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

该奖项旨在将喂养实验最终用户数据库（FEED）的当前原型转化为数据丰富的，公开的哺乳动物喂养生理数据源，其中包含一个新颖的本体模块。一个重要的创新是五个不重叠的本体论相关的喂养行为，功能和结构，将提供必要的限制定义的条款，允许计算比较表型多样性分析的发展。本体构建从本体研讨会开始。本体论和数据库开发将由一组六个用例驱动，这些用例包括合成的、基于遗传学的分析，旨在了解哺乳动物各种摄食行为中生理学和形态学的综合作用。该研究将通过让三个科学团体（爬行动物饲养生理学家，生物工程师和发育生物学家）参与一系列跨学科用例开发研讨会，启动新的合作，将FEED作为主要数据源。在研讨会期间，项目团队将设计并开始新用例的工作，这些用例将指导扩展FEED基础设施的努力，并允许跨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，以促进对行为，生理机制和哺乳动物喂养所涉及的结构之间的复杂性和连通性的理解。因为它包括确保FEED是一个可扩展到其他科学团体的工具的工作。更广泛的影响包括新的生物信息学研究的开发和公开发布生理学的基础设施，一个传统上一直处于生物信息学边缘的领域。该项目促进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构建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，旨在进行信息学本科生和研究生教育。将在www.feedexp.org上公布项目成果，并向公众开放FEED数据库。

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.