Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: Bringing Asia to digital life: mobilizing underrepresented Asian herbarium collections in the US to propel biodiversity discovery

亚洲是地球上最大的大陆，拥有世界上最高的山脉、最低的地貌，以及从北极苔原到热带雨林、红树林到沙漠的栖息地。这一地区的植物在特性和功能上有着惊人的多样性。世界上有35万种植物，其中超过三分之一生长在亚洲，包括微小的高山缓冲植物、草药、古老的作物和一些地球上最高的雨林树木。但是，这种多样性的记录仍然难以获得，研究也很困难，因为大多数亚洲植物标本馆标本还没有被数字化。全亚洲专题收藏网络（TCN）将在线收集目前保存在美国和世界各地的1500万亚洲植物标本。该项目将特别关注东南亚和喜马拉雅-横断地区独特和极度濒危的生物多样性热点地区的标本数字化。这些动员起来的数字数据将加速濒危植物物种保护的研究，并了解进化和全球环境变化对植物物种多样性的相互作用。该项目将采用最先进的信息学工具和高通量数字化方法，高效、经济地数字化数量空前的植物标本馆藏品。这项工作将在美国、欧洲和亚洲的25个大小财团机构之间建立长期的联系和关系。标本数字化的重点区域包括五个生物多样性热点地区，其中包括世界上约20%的维管植物区系，历史上覆盖了300万平方公里的原始植被，现在覆盖的面积不到30万平方公里。这些生物多样性热点地区缺乏基本的生物多样性数据，以及描述物种身份、范围和对持续气候变化的响应所需的必要基线。全亚洲TCN的总体目标是快速数字化亚洲植物标本馆标本，以推进生物多样性的发现，并为建立人类世植物区系变化提供关键的基线评估。该项目将通过以下方式实现这一目标：(1)对来自美国植物标本馆的300万亚洲维管植物标本进行数字化；(2)开发和应用新型信息学工具和高通量数字化方法，实现大规模植物标本馆数字化；(3)将项目的数字化记录与中国、法国、荷兰和俄罗斯的国际合作伙伴的数字化记录进行汇总和动员，建立一个单一的全亚洲在线门户网站，其中约有1500万份标本；(4)通过激发生物多样性和计算机科学家之间的协同作用，为科学、技术、工程和数学领域的早期职业学习者提供更多机会，这些计算机科学家将利用设计思维原理为生物多样性挑战创造现实世界的信息学解决方案。为了激发公众对植物多样性和植物探索的好奇心，联盟成员将举办几次以亚洲为主题的“自然笔记”虚拟探险活动，以促进公民科学家对更多标本进行数字化。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行了评估，认为值得支持。

Asia is the largest continent on Earth, and includes the world’s tallest mountains, lowest landscapes, and habitats ranging from arctic tundra to tropical rainforests and mangroves to deserts. The plants of this region are incredibly diverse in their identities and functions. More than one-third of the world’s 350,000 plant species grow in Asia and include tiny alpine cushion plants, medicinal herbs, ancient crops, and some of the planet’s tallest rainforest trees. But documentation of this diversity remains inaccessible and research about it is difficult because most herbarium specimens of Asian plants have not been digitized. The All Asia Thematic Collections Network (TCN) will mobilize online 15 million specimens of Asian plants currently housed in the US and around the world. The project will especially focus on digitizing specimens from the unique and critically endangered biodiversity hotspots of Southeast Asia and the Himalaya-Hengduan region. These mobilized digital data will accelerate research to conserve endangered plant species and understand the interacting effects of evolution and global environmental change on plant species diversity. The project will apply state-of-the-art informatics tools and high-throughput digitization methods to efficiently and affordably digitize an unprecedented number of herbarium collections. This effort will connect and build long-lasting relationships among 25 large and small consortium institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The focal areas from which specimens will be digitized encompass five biodiversity hotspots that include ~20% of the world’s vascular plant flora and historically spanned 3 million km² of primary vegetation that now covers less than 300,000 km². Fundamental biodiversity data for these biodiversity hotspots are lacking, along with the necessary baselines required to characterize species’ identity, range, and responses to ongoing climatic change. The overall goals of the All Asia TCN are to rapidly digitize herbarium specimens of Asian plants to advance biodiversity discovery and provide critical baseline assessments essential for establishing floristic change in the Anthropocene. The project will accomplish this by (1) digitizing 3 million Asian vascular plant specimens from U.S. herbaria; (2) developing and applying novel informatics tools and high-throughput digitization methods to massively scale herbarium digitization; (3) aggregating and mobilizing the digitized records from the project with those by international partners in China, France, the Netherlands, and Russia to establish a single online All Asia portal of ca. 15 million specimens; and (4) enhancing opportunities for early career learners in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by stimulating synergies between biodiversity and computer scientists who will use design thinking principles to create real-world informatics solutions to biodiversity challenges. To stimulate curiosity in plant diversity and botanical exploration among the general public, the consortium members will host several Asia-themed Notes from Nature virtual expeditions to facilitate additional specimen digitization by citizen-scientists. Digitized specimen data mobilized through this project will be shared and made available through iDigBio.org.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.