CSBR: Natural History: Securing and Digitizing Data for Parasite Biodiversity Specimens in the Manter Laboratory

该项目的目标是使与H.W.曼特实验室（HWML）有关的数据更容易为科学界所用，并促进其标本的长期安全和保存。这些重要的收集有助于美国科学家预测新出现的疾病，了解全球环境变化，并使科学家和政策制定者能够应对这些对国家安全的威胁。由顶级研究科学家捐赠的四种寄生虫正在被整合到HWML中。这些包含了关于寄生虫及其宿主生物多样性的重要知识，这项工作将使HWML能够建立数据库，保护和修复大量多年来未编目（和未知）的标本。麦克唐纳的藏品包含了北美中部迁徙水禽的蠕虫；威尔逊收藏包括世界各地收集的已识别和未识别的外寄生虫；哈吉斯海洋白嘴虫收藏有来自南极、墨西哥湾和南部海洋的标本；特尔福德血液寄生虫幻灯片收集了来自世界各地爬行动物的寄生虫。该项目的主要目标包括将现有但过时的数据库“PARASITE”转换为现代关系数据库系统（Arctos，一个用于自然历史和生物多样性收藏的多用户在线数据库），该系统将成为HWML的主要数据库，使全世界的科学家能够查询数字图像和数据。Arctos将允许用户同时瞄准脊椎动物宿主集合和这些宿主的寄生虫——这是目前在PARASITE中无法实现的功能。这种关系查询对于在许多不同领域工作的研究科学家能够全面了解宿主/寄生虫生物多样性是必不可少的。在数字化工作的配合下，四个关键寄生虫收藏中的所有标本（HWML中最后剩余的未编目标本的积压部分）将被修复，或标记为将来修复，并转移到永久安全的物理存储中。该项目产生的所有数据将发布在网上（http://hwml.unl.edu/），并与iDigBio （https://www.idigbio.org/）共享，以确保研究人员和教育工作者可以访问。

The goal of this project is to make data associated with the H.W. Manter Laboratory (HWML) more readily available to the scientific community, as well as to facilitate long-term security and conservation of its specimens. These important collections contribute to the ability of scientists in the USA to predict emerging diseases, understand global environmental changes, and enable responses to these threats to the national security by scientists and policymakers. Donated by top-ranked research scientists, four collections of parasites are being integrated into the HWML. These contain important knowledge of the biodiversity of parasites and their hosts, and this work will allow the HWML to database, conserve, and repair a large number of specimens that have remained un-catalogued (and unknown) for many years. The McDonald collection incorporates helminths from migratory waterfowl of the central North American flyway; the Wilson collection contains both identified and unidentified ectoparasites collected worldwide; the Hargis marine platyhelminth collection holds specimens from the Antarctic, Gulf of Mexico, and southern oceans; and the Telford hemoparasite slide collection holds parasites collected from reptiles worldwide. The primary objectives of this project include converting an existing but outdated database, PARASITE, into a modern relational database system (Arctos, a multiuser online database for natural history and biodiversity collections), which will then be the HWML's main database, enabling scientists world-wide to query the collections for both digital images and data. Arctos will permit users to simultaneously target both vertebrate host collections and the parasites of these hosts - a capability currently unavailable in PARASITE. Such relational queries are essential to enable a complete picture of host/parasite biodiversity to research scientists working in many different fields. In coordination with the digitization effort, all specimens in four key parasite collections which are the last remaining backlogged sections of uncataloged specimens in the HWML will be repaired, or marked for future repair, and transfered into permanent-secure physical storage. All data resulting from this project will be posted online (http://hwml.unl.edu/) and shared with iDigBio (https://www.idigbio.org/), ensuring accessibility to researchers and educators.