Collaborative Research: Digitization TCN: Developing a Centralized Digital Archive of Vouchered Animal Communication Signals

该奖项旨在建立一个主题收集网络，该网络将收集并制作与物理凭证标本相关的可访问媒体记录，这些记录广泛围绕理解通信信号的演变和生态学的研究主题组织。由于信号记录及其相关物理样本的相对难以获取，对这些问题的研究受到了挑战。该项目将通过与多个生物研究收藏和世界上最大的动物信号记录科学档案馆麦考利自然声音图书馆合作来应对这一挑战。这些机构将共同管理和提供鸟类、青蛙、鱼类和昆虫通信信号的数字化和凭证记录，并将在实物凭证标本及其数字化记录之间建立直接和透明的联系。该项目将提供动物信号的数字音频记录，可用于解决一系列科学问题，包括动物对人为噪音和其他人类活动的反应。通过提供一个有用的共同策展系统，并鼓励收集记录沿着物理标本，该项目将对研究人员收集和使用生物标本的方式产生变革性影响，并将成为面临类似共同策展挑战的收藏品的有用模式。该项目还将为所有年龄层的广泛教育宣传提供材料，并将产生重大的保护影响，因为数字化材料将直接有助于我们评估和监测生物多样性的能力。最后，该项目将扩大生物收藏方法，并帮助培养“下一代”博物馆馆长、收藏家和研究人员。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。

An award is made to establish a thematic collection network that will digitize and make accessible media recordings associated with physical voucher specimens, broadly organized around the research theme of understanding the evolution and ecology of communication signals. Research on these questions has been challenged by the relative inaccessibility of the signal recordings and their associated physical specimens. This project will meet this challenge by partnering together multiple biological research collections and the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds, the world's largest scientific archive of animal signal recordings. Collectively, these institutions will co-curate and make accessible digitized and vouchered recordings of the communication signals of birds, frogs, fish and insects, and will establish direct and transparent links across collections between physical voucher specimens and their digitized recordings. This project will make accessible digital audio recordings of animal signals that can be used to address a host of scientific questions, including the responses of animals to anthropogenic noise and other human activities. By providing a useful co-curation system and encouraging collection of recordings along with physical specimens, this project will have a transformative influence on the way that researchers collect and use biological specimens in the future, and will serve as a useful model for collections facing similar co-curation challenges. This project will also provide materials for extensive educational outreach at all age levels, and will have significant conservation impacts because the digitized material will contribute directly to our ability to assess and monitor biodiversity. Finally, this project will expand biological collection methods and help train the "next generation" of museum curators, collectors, and researchers. 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).