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

化石植物提供了地球环境如何随时间变化的最佳记录。然而，植物化石带来了独特的挑战，这使得以前大规模的地球历史研究无法获得这些记录。植物器官，如叶、木、果实、种子，很少被彼此附着在一起保存下来，而且很难将不同的器官作为同一植物的一部分联系起来，并为孤立的器官分配正式的分类名称。没有一个主要的古生物数据库可以容纳通常用于分离器官的非正式名称，并且不存在跨机构，研究人员，时间段和地理协调这些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），这是一个在线公共数据库，包括非正式和正式命名的化石，工作台软件和社区讨论论坛。PBOT将整合现有的在线数据库资源，包括博物馆标本和发生记录，以便在以前无法实现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对更广泛的用户更加开放和可访问，推进NSF科学透明度的使命。例如，该数据库将向公众和各级教育工作者提供化石植物数据，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士以及化石爱好者受益。总的来说，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，允许无数的科学和社会用途，并为古植物学数据管理和研究描绘一个可持续的、长期的数字未来。尽管化石植物是古代陆地环境的最佳记录，但在主要的公共数据库中，古植物学数据的代表性严重不足。在有意义的分类水平上，将古植物学数据纳入数据库的一个主要障碍是植物各部分通常是单独保存的，分类分辨率的潜力各不相同。因此，古植物学家通常使用基于形态的非正式分类（形态型），而不是传统的林奈分类。给特定形态的名称在研究小组之间是不一致的，并且目前没有数据管理基础设施允许在地区或时间段之间或与已发布的正式分类法之间进行形态比较和同义化。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，连同它们的时空发生数据，无法用于古生物学、古气候学、地球系统建模、宏观进化和宏观生态学的研究。该项目将为这些问题提供一个长期需要的解决方案，通过古植物学门户（PBOT）网络客户端和数据库扩展古生物数据库（PBDB），实现以下目标：(1)为形态型植物描述创建新颖、动态、社区来源的特征模式；(2)通过形态特征进入和浏览正式和非正式分类；(3)将这些正式和非正式的分类方法应用于集成数字化生物收集（iDigBio）中的数字化化石植物标本；(4)维护社区论坛，让专家对PBOT内容发表评论。作为该项目的一部分，研究人员将使用PBOT将从白垩纪到始新世的古植物叶片化石数据集填充到PBDB中，并分析过去1亿年最温暖间隔的多样性和气候变化。总的来说，PBOT提供的数据将使古气候和植物宏观生态和进化的综合分析成为可能，这是迄今为止不可能的。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。

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.