Collaborative Research: Digitization TCN: The Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium: Accessing 150 Years of Specimen Data to Understand Changes in the Marine/Aquatic Environment

该奖项将支持来自美国各地大学，植物园和自然历史博物馆的50个植物标本馆的研究人员，以保护他们的大型藻类收藏。 当他们完成后，高分辨率的图像和信息的时间和地点收集每个标本将公开访问超过100万个标本通过该联盟的门户网站和iDigBio网络资源。 大型藻类是海洋、河口和淡水底栖生态系统的基础，为无数其他水生生物提供食物、基质和保护。许多大型藻类物种对环境变化很敏感。 通过门户网站提供的数据将使研究人员和广大公众能够确定在过去150年中，由于气候变化、生物入侵和广泛的人类活动，大型藻类生物多样性和我们的水生生态系统发生了怎样的变化。许多大型藻类物种，包括海带、海苔等，通过水产养殖广泛生长，或从野外收获，用于人类食物和提取化妆品、食品和药品中使用的胶体。该联盟的门户网站将为公众提供机会，了解大型藻类的经济和生态重要性。 将为公民科学家提供工具，帮助他们将标本标签上的一些辅助细节转录到数据库中，从而为该项目做出贡献。 互动展览和教育模块将由联盟中博物馆的教育部门开发，每年将有数十万游客体验。 该项目还将通过参与数字化工作和在其中一个博物馆实习，为本科生和研究生提供收藏和信息学研究方面的综合培训。 该奖项是作为国家资源的一部分，通过推进生物收藏品数字化计划的生物收藏品的数字化，从这个奖项产生的所有数据将通过国家资源（iDigBio.org）提供。

This award will support investigators from a consortium of 50 herbaria at universities, botanical gardens, and natural history museums across the U.S. to digitize their collections of macroalgae. When they have finished, high resolution images and information about when and where each specimen was collected will be openly accessible for more than a million specimens through the consortium's web portal and the iDigBio web resource. Macroalgae are the foundation of marine, estuarine and freshwater benthic ecosystems providing food, substrata and protection for a myriad of other aquatic organisms. Many macroalgal species are sensitive to environmental change. The data provided through the portal will allow researchers and the public at large determine how macroalgal biodiversity and our aquatic ecosystems have changed over the past 150 years as a result of climate change, bioinvasions, and a wide range of human activity. A number of macroalgal species, including kelp, nori, and others are grown extensively via aquaculture or harvested from the wild for human food and for extraction of colloids used in cosmetics, food products, and pharmaceuticals. The consortium's web portal will provide opportunities for the public to learn about the economic and ecological importance of macroalgae. Tools will be provided for citizen scientists to contribute to the project by helping transcribe some of the ancillary details from specimen labels into the database. Interactive exhibits and educational modules will be developed by the education departments of the museums in the consortium where hundreds of thousands of visitors will experience them each year. The project will also provide integrative training in collections and informatics research for undergraduate and graduate students through participation in the digitization effort and through internships at one of the museums. 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).