CSBR: Transfer of Ownership: Proposal to salvage, integrate and house the LFCC herbarium at George Mason University.

这项研究将抢救和恢复对了解美国东南部植物群至关重要的生物研究收藏，使研究人员能够广泛获取该收藏的数据，并吸引下一代生物多样性科学家的参与。费尔法克斯勋爵社区学院植物标本馆（LFCC）收集了20，000个标本，深入记录了历史上收集不足的美国地区，弗吉尼亚州西北部蓝岭自然地理省的维管植物物种。2019年，费尔法克斯勋爵社区学院将LFCC捐赠给乔治梅森大学植物标本馆（GMUF），以保护后代的收藏。LFCC包含许多高质量的标本，这些标本代表了新发现的县和州记录，这些记录扩展了弗吉尼亚植物群和弗吉尼亚植物群地图集。这些信息对于了解美国东南部植物群的生态和进化以及管理美国生物多样性热点地区之一的自然资源至关重要，该地区正受到人类改造的压力。这项研究将确保低森林覆盖率森林委员会得到它迫切需要的维修和现代化管理，以便作为研究基础设施得到充分利用。LFCC和GMUF的结合将创建弗吉尼亚州第三大植物标本馆。在可预见的未来，这些重要研究材料的共同定位将增加其对弗吉尼亚州和美国东南部生物多样性和生态研究的影响。该研究项目将使用高效的工作流程来抢救低森林覆盖率国家及其详细的收集笔记本，将这些数据重新整理，与科学界和广大公众分享，并教育学生自然历史收藏在科学研究中的重要性。LFCC标本将被修复，注释，并在档案条件下与GMUF的标本一起实际归档。低森林覆盖率国家生态系统研究中心TCN共生生物群低森林覆盖率国家生态系统门户网站和iDigBio将公开传播低森林覆盖率国家生态系统研究中心标本的高分辨率图像及其标签元数据。为了扩大这一研究资源的影响，低森林覆盖率国家的收藏笔记本也将数字化，并与标本记录相关联。来自代表性不足群体的本科生和一名研究生将在两年的项目期间接受策展助理培训。项目人员将使用低森林覆盖率国家的标本开发一个教育模块，其目标是培养本科生对基于收藏的研究和扩展标本概念的认识。计划开展多项外联活动，通过使用已建立的弗吉尼亚植物标本馆标签转录项目的《自然》在线社区科学平台，吸引更广泛的大学社区和公众参与。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。

This research will salvage and restore a biological research collection critical to understanding the southeastern US flora, make data of this collection widely accessible to researchers, and engage the next-generation of biodiversity scientists. The 20,000 specimen collection, the Lord Fairfax Community College herbarium (LFCC), deeply documents vascular plant species from a historically under-collected US region, the Blue Ridge physiographic province of northwestern Virginia. In 2019, Lord Fairfax Community College donated LFCC to the George Mason University herbarium (GMUF) to safeguard the collection for posterity. LFCC contains numerous high-quality specimens that represent newly discovered county- and state records that expand the Atlas of the Virginia Flora and the Flora of Virginia. Such information is essential for understanding the ecology and evolution of the southeastern US flora and for managing natural resources in one of the nation’s biodiversity hotspots, which is under increasing strain from human modification. This research will ensure that LFCC receives the repair and modern curation it desperately needs in order to be fully utilized as research infrastructure. The combination of LFCC and GMUF will create the third-largest herbarium in Virginia. The co-location of these significant research materials will increase their impact on biodiversity and ecological studies in Virginia and the southeastern US for the foreseeable future. The research project will use an efficient workflow to salvage LFCC and its detailed collection notebooks, digitize these data to share with the scientific community and the public at large, and educate students about the importance of natural history collections in scientific research. LFCC specimens will be repaired, annotated, and physically filed with those of GMUF under archival conditions. High-resolution images of LFCC specimens and their label metadata will be disseminated publicly through the SERNEC TCN Symbiota LFCC portal and iDigBio. In order to extend the impact of this research resource, the LFCC collection notebooks will also be digitized and linked to specimen records. Undergraduate students from underrepresented groups and one graduate student will be trained as curatorial assistants over the two-year project period. Project personnel will develop an educational module using LFCC specimens, whose goals are to develop undergraduate students’ awareness of collections’-based research and the extended specimen concept. Multiple outreach events are planned that will engage the broader university community and the public through the Notes from Nature online community science platform using the established Plants of Virginia herbarium label transcription project. A series of public presentations and articles about the results of the project are planned for academic and non-academic audiences.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.