Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: Digitizing "endless forms": Facilitating Research on Imperiled Plants with Extreme Morphologies

由来自11个州的17个合作的美国植物标本馆组成的“无尽形式”专题收藏网络（TCN）将收集大约200万份属于地球上一些最有趣的植物物种的标本。像巨型仙人掌、捕蝇草和佛罗里达南部的无叶鬼兰这样的标志性物种只是数十万种植物中的一小部分，这些植物已经进化出惊人的适应能力，使它们能够在极端的陆地环境中生长，包括沙漠、热带雨林和营养贫乏的沼泽。这些植物中的许多在自然界中进行研究也具有挑战性，并且在面对快速的环境变化时面临着更高的保护问题。通过将这些群体的植物标本馆标本数字化，研究人员将更好地了解这些适应及其演变，并可以设计保护和管理策略。公众对这些不寻常的植物的兴趣提供了一个机会，让k-12学生和教师参与讨论生物多样性和保护，植物适应性和互利关系。该项目还将培训博物馆研究领域的本科生和研究生。最后，为这些魅力十足的植物群提供200万条数字化记录将有助于保护它们，并提高业余爱好者、公民科学家和其他非学术爱好者对它们的兴趣。该项目将提供与适应极端陆地环境有关的15个植物家族的数字化记录，可用于测试进化和生态假设。例如，该网络将提供可用于探索性状发展和进化、物种界定和地理分布建模的数据，并可为国家和区域植物区系项目提供信息。该项目将有助于提供急需的信息，以克服与研究植物家族相关的障碍，这些植物家族非常大，具有神秘的诊断特征，或发生在地理上具有挑战性的地区。该TCN还将通过简化数据访问和举办植物采集伦理研讨会来帮助克服获取CITES所列分类群（濒临灭绝的物种）标本的严重问题，该研讨会将汇集一系列利益相关者，就处理稀有物种敏感数据的最佳做法提出建议。该项目将填补美国机构标本数字化的分类和地理空白，将新机构纳入国家数字化工作，并将投资开发工具以简化数字化过程。该奖项是通过推进生物标本数字化计划作为国家生物标本数字化资源的一部分颁发的，该奖项产生的所有数据将通过国家资源（iDigBio.org）提供。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The "Endless Forms" Thematic Collections Network (TCN), composed of 17 collaborating U.S. herbaria from 11 states, will digitize approximately two million specimens belonging to some of the most interesting plant species on Earth. Iconic species such as the Giant Saguaro Cactus, the Venus Fly Trap, and the leafless Ghost Orchid of southern Florida are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of plants that have evolved astounding adaptations allowing them to grow in extreme terrestrial environments, including deserts, tropical rain forests, and nutrient poor bogs. Many of these plants can also be challenging to study in nature and face elevated conservation concerns in the face of rapid environmental change. By digitizing herbarium specimens of these groups, researchers will gain a better understanding of these adaptations and their evolution, and can design conservation and management strategies. The public's interest in these unusual plants affords an opportunity to engage k-12 students and teachers in discussions about biodiversity and preservation, plant adaptations, and mutualistic relationships. This project will also train undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of museum studies. Finally, the availability of two million digitized records for these charismatic plant groups will help protect them and enhance their enjoyment by hobbyists, citizen scientists, and other non-academic enthusiasts This "Endless Forms" project is the first TCN initiative to digitize the very significant holdings of non-North American specimens housed within North American herbaria. This project will provide access to digitized records of 15 plant families associated with adaptations to extreme terrestrial environments that can be used to test evolutionary and ecological hypotheses. This network will, for example, provide data that can be used to explore trait development and evolution, species delimitation, and geographic distribution modelling and that can inform national and regional floristic projects. This project will help provide critically needed information to overcome obstacles related to studying plant families which are very large, have cryptic diagnostic features, or occur in geographically challenging areas. This TCN will also help overcome an acute problem of access to specimens of CITES-listed taxa (species threatened with extinction) by easing data access and by holding a Plant Collecting Ethics Workshop that will bring together an array of stakeholders to make recommendations on best practices for handling sensitive data for rare species. The project will fill taxonomic and geographic gaps in U.S. institutional specimen digitization, will bring new institutions into the national digitization effort and will invest in the development of tools to stream-line the digitization process. 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).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.