CIBR: Collaborative Research: Integrating data communities with BiotaPhy: a computational platform for data-intensive biodiversity research and training

对维持自然生态多样性的重要性的认识的提高，使得科学家更加迫切地需要确定和解释对支持人类人口和维持繁荣至关重要的环境的生物层面和服务。生物多样性，或物种的分布、功能和相互依存，是自然系统的一个重要方面，人类系统的可持续性依赖于此。地球自然栖息地的生物多样性已经被勇敢的生物探险家们盘点了300多年。这些调查产生的物种信息直接来自生物标本、组织和DNA样本，现在正在互联网信息系统中迅速积累。这些数据代表了有关地球上生命的起源、分布和多样性的巨大和无与伦比的信息来源。随着超过10亿个物种发生数据库的在线记录，在线生命树数据库中数百万物种进化关系的互联网可访问信息，在线全球气候数据，以及超级计算能力，生物多样性研究人员首次能够分析有关生态和进化因素的问题，这些因素塑造了大陆和全球范围内生物多样性的模式和特性。这一知识将为公众的理解和政策提供洞察力，这对保护和可持续发展各种自然和人类系统至关重要。除了促进研究，BiotaPhy项目还致力于发展具有科学素养的公众，并计划开展教育、培训和外联活动，以满足多个群体的需求。它将在数据密集型生物多样性科学方面提供协作的博士后、研究生、本科生和高中培训，同时建立在招募代表性不足群体成员的良好记录的基础上。该项目将对网上BiotaPhy计算工作流程环境进行软件工程、开放获取、部署和培训。该平台将作为数据密集型科学的生物多样性社区门户得到支持。该软件将能够对过去、现在和未来地球物种多样性的地理模式进行综合和强大的分析，并建立定量模型。BiotaPhy软件将使科学家能够解决与表型和生态生物多样性、群落组装以及跨越时间和空间的物种多样性有关的新问题。计算工作流程将具有广泛的环境研究相关性，并有可能对跨越生态学、系统发育学、系统学和保护生物学的数据密集型研究产生变革性影响。BiotaPhy工作流平台将通过组合输入数据集、计算单一物种分布模型和多物种宏观生态数据集，然后将进化和生态假说的统计测试输出到图形网络界面以供审查和知识发现，从而提供这些能力。BiotaPhy平台？S的生产部署将：(1)在系统发育、生态学、进化生物学和生物地理学的界面上增加对新合成方法的研究和创造；(2)提高Open Tree of Life、iDigBio和Lifemapper资源的可及性和利用率；(3)纳入社区投入和培训；以及(4)建立和支持跨域数据集成服务，作为可持续的生物多样性社区基础设施。BiotaPhy项目可以在http://biotaphy.github.io.This上获得，该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Heightened awareness of the importance of maintaining ecologically diverse natural areas has increased urgency for scientists to identify and explain the biological dimensions and services of the environment that are vital for supporting human populations and sustaining prosperity. Biological diversity, or the distribution, function, and interdependency of species, is a vital dimension of natural systems upon which the sustainability of human systems depends. The biological diversity of Earth's natural habitats has been inventoried for over 300 years by intrepid biological explorers. The species information produced by those surveys, derived directly from biological specimens, tissues, and DNA samples, is now being rapidly amassed in internet information systems. The data represent a monumental and unparalleled source of information about the origin, distribution, and diversity of life on Earth. With over a billion species occurrence database records online, internet-accessible information on the evolutionary relationships of millions of species in the online Tree of Life database, online global climate data, and supercomputing capabilities, biodiversity researchers are enabled for the first time, to analyze questions about the ecological and evolutionary factors that shape patterns and properties of biodiversity on the scale of continents and the entire globe. That knowledge will produce insight for public understanding and policy vital to the conservation and sustainability of diverse natural and human systems. In addition to facilitating research, the BiotaPhy Project is committed to the development of a scientifically literate public and plans educational, training, and outreach activities to address multiple constituencies. It will provide collaborative post-doc, graduate, undergraduate, and high school training in data-intensive biodiversity science while building on a strong record of recruiting members of underrepresented groups. This project will undertake software engineering, open-access, deployment and training for the BiotaPhy computational workflow environment on the web. The Platform will be supported as a biodiversity community gateway for data-intensive science. The software will enable integrative and powerful analyses, and quantitative models of the geographical patterns of Earth's species diversity past, present, and future. BiotaPhy software will enable scientists to address novel questions relating phenotypic and ecological biodiversity, community assembly, and species diversification across time and space. The computational workflows will have broad environmental research relevance and the potential for transformative impact on data-intensive research spanning ecology, phylogenetics, systematics, and conservation biology. The BiotaPhy workflow platform will provide those capabilities by assembling input datasets, computing single species distribution models and multispecies macroecological datasets, and then output statistical tests of evolutionary and ecological hypotheses to a graphical web interface for review and knowledge discovery. The BiotaPhy Platform?s production deployment will: (1) increase research into and creation of new synthetic approaches at the interface of phylogenetics, ecology, evolutionary biology, and biogeography; (2) increase the accessibility and utilization of Open Tree of Life, iDigBio, and Lifemapper resources; (3) incorporate community input and training; and (4) build and support cross-domain data integration services as sustainable biodiversity community infrastructure. The BiotaPhy Project can be accessed at http://biotaphy.github.io.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.