Workshop: Fort Collins, CO; Sept. 11-12, 2019; Understanding Freshwater Ecosystem Change through Analysis of Long-term Samples from Regional U.S. Fish Collections

生物研究收藏品通常被视为分类学和进化研究的资源，其中一些收藏品甚至可以通过地方或国家博物馆向公众开放。以区域为重点的收集可以服务于这些目的，但它们在长期、高影响、生态和环境研究中发挥重要作用的潜力更大。这次研讨会将汇集鱼类生物学家，他们除了是研究人员外，还作为美国最大的区域鱼类收藏的标本和数据的保管人。研讨会的参与者将包括使用稳定同位素了解环境变化如何影响淡水水生生态系统的生态学家，以及来自国家生态监测基础设施和环境预报中心的科学家，他们管理和解释关于环境趋势的长期数据集。研讨会的一个主要目标是将这些科学家小组聚集在一起，了解每个小组的做法，然后制定一个项目，以便最好地利用和综合了解鱼类对不断变化的环境条件的反应。生态和环境研究人员将从负责这些采集的鱼类生物学家那里了解有代表性的区域鱼类采集的采样和保存方法，以及采集的空间和时间广度、样本批量和采样的重复性，以及生态和环境研究人员过去进行的涉及采集的研究的例子。参与的鱼类采集馆长将学习如何利用同位素地球化学来了解食物网动态和生态系统变化。与会者将了解和探索如何进行涉及生物多样性标本的稳定同位素研究，以及在使用这些标本时必须考虑的问题。还将讨论可与鱼类标本数据相关的丰富环境数据(例如，气候、水文学、土地利用)。研讨会参与者将共同努力，合成一个涉及区域鱼类标本的生态研究计划。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Biological research collections are most typically appreciated as resources for taxonomic and evolutionary research and some of these collections may even be made available for public viewing through local or national museums. Regionally focused collections can serve these purposes, but they have an even greater potential to play important roles in long-term, high-impact, ecological and environmental research. This workshop will bring together fish biologists, who, in addition to being researchers, also serve as the custodians of specimens and data in the largest regional fish collections in the U.S. Participants in the workshop will include ecologists who use stable isotopes to understand how environmental change is impacting freshwater aquatic ecosystems and scientists from national ecological monitoring infrastructure and environmental forecasting centers, who manage and interpret long-term datasets on environmental trends. A primary goal of the workshop is to bring together these groups of scientists to understand the practices of each group and then develop a program that will allow the best use of and synthesis for understanding fish response to changing environmental conditions. The ecological and environmental researchers will learn from the fish biologists who curate these collections about sampling and preservation methods of the represented regional fish collections, along with the spatial and temporal breadth of the collections, specimen lot sizes and repetitiveness of sampling, and examples of past research that ecological and environmental researchers have done involving the collections. Participating fish collection curators will learn how isotope geochemistry can be used to understand food web dynamics and ecosystem change. Participants will learn about and explore how stable isotope studies involving specimens from biodiversity collections are performed and issues that must be considered when using these specimens. The wealth of environmental data that can be related to fish-specimen data will also be discussed (e.g., climate, hydrology, land use). Workshop participants will work together to synthesize a program of ecological research involving specimens from regional fish collections.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.