CIBR: Collaborative Research: Integrating data communities with BiotaPhy: a computational platform for data-intensive biodiversity research and training

人们对保持生态多样性的自然区域的重要性的认识提高，使科学家们更加迫切地需要确定和解释环境的生物方面和服务，这些方面和服务对于支持人类和维持繁荣至关重要。生物多样性，或物种的分布、功能和相互依赖性，是人类系统可持续性所依赖的自然系统的重要方面。地球自然栖息地的生物多样性已经被勇敢的生物探险家记录了300多年。这些调查所产生的物种信息直接来自生物标本、组织和DNA样本，现在正在互联网信息系统中迅速积累。这些数据代表了关于地球上生命起源、分布和多样性的巨大和无与伦比的信息来源。有超过10亿个物种发生数据库记录在线，互联网上可访问的信息数以百万计的物种在在线生命之树数据库，在线全球气候数据的进化关系，和超级计算能力，生物多样性研究人员首次启用，分析有关生态和进化因素的问题，这些因素在大陆和整个大陆的范围内塑造了生物多样性的模式和特性。地球仪。这些知识将为公众的理解和政策提供深刻见解，这对保护和维持各种自然和人类系统至关重要。除了促进研究外，BiotaPhy项目还致力于培养具有科学素养的公众，并计划开展教育，培训和推广活动，以满足多个选区的需求。它将在数据密集型生物多样性科学方面提供协作博士后，研究生，本科生和高中培训，同时建立在招募代表性不足群体成员的良好记录基础上。该项目将在网络上为BiotaPhy计算工作流程环境进行软件工程、开放获取、部署和培训。该平台将作为数据密集型科学的生物多样性社区网关得到支持。该软件将能够进行综合和强大的分析，以及过去、现在和未来地球物种多样性地理模式的定量模型。BiotaPhy软件将使科学家能够解决与表型和生态生物多样性，社区组装以及跨时间和空间的物种多样化有关的新问题。计算工作流程将具有广泛的环境研究相关性，并有可能对跨越生态学，遗传学，系统学和保护生物学的数据密集型研究产生变革性影响。BiotaPhy工作流程平台将提供这些功能，组装输入数据集，计算单物种分布模型和多物种宏观生态数据集，然后将进化和生态假设的统计测试输出到图形网络界面，供审查和知识发现。BiotaPhy平台？的生产部署将：（1）增加对生物遗传学、生态学、进化生物学和生物地理学接口的新合成方法的研究和创造;（2）增加开放生命树、iDigBio和Lifemapper资源的可访问性和利用率;（3）纳入社区投入和培训;（4）建立和支持跨领域数据集成服务，作为可持续生物多样性社区基础设施。BiotaPhy项目可以在www.example.com上访问http://biotaphy.github.io.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Heightened awareness of the importance of maintaining ecologically diverse natural areas has increased urgency for scientists to identify and explain the biological dimensions and services of the environment that are vital for supporting human populations and sustaining prosperity. Biological diversity, or the distribution, function, and interdependency of species, is a vital dimension of natural systems upon which the sustainability of human systems depends. The biological diversity of Earth's natural habitats has been inventoried for over 300 years by intrepid biological explorers. The species information produced by those surveys, derived directly from biological specimens, tissues, and DNA samples, is now being rapidly amassed in internet information systems. The data represent a monumental and unparalleled source of information about the origin, distribution, and diversity of life on Earth. With over a billion species occurrence database records online, internet-accessible information on the evolutionary relationships of millions of species in the online Tree of Life database, online global climate data, and supercomputing capabilities, biodiversity researchers are enabled for the first time, to analyze questions about the ecological and evolutionary factors that shape patterns and properties of biodiversity on the scale of continents and the entire globe. That knowledge will produce insight for public understanding and policy vital to the conservation and sustainability of diverse natural and human systems. In addition to facilitating research, the BiotaPhy Project is committed to the development of a scientifically literate public and plans educational, training, and outreach activities to address multiple constituencies. It will provide collaborative post-doc, graduate, undergraduate, and high school training in data-intensive biodiversity science while building on a strong record of recruiting members of underrepresented groups. This project will undertake software engineering, open-access, deployment and training for the BiotaPhy computational workflow environment on the web. The Platform will be supported as a biodiversity community gateway for data-intensive science. The software will enable integrative and powerful analyses, and quantitative models of the geographical patterns of Earth's species diversity past, present, and future. BiotaPhy software will enable scientists to address novel questions relating phenotypic and ecological biodiversity, community assembly, and species diversification across time and space. The computational workflows will have broad environmental research relevance and the potential for transformative impact on data-intensive research spanning ecology, phylogenetics, systematics, and conservation biology. The BiotaPhy workflow platform will provide those capabilities by assembling input datasets, computing single species distribution models and multispecies macroecological datasets, and then output statistical tests of evolutionary and ecological hypotheses to a graphical web interface for review and knowledge discovery. The BiotaPhy Platform?s production deployment will: (1) increase research into and creation of new synthetic approaches at the interface of phylogenetics, ecology, evolutionary biology, and biogeography; (2) increase the accessibility and utilization of Open Tree of Life, iDigBio, and Lifemapper resources; (3) incorporate community input and training; and (4) build and support cross-domain data integration services as sustainable biodiversity community infrastructure. The BiotaPhy Project can be accessed at http://biotaphy.github.io.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.