学和地理空间建模，应用于生境修改和气候变化。

Habitat modification and climate change are occurring at unprecedented rates globally. While tools to predict future environments have become increasingly sophisticated, there is little understanding of how biodiversity will respond to novel environments. The current proposal represents collaboration among eight entomological collections in California to digitize specimens and thus allow assessment of how distributions of organisms have been modified through environmental change. It makes use of a long history of entomological collecting in the state to develop a database of approximately 1 million georeferenced specimens collected at focal localities over the last century. The specimen data will be used in geospatial analyses to understand the relationship between the distribution of species and the type and extent of habitat modification. The project will serve as a model for integrating data across multiple institutions and incorporating the combined data within a geospatial framework. Human-driven environmental change has already caused huge impacts on biological systems. To understand how biodiversity will respond to environmental change in the future, we must learn from their responses in the past. A large amount of data is available on organisms that existed in environments before and after habitat modification over the last century; however, much of this information is hidden within museum collections, held on labels among millions of specimens. The proposed digitization and georeferencing of these collections will transform research capability and access to information by both scientists and the public. It will result in a fully georeferenced database of target taxa from natural reserves throughout California that will be searchable and available on web-accessible maps. The proposal includes entomological museums of all sizes and audiences in California and provides education of graduate and undergraduate students in taxonomy and systematic, coupled with the use of bioinformatics and geospatial modeling as applied to habitat modification and climate change.