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如何相互关联的问题。这样的研究解决了有关生物体特征的基本问题，并帮助科学家和公众了解诸如花之类的特征和诸如飞行能力之类的行为是何时、何地以及如何首先出现的。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，将这些数据组织成“矩阵”，并使用这些数据构建系统发育树，以重建随时间的进化变化。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新发现的基础。MorphoBank是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电脑上构建矩阵，这种做法限制了协作和交流的能力，以及传播和重用数据。因为MorphoBank既是一个档案，也是一个研究工具，该软件通过促进新旧数据的结合，使系统发育研究能够更快地推进。MorphoBank保证综合数据可被计算机和人类读取，并使其数据免费提供给全世界的任何人，从而为公众获取科学研究的直接产品开辟了一条新的途径。MorphoBank是一个广泛使用的社区工具，用于支持基础生物学研究。认识到这一工具必须长期持续，2018年，MorphoBank与非营利性科学数据库组织凤凰生物信息学合作，开始从赠款支持向可持续的会员制金融模式过渡。在未来三年内，MorphoBank的领导团队将完成向完全会员支持的过渡。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，同时保持核心软件并继续为不断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将增加其会员支持可持续发展计划。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。

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.