Collaborative Research: Digitization TCN: Digitizing Collections to Trace Parasite-Host Associations and Predict the Spread of Vector-borne Disease

节肢动物寄生虫（特别是昆虫及其亲属）负责人类健康，野生动物保护和牲畜生产力的经济关键问题。 由于自然历史收藏品是过去和现在寄生虫标本的永久储存库，这些收藏品及其数据可以帮助解决人类和动物健康和安全方面的这些重大社会挑战。 自然历史收藏品通常包含标本和辅助材料，这些材料对更广泛的社区来说是完全未知的，但代表了关于生物栖息地，分布和寄生虫-宿主协会的不可替代的知识。 此外，这些收集产生的信息，可用于模拟生态过程和物种分布的变化，预测人类和动物疾病的未来传播，更新分类，并帮助确定代表性不足的寄生虫群体迫切需要采样和受威胁的寄生虫多样性需要保护。 该项目将提供数字记录（即，标本标签数据和图像）的宝贵节肢动物寄生虫收藏，使研究准备的基线数据在线访问，催化新的研究和教育举措。 这些新的数字化数据将对我们了解生物体协会，生物多样性等方面产生直接和长期的好处。 陆地寄生虫跟踪专题收集网络将收集100多万节肢动物标本，这些标本代表美国脊椎动物的重要寄生虫和疾病媒介。 这项数字化工作将整合数百万脊椎动物宿主记录与州和联邦机构合作者共享的病媒和疾病监测数据，为综合性长期研究奠定新的基础。 该项目是来自脊椎动物和无脊椎动物收藏的分类学家和策展人，以及流行病学家，生态学家，数据科学家和生物多样性信息学专家的合作。 26个合作研究收藏和其他倡议进一步扩大了这一范围。 该项目将为正在进行的公民科学和公众意识运动提供工具，以了解由于环境变化和全球运动而引起的节肢动物病媒和相关疾病的分布变化。 公共教育计划包括与自然历史博物馆合作，通过以科学为重点的讲座，展览，夏季青年计划，非正式演讲，以及为服务不足的社区的教师开发新的在线教育资源，教育公众有关寄生虫的知识。 该项目生成的所有标本图像将用于开发寄生虫快速识别工具，该工具将通过互联网和智能手机应用程序访问，并与iDigBio（idigbio.org）共享。 TPT-TCN还将开发和实施本科教学模块，重点是自然历史收藏中的数据。 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。

Arthropod parasites (specifically, insects and their relatives) are responsible for economically critical issues in human health, wildlife conservation, and livestock productivity. Because natural history collections are permanent repositories for past and present parasite specimens, these collections and their data can help address these significant societal challenges in human and animal health and safety. Natural history collections often contain specimens and ancillary materials that are completely unknown to the broader community, yet represent irreplaceable knowledge about organismal habitats, distributions, and parasite-host associations. Further, these collections yield information that can be used to model ecological processes and changes in species distributions, predict the future spread of human and animal disease, update taxonomy, and help identify under-represented parasite groups in urgent need of sampling and threatened parasite diversity in need of conservation. This project will provide digital records (i.e., specimen label data and images) of invaluable arthropod parasite collections to make research-ready baseline data accessible online, catalyzing new research and education initiatives. These newly digitized data will have immediate and long-lasting benefits for our understanding of organismal associations, biodiversity, and beyond. The Terrestrial Parasite Tracker Thematic Collection Network (TPT-TCN) will digitize over one million arthropod specimens representing species that are significant parasites and disease vectors of vertebrates in the United States. This digitization effort will integrate millions of vertebrate host records with vector and disease monitoring data shared by state and federal agency collaborators, creating a novel foundation for integrative, long-term research. This project is a collaboration of taxonomists and curators from vertebrate and invertebrate collections, as well as epidemiologists, ecologists, data-scientists, and biodiversity informatics specialists. This reach is further extended by the 26 collaborating research collections and other initiatives. This project will empower ongoing citizen science and public awareness campaigns with the tools to understand distribution changes of arthropod vectors and associated diseases due to environmental change and global movement. Public education initiatives include partnering with natural history museums to educate the public about parasites via science-focused lectures, exhibits, summer youth programs, informal presentations, and developing new online educational resources for teachers in underserved communities. All specimen images generated by this project will be used for the development of a rapid identification tool for parasites which will be made accessible through the internet and smartphone apps and shared with iDigBio (idigbio.org). The TPT-TCN will also develop and implement undergraduate teaching modules focused on data held in natural history collections. These modules will be disseminated to academic institutions across the United States and made available online.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.