CSBR: Increased capacity for research and student engagement at the Frost Entomological Museum

CSBR：提高弗罗斯特昆虫博物馆的研究和学生参与能力

• 批准号: 2039242
• 负责人: Andrew Deans
• 金额: $ 39.13万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2039242&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CSBR; Increased; capacity; research; student

Natural history collections record the world’s diversity through time and support the scientific community’s understanding of changing ecosystem dynamics. In the face of declining insect biodiversity worldwide, it is more important now than ever for entomology collections to preserve, digitize, and disseminate specimen data to the broader community. The Frost Entomological Museum at Penn State cares for more than 1.3 million specimens that span the diversity of insects. This collection stands to grow further, through the incorporation of satellite collections of pollinators, especially bees (more than 125,000 specimens), and through the activities of the Insect Biodiversity Center (IBC), a recently established research initiative at Penn State. The infrastructure provided through this grant increases the storage capacity of the Frost by 50%, allowing for the curation of these collections and to serve as a repository for scaled up efforts to understand insect diversity through time. The award also provides the resources to digitize the substantial aphid collection (approximately 224,000 specimens on 49,000 slides), which holds important data regarding these insects’ plant hosts, and aquatic insects (approximately 100,000 specimens in 15,000 vials), which are indicators of habitat health. These improvements will facilitate research that addresses native pollinator decline, epidemiology, global climate change and its impact on species distributions and invasive species, niche restrictions, indicator species, and the evolutionary history of insects. The project will also generate data that contribute to ongoing research on imperiled insects and will fill critical taxonomic, geographical, and temporal gaps in existing datasets.A high-density compactor storage system will be installed in the Frost Museum in order to accommodate new rows of cabinets for pinned insects. These cabinets will accommodate approximately 1,600 drawers of expanded space. A portion of this storage will be utilized by incorporating the pollinator collection previously housed at Penn State’s Fruit Research and Extension Center and specimens generated by Penn State’s Center for Pollinator Research. The aphid collection, which consists of slide-mounted specimens, will be imaged on a flatbed scanner and then moved to new custom-built slide cabinets. The slide scans will be transcribed in the Frost Museum database, georeferenced, and the data shared with iDigBio and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The aquatic insect collection likewise will be imaged and rehoused in new, expanded ethanol storage. The lot images will be transcribed, georeferenced, and the data shared with the above repositories, making them accessible to the public. A graduate student and at least two undergraduates will receive training in collections care, management, and digitization.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.

自然历史藏品记录了世界的多样性，并支持科学界对不断变化的生态系统动态的理解。面对世界范围内昆虫生物多样性的下降，现在比以往任何时候都更重要的是昆虫学收藏保存，保存和传播标本数据到更广泛的社区。宾夕法尼亚州立大学的弗罗斯特昆虫博物馆收藏了130多万种昆虫标本。通过纳入授粉者，特别是蜜蜂（超过125，000个标本）的卫星收集，以及通过昆虫生物多样性中心（IBC）的活动，该收集将进一步增长，该中心是宾夕法尼亚州立大学最近成立的研究计划。通过这笔赠款提供的基础设施将Frost的存储容量增加了50%，允许对这些藏品进行管理，并作为一个存储库，用于扩大了解昆虫多样性的努力。该奖项还提供了资源，用于收集大量蚜虫标本（49，000张载玻片上约224，000个标本），其中包含有关这些昆虫的植物宿主的重要数据，以及水生昆虫（15，000个小瓶中约100，000个标本），这是栖息地健康的指标。这些改进将促进研究，解决本地传粉者下降，流行病学，全球气候变化及其对物种分布和入侵物种，生态位限制，指示物种和昆虫进化史的影响。该项目还将产生有助于正在进行的濒危昆虫研究的数据，并将填补现有昆虫分类学、地理学和时间学方面的关键空白。弗罗斯特博物馆将安装一个高密度压缩机存储系统，以容纳新的一排排用于固定昆虫的橱柜。这些橱柜将容纳大约1 600个抽屉，空间扩大。其中一部分储存将通过合并以前存放在宾夕法尼亚州立大学水果研究和推广中心的传粉者标本和宾夕法尼亚州立大学传粉者研究中心产生的标本来利用。蚜虫的收集，其中包括载玻片标本，将在一个平板扫描仪成像，然后移动到新的定制幻灯片柜。幻灯片扫描将在弗罗斯特博物馆数据库中转录，地理参考，并与iDigBio和全球生物多样性信息设施（GBIF）共享数据。水生昆虫收集同样将成像和重新安置在新的，扩大乙醇储存。该地段的图像将被转录，地理参考，并与上述存储库共享的数据，使他们向公众开放。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。