FSML: Enhancing long-term research through improved sample archiving at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS)

该项目支持当地承包商将密歇根大学生物站（UMBS）的一栋建筑改造成一个样本档案馆。UMBS占地1万英亩，有107年历史，为了解和管理大湖上游地区的生态系统做出了重大贡献。UMBS的优势之一是对水生食物网，森林生态系统以及各种生物的多样性和行为的研究。在UMBS漫长的研究历史中，来自世界各地的研究人员收集了不可替代的土壤、沉积物、水和生物样本，这些样本代表了永远无法重审的时间点。这些样品中有许多已经腐烂，因为从来没有一个安全的、指定的空间来保存它们。通过将UMBS的现有空间改造成一个稳定、安全的档案馆，并将样本整合到UMBS信息管理系统中，该项目使研究人员能够保存样本，以便将来使用新技术进行分析，与世界各地从事类似问题的研究人员分享，并为未来研究环境变化的项目提供参考点。后者是UMBS的一个标志，它一直在记录环境的深刻变化，因为大湖上游地区是一片荒芜的土地，被烧毁的空地。从那时到现在，UMBS对水生和陆地生态系统的研究使我们了解了生态系统服务，如水质保护，林产品供应和野生动物栖息地。展望未来，了解自然生态系统的功能，以及如何最好地管理它们以实现资源的可持续利用，需要持续致力于保留物理样本，因为这些是使明智决策成为可能的数据基础。最后，适当的存档通过保留需要时间、金钱和精力来收集的样本来提高科学效率。该项目支持在密歇根大学生物站（UMBS）建立土壤、沉积物和水样档案。档案馆将为历史的、正在进行的和新兴的研究项目产生的长期样本提供稳定的存储。该项目包括对一座未充分利用的1600平方英尺建筑进行节能改造，用于气候控制存储、样品制备设备（过滤、研磨、冷冻干燥），以及将存档样品数字化集成到UMBS信息管理系统（IMS）中。IMS是一个在线数据管理系统（在LTER数据门户之后设计的），于2010年推出，为UMBS 107年研究历史中的100个项目数据集和7000份出版物提供管理、发现和访问。与IMS的集成利用了正在进行的内部支持的数字数据管理工作，并将最终将研究站点和调查人员、物理样本、分析结果、完整的数据集和出版物联系起来，从而管理整个研究过程并使其可供科学界使用。该档案的土壤部分将通过国际土壤碳网络（ISCN）与美国各地的档案设施网络联系起来，为高价值、高风险的土壤样本提供安全存储。ISCN研究人员（400人）将能够申请存储空间并申请使用存档材料进行再分析和合成项目。该项目将直接受益于在过去5年中，每年有来自2-3打机构的研究人员在29个联邦资助项目（其中16个由NSF资助）的支持下来到研究站。通过支持保存精心收集的样本，该项目通过节省工作的物理工件来提高科学资源的有效利用，并将在对长期样本进行新的分析时提供新的见解。

This project supports local contractors to renovate a building at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) into a sample archive. The UMBS is a 10,000 acre, 107-year old field station that has made major contributions to the understanding and management of ecosystems in the upper Great Lakes region. Among UMBS' strengths are research on aquatic food webs, forest ecosystems, and the diversity and behavior of all kinds of organisms. Throughout UMBS' long history of research, researchers from around the world have collected irreplaceable samples of soil, sediment, water, and organisms, representing points in time that can never be revisited. Many of these samples have perished because there has never been secure, designated space for their safe keeping. By renovating existing space at UMBS into a stable, secure archive, and integrating samples into the UMBS Information Management System, this project enables researchers to save samples for future analyses using novel technologies, share them with researchers working on similar problems around the world, and provide reference points for future projects examining environmental change. The latter is a hallmark of UMBS, which has been documenting profound changes in the environment since the days that the upper Great Lakes region was a barren land of burned-over clearcuts. From then until now, research on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems at UMBS has informed our understanding of ecosystem services such as water quality protection, forest products supply, and wildlife habitat. Looking to the future, understanding how natural ecosystems function, and how best to manage them for sustainable use of resources requires an ongoing commitment to retaining physical samples, as these are the basis for the data that make informed decision-making possible. Lastly, proper archiving increases scientific efficiency by retaining samples that require time, money, and effort to collect. This project supports establishment of a soil, sediment, and water sample archive at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS). The archive will provide stable storage for long-term samples generated by historic, ongoing, and emerging research programs. The project includes energy-efficient renovation of an underutilized 1600ft2 building for climate-controlled storage, equipment for sample preparation (filtration, milling, freeze-drying), and digital integration of archived samples into the UMBS Information Management System (IMS). The IMS is an online data management system (designed after the LTER Data Portal) rolled out in 2010 that provides curation, discoverability, and access for 100 project datasets and 7,000 publications from UMBS' 107-year research history. Integration with the IMS leverages ongoing, internally supported efforts at digital data curation, and will ultimately link research sites and investigators, physical samples, analytical results, completed datasets, and publications, thus curating the full research process and making it available to the scientific community. The soils component of the archive will be linked, through the International Soil Carbon Network (ISCN), to a network of archive facilities around the U.S. to provide secure storage for high-value, at-risk soil samples. ISCN researchers (400) will be able to request storage space and apply to use archived material for reanalysis and synthesis projects. The project will of direct benefit to UMBS-based researchers, who come to the field station from 2-3 dozen institutions annually with support from 29 federally-funded projects (16 by NSF) during the past 5 years. By supporting the preservation of carefully collected samples, this project increases the efficient use of scientific resources by saving the physical artifacts of work performed, and will enable new insights when new analyses are performed on long-term samples.