Digitization Pen: Augmenting the temporal and geographic range of invertebase through additional collaboration of the Chicago Academy of Sciences

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The Chicago Academy of Sciences/Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (CAS/PNNM) is funded to join the existing Thematic Collections Network (TCN) project "InvertEBase: Reaching back to see the future: Species-rich invertebrate faunas document causes and consequences of biodiversity shifts," which aims to create an easily accessible scientific resource that will inform novel research on changing species occurrences, abundances, and range distribution of invertebrates, specifically mollusks and arthropods. Data for 104,850 specimens will contribute to support research that provide a more comprehensive understanding of invertebrate biodiversity, building a baseline for improved policies and practices regarding land management, restoration, and conservation. Increased accessibility to collections data stemming from this project will also benefit K-12 students and teachers in Chicago through the development of a curriculum component that aligns with Next Generation Science Standards, introducing students to the role of local mollusk species as environmental indicators. The Academy will also collaborate with the Field Museum of Natural History to develop digital and print field guides to common local mollusks. These guides will be widely distributed and will be resource aids for citizen science endeavors.The Chicago Academy of Sciences was founded in 1857 and quickly established itself as an early leader in collecting and researching regional flora and fauna. This legacy translates into valuable historic species occurrence data for the Midwestern/Western Great Lakes region, particularly within the state of Illinois. This project proposes to digitize and serve data for specimens of invertebrates representative of that geographic region. The efforts of the InvertEBase TCN will aggregate more than 3.9 million digitized specimen records from across the eastern United States. The partnership proposed by CAS/PNNM will contribute an estimated 104,850 records, filling geographic and temporal gaps in the TCN's data. CAS/PNNM will also exploit and improve existing workflows in order to improve efficiencies and cost effectiveness of the digitization process. The project plans to impact K-12 students and teachers in Chicago through the development curricula that align with Next Generation Science Standards. This award is made as part of the National Resource for Digitization of Biological Collections through the Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Program and all data resulting from this project will be available through iDigBio.