Collaborative Research: Digitization and Enrichment of U.S. Herbarium Data from Tropical Africa to Enable Urgent Quantitative Conservation Assessments

生物多样性一直是植物学家和动物学家数百年来工作的主题，在世界各地的博物馆和草药库中积累了丰富的标本和相关数据。然而，这些丰富的信息资源往往只以模拟格式存在，并没有数字化和为科学服务。该项目旨在数字化、丰富和公开共享美国草本植物中与非洲热带植物相对应的丰富数据资源。到该项目结束时，它将从110万个植物标本中获取数据，并将非洲大陆的数字可访问数据记录增加15倍以上。它还将建立一个广泛的国际洲际科学家和学生网络，他们对此类数据的管理和分析感兴趣，并具有丰富的经验。信息资源和人力资源的这种结合将丰富和改进整个非洲的生物多样性保护规划。标本馆标本是有关植物多样性的丰富数据来源。该项目将重点关注21种美国草本植物的热带非洲种子植物标本保存库，这些标本将被成像、相关数据捕获、地理参考和质量控制的数据记录。将在每个药用植物处进行成像和数据捕获，并将汇总数据以进行有效的地理参考。对于大多数记录，地理参考将自动执行；然而，一小部分将由加纳、卢旺达、马拉维和加蓬的植物科学家手动进行地理参考。最后，项目数据将经过详细的质量控制评估，并通过一个专门的“非洲植物”门户网站向科学界公开提供，并纳入iDigBio.org和全球生物多样性信息基金(GBIF.org)。这些丰富的数据资源将被用来更详细地了解非洲植物物种的保护状况。这一奖项反映了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。

Biological diversity has been the subject of hundreds of years of work by botanists and zoologists, accumulating rich stores of specimens and associated data in museums and herbaria around the world. These rich information resources, however, too often remain in analog format only, and have not been digitized and “enabled” in the service of science. This project aims to digitize, enrich, and share openly the rich data resources held in United States herbaria that correspond to plants of tropical Africa. By the close of the project, it will have captured data from 1.1 million herbarium specimens, and will augment digital accessible data records for the African continent by more than 15-fold. It will also have created a broad, international, intercontinental network of scientists and students interested in and experienced with management and analysis of such data. This combination of information resources and human capacity will enrich and improve biodiversity conservation planning across Africa. Herbarium specimens represent a rich source of data on plant diversity. This project will focus on the tropical African seed plant specimen holdings of 21 U.S. herbaria, which will be imaged, associated data captured, and data records georeferenced and quality-controlled. Imaging and data capture will be carried out at each of the herbaria, and data will be aggregated for efficient georeferencing. For most records, georeferencing will be performed automatically; however, a small portion will be georeferenced manually by plant scientists in Ghana, Rwanda, Malawi, and Gabon. Finally, project data will be subjected to detailed quality-control assessment, and served openly to the scientific community via a dedicated “African Plants” portal on Symbiota, as well as integration into iDigBio.org and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF.org). These rich data resources will be used to understand the conservation status of African plant species in much greater detail than has been possible to date.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.