CAREER: Digitized data, dung beetles and the dome: improving the understanding of species distribution through research and planetarium-based education.

了解物种分布是生物多样性模型的核心，生物多样性模型越来越多地被用于为保护规划和其他造福社会的应用科学提供信息。该项目将一项研究计划与一项新的非正式教育计划相结合，以加强科学和公众对促进物种分布的进化和行星过程的理解。该项目的研究部分将评估进化史在估计物种分布的生态位建模中的重要性，目的是改进用于选择这些模型中使用的可变环境层的方法。在当前和未来气候情景下更准确地预测物种分布的能力，对于识别和了解面临灭绝风险的物种的栖息地、模拟可能传播疾病的引进物种或具有重要医学意义的无脊椎动物的传播等至关重要。这项研究的发现将被纳入到新的非正式教育项目中，该项目在天文馆圆顶下教授生物地理学。该计划还将利用全球已积累了超过13亿份标本记录的全球努力，以及天文馆软件方面的技术进步，在身临其境和动态的环境中可视化生物多样性数据。这一广播数字化数据的新渠道将改变配备天文馆的机构交流生物多样性数据的方式，并将创造无尽的机会，开发与公众共享生物多样性研究的新项目。提高公众对这些复杂科学概念的理解，可以通过提高对地球上行星过程和生命之间的联系的认识，促进对环境变化影响的态度的改变。将使用对澳大利亚金龟子(鞘翅目：金龟科：金龟亚科)的系统和系统地理研究来评估进化史在环境生态位建模中的重要性。这一模式组既包含一个残留的冈德瓦人，也包含一个较年轻的印支马拉雅人，将在系统发育和生态框架中进行评估，以探索在密切相关但生物地理上不同的分类群中环境耐受性的遗传性。将通过比较分析生态位模型、预测的生态位占用情况和时间图上的差异，来评估这些生物地理上不同的动物群的生态位动态演变。这些发现将为未来分析的环境层选择提供信息，并提高对生物和非生物因素的理解，这些因素有助于物种分布。除了为进化生物学中的一个关键问题提供信息外，这些结果还将被整合到新的天文馆计划中，该计划旨在提高与物种进化、生态和地球变化相关的公众科学素养。节目内容将与俄亥俄州STEM的8年级学习标准保持一致，并将在现场天文馆向博物馆客人展示，而场外学校节目将在移动天文馆托管。项目评估将评估使用天文馆教学进化的影响，博物馆对非正式教育的贡献，以及在公共和学校项目中利用策展专业知识的最佳实践。该奖项反映了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。

Understanding species distribution is central to the biodiversity modeling that is increasingly used to inform conservation planning and other applied sciences that benefit society. This project integrates a research program with a new informal education program to enhance both the scientific and public understanding of evolutionary and planetary processes that contribute to species distribution. The research component of this project will assess the importance of evolutionary history in niche modeling that estimates species distribution, with the aim of improving the approach used to select variable environmental layers used in these models. The ability to more accurately predict species distribution under both present and future climate scenarios is essential for identifying and understanding the habitats of species at risk of extinction, modeling the spread of introduced species or medically important invertebrates that can transmit disease, and much more. The findings from the research will be incorporated into the new informal education program that teaches biogeography under a planetarium dome. This program also will leverage the global efforts that have amassed over 1.3 billion specimen records worldwide, as well as technological advances in planetarium software, to visualize biodiversity data in an immersive and dynamic setting. This novel outlet to broadcast digitized data will transform how institutions equipped with planetariums communicate biodiversity data and will create endless opportunities to develop new programs for sharing biodiversity research with the public. Improved public understanding of these complex scientific concepts can facilitate changes in attitudes to the impact of environmental change through increased awareness of the connectivity between planetary processes and life on Earth.A combined systematic and phylogeographic study of Australian dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) will be used to assess the importance of evolutionary history in environmental niche modeling. This model-group contains both a relictual Gondwanan and a younger Indomalayan clade that will be assessed in a phylogenetic and ecological framework to explore the heritability of environmental tolerance in closely-related but biogeographically distinct taxa. The evolution of niche dynamics for these biogeographically distinct faunas will be assessed through comparative analysis of niche models, predicted niche occupancy profiles and disparity through time plots. Findings will inform environmental layers selection for future analyses and improve the understanding of biotic and abiotic factors that contribute to species distribution. Beyond informing a key question in evolutionary biology, these results will be integrated into the new planetarium program that aims to improve public scientific literacy relating to species' evolution, ecology and planetary change. Program content will align with Ohio's grade 8 learning standard for STEM and will be presented to museum guests in the onsite planetarium, while offsite school programming will be hosted in a mobile planetarium. Program evaluation will assess the impact of teaching evolution using planetariums, the contribution of museums to informal education, and best-practices for leveraging curatorial expertise in public and school programs.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.