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

将 MorphoBank 转变为系统发育研究中表型数据的可持续、永久家园

• 批准号: 2049965
• 负责人: Tanya Berardini
• 金额: $ 61.72万
• 依托单位: Phoenix Bioinformatics Corporation
• 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: 2021-07-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2049965&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Transitioning; MorphoBank; sustainable; permanent; home

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.

科学家们使用遗传学的工具来研究这种多样性，并提出有关物种如何进化以及它们如何相互关联的问题。这些研究解决了有关生物特征的基本问题，并帮助科学家和公众了解何时，何地以及如何首次出现花朵和飞行能力等特征。这些问题可以通过收集许多不同物种的详细形态学，解剖学或其他表型特征的数据来回答，将数据组织成“矩阵”并使用数据构建系统发育树，重建随时间的进化变化。这些矩阵和系统发育树是在广泛的科学学科，包括动物和植物生物学，细菌学，人类学和古生物学的新发现的基础。MorphoBank是这项工作唯一的基于网络的软件包，在它存在之前，研究人员在他们的个人电脑上建立了矩阵，这种做法限制了合作和交流以及传播和重用数据的能力。由于MorphoBank既是一种存档工具，也是一种研究工具，该软件通过促进新旧数据的结合，使遗传学研究能够更快地向前推进。MorphoBank保证计算机和人类都可以读取综合数据，并向世界各地的任何人免费提供其数据，从而为公众获取科学研究的直接产品开辟了一条新途径。MorphoBank是一个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，MorphoBank于2018年开始与非营利性科学数据库组织Phoenix Bioinformatics合作，从基于赠款的支持过渡到基于可持续会员制的财务模式。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的会员支持来实现这一目标，同时维护核心软件，并继续为不断增长的美国和国际研究社区提供服务。该奖项将支持软件维护、数据策展和科学领导，而MorphoBank将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。