Transitioning MorphoBank to a sustainable, permanent home for phenotypic data in phylogenetics research

科学家使用系统发育学的工具来研究这种多样性，并提出关于物种如何进化以及它们之间如何相互关联的问题。这项研究解决了有关生物特征的基本问题，并帮助科学家和普通公众了解花等特征以及飞行能力等行为最早出现的时间、地点和方式。这些问题可以通过收集许多不同物种表型的详细形态、解剖或其他特征的数据，将这些数据组织成“矩阵”，并使用这些数据来构建系统发育树，重建随着时间的演变而发生的变化，从而回答这些问题。这些矩阵和系统发育树是包括动植物生物学、细菌学、人类学和古生物学在内的广泛科学学科中新发现的基础。MorPhoBank是用于这项工作的唯一基于网络的软件包，在它出现之前，研究人员在他们的个人计算机上建立矩阵，这种做法限制了合作和交流的能力，以及传播和重复使用数据的能力。由于MorPhoBank既是一个档案库，也是一个研究工具，该软件通过促进新旧数据的结合，使系统发育研究进展得更快。MorPhoBank保证计算机和人类都可以阅读整合的数据，并使其数据免费提供给世界各地的任何人，从而为公众打开了一条获取科学研究直接产品的新途径。MorPhoBank是一个被广泛使用的社区工具，用于支持基础生物学研究。认识到该工具必须长期持续存在，MorPhoBank于2018年开始与非营利性科学数据库组织凤凰生物信息学合作，从基于赠款的支持过渡到基于可持续会员的财务模式。在接下来的三年里，MorPhoBank的领导团队将完成向全面会员支持的过渡。MorPhoBank将通过增加大学图书馆和博物馆对其会员的支持来做到这一点，同时保持核心软件，并继续为日益增长的美国和国际研究社区服务。该奖项将支持软件维护、数据管理和科学领导，而MorPhoBank则加强其会员支持可持续发展计划。该奖项反映了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。

Scientists use the tools of phylogenetics to study this diversity and ask questions about how species evolve and how they are interrelated. Such research addresses fundamental questions about the characteristics of living organisms, and helps scientists and the general public understand when, where and how traits like flowers and behaviors like the ability to fly first arose. Such questions can be answered by collecting data on the detailed morphology, anatomy or other traits of the phenotype of many different species, organizing the data into ‘matrices’ and using the data to build phylogenetic trees that reconstruct evolutionary changes over time. These matrices and phylogenetic trees are the foundation for new discoveries in a wide range of scientific disciplines including animal and plant biology, bacteriology, anthropology and paleontology. MorphoBank is the only web-based software package for this work, and before it existed, researchers built matrices on their personal computers, a practice that limited the ability to collaborate and communicate, and to disseminate and reuse data. Because MorphoBank serves as an archive as well as a research tool, this software allows phylogenetics research to advance more quickly by facilitating the combination of old and new data. MorphoBank guarantees that integrated data are readable by both computers and humans and makes its data freely available to anyone worldwide, thereby opening up a new avenue for the public to access the direct products of scientific research. MorphoBank is a broadly used community tool to support basic biological research. Recognizing that the tool must be sustained long term, in 2018 MorphoBank began the transition from grant-based support to a sustainable membership-based financial model in partnership with the non-profit scientific database organization, Phoenix Bioinformatics. Over the next three years MorphoBank’s leadership team will complete a transition to full membership support. MorphoBank will do this by growing its membership support from university libraries and museums while maintaining the core software and continuing to serve a growing US and international research community. The award will support software maintenance, data curation and scientific leadership, while MorphoBank ramps up its membership support sustainability plan.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.