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

合作研究：来自热带非洲的美国植物标本馆数据的数字化和丰富化，以实现紧急的定量保护评估

• 批准号: 2223875
• 负责人: Townsend Peterson
• 金额: $ 104.31万
• 依托单位: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-15 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2223875&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Digitization; Enrichment; U.S.

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 proportion of records 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.

生物多样性一直是植物学家和动物学家数百年来研究的主题，在世界各地的博物馆和植物标本馆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仅以模拟格式存在，并没有被数字化和“启用”以服务于科学。该项目旨在数字化、丰富和公开共享美国植物标本馆中与热带非洲植物相对应的丰富数据资源。到该项目结束时，它将捕获 110 万个植物标本室标本的数据，并将非洲大陆的数字可访问数据记录增加 15 倍以上。它还将创建一个广泛的国际洲际网络，由对此类数据的管理和分析感兴趣且经验丰富的科学家和学生组成。信息资源和人力的结合将丰富和改进整个非洲的生物多样性保护规划。植物标本馆标本代表了植物多样性的丰富数据来源。该项目将重点关注 21 个美国植物标本室的热带非洲种子植物标本馆藏，将对这些标本进行成像、捕获相关数据以及对数据记录进行地理参考和质量控制。每个植物标本室都将进行成像和数据采集，并汇总数据以进行有效的地理配准。对于大多数记录，地理配准将自动执行；然而，一小部分记录将由加纳、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，项目数据将接受详细的质量控制评估，并通过 Symbiota 上专门的“非洲植物”门户网站以及集成到 iDigBio.org 和全球生物多样性信息设施 (GBIF.org) 中公开提供给科学界。这些丰富的数据资源将用于比迄今为止更详细地了解非洲植物物种的保护状况。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。