Collaborative Research: Curating, digitizing and disseminating results from an unparalleled collection of fossil vertebrates from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar

该项目的目标是保护南半球最具科学意义的脊椎动物化石收藏之一，让世界各地的研究人员更广泛地接触到它，并增强其已经具有的教育和公共宣传价值。这些藏品目前存放在丹佛自然科学博物馆，通过几个美国和马达加斯加机构的合作，在过去30年里从马达加斯加的上白垩统(大约6700万年前)地层中找到了这些藏品。这些藏品包括大约25,000个鱼类、青蛙、海龟、蜥蜴、蛇、鳄鱼、恐龙、鸟类和哺乳动物的标本。到目前为止，已经描述了21个新物种，其中大多数以骨骼为代表，这些骨骼对于整个大型脊椎动物群体来说是最完整和保存最好的。这些标本提供了对进化史上一个重要区间的基本见解，并被用来检验有关南半球如何以及何时分裂成我们今天所知的陆地的假设。收藏的标本曾在北美、欧洲、亚洲和马达加斯加的36家博物馆展出，无数媒体报道过，并被用作高中、本科生和研究生以及终身学习博物馆志愿者的富有成效的训练场。这一重要收藏中的标本将按照现代标准进行准备、重新安置、编目和数字化，以便马达加斯加晚白垩世脊椎动物化石记录可以继续被记录和永久保存。这将包括从埋藏的岩石基质中最后准备所有标本，并为最大的标本建造档案支撑结构。根据与马达加斯加政府和大学合作伙伴的正式协议，剩余标本的一半必须在完成研究后送回马达加斯加。因此，将为预定永久归还马达加斯加的重要标本制作准确的复制品(铸件和3D打印)；数字数据集将通过国家科学基金会支持的资料库MorPhoSource提供，供当前和未来的研究人员和教育工作者使用。最终，所有标本记录将被输出到NSF资助的数据聚合器集成数字化生物收集(IDigBio)，以便供其他研究人员使用。这个项目，以及通过这个奖项获得的标本的持续研究，将进一步扩大教育和公众参与的努力。这个奖项反映了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。

The goals of this project are to conserve one of the most scientifically significant collections of fossil vertebrate animals from the southern hemisphere, to make it more broadly accessible to researchers worldwide, and to enhance its already high value for education and public outreach. The collection, currently housed at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, was recovered over the last three decades from Upper Cretaceous (approximately 67 million years old) strata of Madagascar through collaboration among several American and Malagasy institutions. The collection includes about 25,000 specimens of fishes, frogs, turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals. So far, 21 new species have been described, most of them represented by skeletons that are the most complete and best preserved for entire large groups of vertebrate animals. These specimens have provided fundamental insights into an important interval of evolutionary history and have been used to test hypotheses about how and when the southern hemisphere broke apart into the landmasses we know today. Specimens from the collection have been on display in 36 museums in North America, Europe, Asia, and Madagascar, reported in countless media outlets, and used as a fruitful training ground for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students, as well as lifelong-learning museum volunteers. The specimens in this important collection will be prepared, rehoused, cataloged, and digitized to modern standards so that the Late Cretaceous vertebrate fossil record of Madagascar can continue to be documented and conserved in perpetuity. This will include final preparation of all specimens out of their entombing rock matrix and construction of archival support structures for the largest specimens. By formal agreement with government and university partners in Madagascar, one-half of the remaining specimens must be returned to Madagascar upon completion of study. As such, exact replicas (casts and 3D prints) will be made for important specimens slated for permanent return to Madagascar; digital datasets will be made available via the NSF-supported repository MorphoSource for current and future researchers and educators. Ultimately, all specimen records will be exported to the NSF-funded data aggregator Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio) in order to be made available to other researchers. This project, and continued research on specimens made accessible through this award, will further expand educational and public engagement efforts.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.