Digitization PEN: Contribution of Digital Data from Ground-dwelling Orthopteroid Orders at American Museum of Natural History to the Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network

我们的地球是一个动态的、不断变化的星球，有从微小的病毒和细菌到百吨级鲸鱼等相互作用的物种。地球上几乎所有的生命都是由于错综复杂的相互作用而存在的，这些相互作用产生或允许通过授粉、分解、营养循环等生产食物、药品、住所、纤维、燃料。生态系统变化对这些相互作用和产品的连锁影响可以通过检查物种分布和多样性以及与环境因素有关的地理范围内的物种内部和物种之间的物理变化来理解。自然历史收藏品保存着这样的信息，是对昨天发生的事情到数百万年前的记录。这些研究收集可以揭示过去事件的推定原因，由此可以预测生态系统未来可能采取的方向，并为潜在的不稳定结果做好准备。然而，这些收藏品中的细节--其中一些可以追溯到150多年前--通常被记录在绑在翅膀上的一张小纸条上，藏在骨头的凹槽里，或者在收集的昆虫下面用大头针刺穿。为了解开过去的秘密，为了将来的利益，分类学、地点、时间和相关的环境条件收集信息必须转录成数字形式，以便进行分析。节肢动物共生区收集网络主题收集网络(SCAN TCN)对从美国西南部和墨西哥收集的来自16个美国机构的精选地面昆虫标本进行了数字化处理。作为现有网络(PEN)的合作伙伴，美国自然历史博物馆无脊椎动物动物部(IZ)将提供来自AMNH收藏品中约310个物种的53,800个地面生活蟑螂(‘blattaria’)、土拨鼠(毛翅目)、蟋蟀和蝗虫(直翅目)标本的数据。自动图像裁剪和光学字符识别以及志愿公民科学家的帮助等工具是这项工作不可或缺的一部分，对于不超过一厘米的旧手写标签来说，这是一个往往缓慢而乏味的过程。其结果将是对物种多样性、当前和过去生态系统的代表性以及自然和人为活动的影响有更全面和有力的了解。将对地点进行地理参考，以便可以在空间和时间上绘制标本地图，可以细化物种分布，并可以改进分布、生态和多样性变化的模型。目标物种的样本雄性、雌性、替代变种和AMNH全型的高分辨率图像将有助于物种识别和比较。数据可视化项目将提供更多的耳垢(后钳子)和扩张的蚱蜢后翅的图像。数据和图像将通过AMNH的门户网站以及GIBF.org、iDigBio.org和SCAN与更大的科学界和公众共享。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Our Earth is a dynamic, ever-changing planet of interacting species ranging from microscopic viruses and bacteria to hundred-ton whales. Just about all life on Earth exists due to intricate interactions that produce or allow for the production of food, medicine, shelter, fiber, fuel through pollination, decomposition, nutrient cycling and more. The cascading consequences of ecosystem shifts on these interactions and products can be understood by examining species distribution and diversity, as well as physical variation within and among species across a geographic range, in relation to environmental factors. Natural history collections hold such information and are a record of what happened yesterday to millions of years ago. These research collections can reveal putative reasons for past events, from which predictions about the future direction ecosystems may take and preparations for potentially volatile outcomes can be made. However, the details in these collections, some dating back 150 years or more, are often recorded on a minute slip of paper tied to a wing, tucked in the grooves of a bone or pierced with a pin underneath a collected insect. To unlock the secrets of the past for the benefit of the future, taxonomic, locality, time, and associated environmental condition collection information must be transcribed into digital form to be available for analysis. The Symbiota Collection of Arthropods Network Thematic Collection Network (SCAN TCN) has digitized specimens of select ground-dwelling insects collected from the southwestern U.S. and Mexico from 16 U.S. institutions. As a Partner to the Existing Network (PEN), the Division of Invertebrate Zoology (IZ) of the American Museum of Natural History will contribute data from 53,800 ground-dwelling roach (‘Blattaria’), earwig (Dermaptera), cricket and grasshopper (Orthoptera) specimens representing ca. 310 species in the AMNH collection. Tools such as automated image cropping and optical character recognition and help of volunteer citizen scientists are integral to this effort, an often slow and tedious process for old, handwritten labels no larger than a centimeter. The result will be a more complete and robust understanding of species diversity and representation of current and past ecosystems and the impact of natural and anthropogenic activities. Localities will be georeferenced so specimens can be mapped in space and time, species distributions can be refined and models of distributional, ecological and diversity changes can be improved. High resolution images of exemplar males, females, alternative morphs, and AMNH holotypes for target species will aid in species identification and comparison. Additional images of earwig cerci (hind pincers) and expanded grasshopper hindwings will be available for data visualization projects. Data and images will be shared with the greater scientific community and public through AMNH’s portal, as well as with GIBF.org, iDigBio.org and SCAN.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.