EarthCube Data Capabilities: Solutions for Paleobotany: a web client hosting novel content and its integration with existing databases

植物化石提供了地球环境随时间变化的最佳记录。然而，植物化石提出了独特的挑战，以前使这一记录无法在大规模的地球历史研究中获得。植物器官，如叶、木材、果实、种子，很少被保存下来相互依附，而且很难将不同的器官作为同一植物的一部分来关联，并为孤立的器官指定正式的分类名称。没有一个主要的古生物数据库可以容纳通常用于孤立器官的非正式名称，而且不存在跨机构、研究人员、时间段和地理位置协调此类化石植物数据的必要工具。该项目将创建综合古植物学数据库(PBOT)，这是一个关于非正式和正式命名化石的化石植物描述的在线公共数据库、工作台软件和社区讨论论坛。PBOT将与现有的在线数据库资源整合，包括博物馆标本和发生记录，以便能够在以前不可能的规模上研究过去的植物多样性和进化。PBOT将通过使古植物学数据和科学过程更加公开和更广泛的用户获得，来推进NSF在科学上透明的使命。例如，该数据库将向公众和各级教育工作者提供植物化石数据，用于实践教育活动和公民科学倡议。此外，在线工作台将为化石植物描述和数据输入提供标准化资源，这将使学生和专业人员以及化石爱好者受益。总体而言，PBOT基础设施和平台将彻底改变古植物学数据的共享和使用方式，允许大量的科学和社会用途，并为古植物学数据管理和研究绘制一个可持续的、长期的数字未来。古植物学数据在主要的可公开访问的数据库中严重不足，尽管化石植物代表了古代陆地环境的最佳记录。在有意义的分类学水平上将古植物学数据纳入数据库的一个主要障碍是，植物部分通常是单独保存的，具有不同的分类解析潜力。因此，古植物学家通常使用基于形态的非正式分类(形态类型)，而不是传统的林奈分类。不同研究组对特定形态类型的命名不一致，目前还没有数据管理基础设施允许在区域或时间段之间或与已公布的正式分类进行形态类型的比较和同义词。因此，世界各地博物馆收藏的数百万化石植物标本中的很大一部分及其时空分布数据无法纳入古生物学、古气候学、地球系统建模、宏观进化和宏观生态学的研究。该项目将为解决这些问题提供一个亟需的解决方案，扩展古生物学数据库(PBDB)，增加一个古植物学门户网站(PBOT)网络客户端和数据库，用于(1)为植物形态描述创建新的、动态的、社区来源的特征模式；(2)通过形态特征输入和浏览非正式和正式分类；(3)将这些正式和非正式分类应用于综合数字化生物集(IDigBio)中的数字化化石植物标本；以及(4)维持一个社区论坛，供专家就PBOT内容发表评论。作为该项目的一部分，研究人员将使用PBOT使用从白垩纪到始新世的古植物叶片化石数据集来填充PBDB，并分析过去1亿年来最温暖的时间段的多样性和气候变化。总体而言，PBOT提供的数据将使迄今为止无法对古气候和植物宏观生态和进化进行综合分析。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。

Fossil plants provide the best record of how Earth’s environments have changed through time. However, plant fossils present unique challenges that previously made this record inaccessible for large scale studies of Earth History. Plant organs, like leaves, wood, fruits, seeds are rarely preserved attached to each other, and it can be difficult to associate different organs as part of the same plant and assign formal taxonomic names to the isolated organs. None of the major paleontological databases can accommodate the informal names that are commonly used for isolated organs, and the necessary tools to coordinate such fossil plant data across institutions, researchers, time periods, and geography do not exist. This project will create the integrative Paleobotany Database (PBOT), an online public database of fossil plant descriptions for both informally and formally-named fossils, work-bench software, and community discussion forums. PBOT will integrate with existing online database resources, including museum specimen and occurrence records, to enable research on past plant diversity and evolution at scales not previously possible. PBOT will advance NSF’s mission of transparency in science, by making paleobotanical data and the scientific process more open and accessible to a broad range of users. For example, the database will make fossil plant data available to the public and educators at all levels for use in hands-on educational activities and for citizen science initiatives. Furthermore, the online workbench will provide a standardized resource for fossil plant description and data entry that will benefit students and professionals, as well as fossil enthusiasts. Overall, the PBOT infrastructure and platform will revolutionize the way paleobotanical data is shared and used, allowing for a myriad of scientific and societal uses, and charting a sustainable, long-term digital future for paleobotanical data management and research.Paleobotanical data is severely underrepresented in major publicly accessible databases, even though fossil plants represent the best record of ancient terrestrial environments. A major impediment to the inclusion of paleobotanical data in databases at meaningful levels of taxonomy is that plant parts are most often preserved separately, with varying potential for taxonomic resolution. Paleobotanists therefore commonly use morphologically-based, informal taxonomies (morphotypes) rather than traditional Linnaean classifications. The names given to a particular morphotype are inconsistent among research groups, and currently there is no data-management infrastructure that allows comparison and synonymizing of morphotypes among regions or time periods or with published formal taxonomies. As a result, a large proportion of the millions of fossil plant specimens housed in museums worldwide are, together with their spatio-temporal occurrence data, inaccessible for inclusion in studies of paleobiology, paleoclimatology, Earth system modeling, macroevolution, and macroecology. This project will provide a long-needed solution to these problems by extending the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) with a Paleobotany Portal (PBOT) web client and database for (1) creating novel, dynamic, community-sourced character schemas for morphotypic plant descriptions; (2) entering and browsing informal and formal taxonomies via morphological characters; (3) applying these formal and informal taxonomies to digitized fossil plant specimens in Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio); and (4) maintaining a community forum for expert commentary on PBOT contents. As a part of this project, the researchers will use PBOT to populate PBDB with paleobotanical leaf fossil datasets from the Cretaceous through Eocene and analyze diversity and climate variation across the warmest intervals of the past 100 million years. Overall, data made available by PBOT will enable synthetic analyses of paleoclimate and plant macro-ecology and -evolution that have not been possible to date.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.