COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: ABI Innovation: A novel database and ontology for evolutionary analyses of mammalian feeding physiology

该奖项是为了将饲喂实验的当前原型终端用户数据库(FEED)转变为数据丰富的、公开可用的关于哺乳动物饲喂的生理数据源，其中纳入了一个新的本体模块。一项重要的创新是开发了五个与取食行为、功能和结构相关的非重叠本体，这些本体将提供必要的术语的受限定义，以便在表型多样性分析中进行计算比较。本体论构建从本体论研讨会开始。本体和数据库的开发将由一套六个用例驱动，这些用例包括合成的、系统发育知情的分析，旨在了解生理和形态在哺乳动物各种摄食行为中的综合作用。这项研究将通过邀请三个科学团体(爬行动物喂养生理学家、生物工程师和发育生物学家)参加一系列跨学科用例开发研讨会，启动将饲料作为主要数据源的新合作。在讲习班期间，项目组将设计新的用例并开始工作，这些用例将指导扩大饲料基础设施的努力，并允许进行跨越传统知识领域的综合研究。这个项目是创新的，因为它生成了一个概念验证数据库，有助于了解哺乳动物饲养过程中涉及多个组织尺度的行为、生理机制和结构之间的复杂性和连通性，还因为它包括确保饲料是一种可扩展到其他科学界的工具的工作。广泛的影响包括为生理学开发和公开发布新的生物信息学研究基础设施，这是一个传统上处于生物信息学边缘的领域。该项目促进了科学家在四个知识领域的跨学科合作。培养本科生和研究生在形态和生理分析以及数据库和本体建设方面的研究是一个重要的重点。FEED还将被用作生物信息学课程的教学工具，其目标是信息学本科生和研究生教育。项目成果的传播和公众对饲料数据库的访问将在www.Feedexp.org上提供。

This award was made to transform the current prototype of the Feeding Experiments End-user Database (FEED) into a data-rich, publicly-available source of physiological data on feeding in mammals that incorporates a novel ontology module. An important innovation is the development of five non-overlapping ontologies related to feeding behavior, function, and structure that will provide the constrained definitions of terms necessary to permit computational comparisons in analyses of phenotypic diversity. Ontology construction begins with an ontology workshop. Ontology and database development will be driven by a set of six use cases that comprise synthetic, phylogenetically-informed analyses aimed at understanding the integrated roles of physiology and morphology during a variety of feeding behaviors in mammals. The research will to initiate new collaborations involving FEED as a primary data source by engaging three scientific communities (reptile feeding physiologists, bioengineers, and developmental biologists) in a series of interdisciplinary use case development workshops. During the workshops, the project team will design and commence work on new use cases that will guide efforts to extend the infrastructure of FEED and permit synthetic studies that cut across traditional knowledge domains. This project is innovative because it generates a proof-of-concept database to facilitate understanding of the complexity and connectivity between behaviors, physiological mechanisms, and structures involved in mammalian feeding across multiple scales of organization, and because it includes work to insure that FEED is a tool that is extensible to other scientific communities.Broader impacts include development and public release of novel bioinformatic research infrastructure for physiology, a field that has traditionally been on the periphery of bioinformatics. This project promotes interdisciplinary collaborations among scientists across four knowledge domains. Training of undergraduate and graduate students in research on morphological and physiological analysis as well as database and ontology construction is an important focus. FEED will also be utilized as a teaching tool in bioinformatics courses aimed at undergraduate and graduate education in informatics. Dissemination of project outcomes and public access to the FEED database will be available at www.feedexp.org.