Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: Digitizing Fossils to Enable New Syntheses in Biogeography - Creating a PALEONICHES-TCN

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Museum collections of fossils, along with their associated locality data, provide millions of records representing data on the temporal and geographic distribution of species in deep time. However, to reach their greatest scientific potential, these collections data need to be available on-line and in a format that facilitates quantitative biogeographic analyses. We will enter information about the age and precise location of fossil specimens from parts of several key paleontological collections into electronic databases. During this process improvements to computer programs for collections will be enhanced to allow paleontological specimens to be integrated with modern specimen data, thereby benefiting research on distribution of organisms over time. Our efforts will digitize nearly 450,000 specimens belonging to 900 species from several museums throughout the U.S. and will focus on three different time periods in the history of life: the Ordovician, Pennsylvanian, and Neogene. We will create on line digital atlases illustrating and describing these fossils and providing maps showing where they can be found. We will also create an 'app' so these atlases can be used on handheld devices out in the field.The museum collections and fossils provide large amounts of data useful for studying what causes species to migrate, go extinct, or evolve over long time periods. They are of great relevance for considering how global change has and will continue to affect life on this planet. Our study will make these data available on line and accessible to scientists, facilitating many scientific analyses. The on-line and portable device digital atlases will be useful for educating amateur paleontologists and K-12 students about fossils both in classrooms and in the field. We will also provide training to students and scholars. This award is made as part of the National Resource for Digitization of Biological Collections through the Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program and all data resulting from this award will be available through the national resource (iDigBio.org).