Harnessing the power of herbarium digitization, crowdsourcing, and phylofloristics to assess and predict phenological responses

全球环境变化改变了我们的世界。例如，在美国东部，气温上升对动植物生命事件的时间安排产生了重大影响。例如，在这一地区的植物中，新叶的盛开和春季开花的时间比几十年前提前了两周多。该项目使用了16个州博物馆中的数千个植物学标本，以了解为什么某些植物比其他植物更提前其生活事件的时间，并预测植物未来将如何反应。这项工作广泛适用于农业系统和自然区域的管理。作为这一努力的一部分，数千名公民科学家将从事环境变化科学。此外，还将开发教育性和信息性播客和教师培训方案。最后，该项目还将培训本科生和研究生，并将通过使收集及其相关数据更广泛地获得来加强科学基础设施。研究气候变化的物候反应的一个重要资源是历史记录，特别是自然历史博物馆中的历史记录。例如，压榨和干燥的标本馆标本代表了特定地点、时间和与特定气候相关的植物物候事件(例如，开花、结果)的快照。这些标本可以帮助评估物种范围内的物候变化，帮助阐明看似合理的机制原因，以及突出未来的预期反应。该项目将使用数字化的草本植物来调查美国东部的植物物候，并将解决三个具体目标。首先，它将从代表美国东部1000个物种的大约20万个数字化植物标本中众包物候数据，以估计物候变化。其次，它将通过使用大规模基因组方法来评估是否可以从进化关系中预测物候特征，从而将这些物种的物候反应置于进化的背景下。第三，它将开发模型来识别物候响应的气候驱动因素，并整合这些数据来预测未来植物组合的空间、时间和系统发育组成。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。

Global environmental change has transformed our world. In the Eastern United States, increasing temperatures, for example, have had a significant impact on the timing of life events of plants and animals. For example, among the plants of this region, the flush of new leaves and spring flowering times occur more than two weeks earlier than decades prior. This project uses thousands of botanical specimens in museums across 16 states to understand the reasons why certain plants advance the timing of their life events more than others and to predict how plants will respond in the future. This work is broadly applicable to agricultural systems and the management of natural areas. As part of this effort, thousands of citizen-scientists will be engaged in the science of environmental change. In addition, educational and informative podcasts and teacher training programs will be developed. Finally, the project will also train undergraduate and graduate students and will enhance scientific infrastructure by making collections and their associated data more widely available.A vital resource in the study of phenological responses to climate change is historical records, especially those residing in natural history museums. Pressed and dried herbarium specimens, for example, represent snapshots of plant phenological events (e.g., flowering, fruiting) at specific places, times, and in association with specific climates. These specimens can facilitate the assessment of phenological variation across species ranges, and help elucidate plausible mechanistic causes, as well as highlight future expected responses. This project will use digitized herbaria to investigate plant phenology across the eastern U.S. and will address three specific aims. First, it will crowd-source phenological data from ca. 200,000 digitized herbarium specimens representing 1000 species from the eastern U.S. to estimate phenological change. Second, it will place phenological responses of these species in an evolutionary context by using large-scale genomic approaches to assess whether phenological traits can be predicted from evolutionary relationships. Third, it will develop models that identify climatic drivers of phenological responses and integrate these data to forecast spatial, temporal, and phylogenetic compositions of future plant assemblages.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.