CAREER: Digitized data, dung beetles and the dome: improving the understanding of species distribution through research and planetarium-based education.

了解物种分布是生物多样性建模的核心，生物多样性建模越来越多地用于保护规划和其他造福社会的应用科学。该项目将一个研究项目与一个新的非正式教育项目相结合，以提高科学和公众对物种分布的进化和地球过程的理解。该项目的研究部分将评估进化历史在估算物种分布的生态位模型中的重要性，目的是改进用于选择这些模型中使用的可变环境层的方法。在当前和未来气候情景下更准确地预测物种分布的能力，对于识别和了解濒临灭绝物种的栖息地、模拟引进物种或具有重要医学意义的可传播疾病的无脊椎动物的传播，以及其他许多方面至关重要。研究结果将被纳入新的非正式教育项目，在天文馆穹顶下教授生物地理学。该项目还将利用在全球范围内积累了超过13亿个标本记录的全球努力，以及天文馆软件的技术进步，在身临其境的动态环境中可视化生物多样性数据。这种传播数字化数据的新途径将改变拥有天文馆的机构传播生物多样性数据的方式，并将为开发与公众分享生物多样性研究的新项目创造无限的机会。提高公众对这些复杂科学概念的理解，可以通过提高对行星过程与地球生命之间联系的认识，促进对环境变化影响的态度的改变。本文将对澳大利亚屎壳郎（鞘翅目：金龟子科：金龟子科）进行系统和系统地理学的综合研究，以评估其进化史在环境生态位建模中的重要性。这个模型群包括一个宗教冈瓦南分支和一个更年轻的印多马拉亚分支，将在系统发育和生态框架中进行评估，以探索密切相关但生物地理上不同的分类群的环境耐受性的遗传性。通过生态位模型的比较分析、预测生态位占用情况和时间图的差异，评价这些生物地理上不同的动物群的生态位动态演变。研究结果将为未来的分析提供环境层选择的信息，并提高对影响物种分布的生物和非生物因素的理解。除了为进化生物学中的一个关键问题提供信息外，这些结果还将被纳入新的天文馆项目，该项目旨在提高公众对物种进化、生态和地球变化的科学素养。项目内容将与俄亥俄州8年级的STEM学习标准保持一致，并将在现场天文馆向博物馆游客展示，而校外课程将在移动天文馆举办。项目评估将评估利用天文馆进行进化论教学的影响，博物馆对非正式教育的贡献，以及在公共和学校项目中利用策展专业知识的最佳实践。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

Understanding species distribution is central to the biodiversity modeling that is increasingly used to inform conservation planning and other applied sciences that benefit society. This project integrates a research program with a new informal education program to enhance both the scientific and public understanding of evolutionary and planetary processes that contribute to species distribution. The research component of this project will assess the importance of evolutionary history in niche modeling that estimates species distribution, with the aim of improving the approach used to select variable environmental layers used in these models. The ability to more accurately predict species distribution under both present and future climate scenarios is essential for identifying and understanding the habitats of species at risk of extinction, modeling the spread of introduced species or medically important invertebrates that can transmit disease, and much more. The findings from the research will be incorporated into the new informal education program that teaches biogeography under a planetarium dome. This program also will leverage the global efforts that have amassed over 1.3 billion specimen records worldwide, as well as technological advances in planetarium software, to visualize biodiversity data in an immersive and dynamic setting. This novel outlet to broadcast digitized data will transform how institutions equipped with planetariums communicate biodiversity data and will create endless opportunities to develop new programs for sharing biodiversity research with the public. Improved public understanding of these complex scientific concepts can facilitate changes in attitudes to the impact of environmental change through increased awareness of the connectivity between planetary processes and life on Earth.A combined systematic and phylogeographic study of Australian dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) will be used to assess the importance of evolutionary history in environmental niche modeling. This model-group contains both a relictual Gondwanan and a younger Indomalayan clade that will be assessed in a phylogenetic and ecological framework to explore the heritability of environmental tolerance in closely-related but biogeographically distinct taxa. The evolution of niche dynamics for these biogeographically distinct faunas will be assessed through comparative analysis of niche models, predicted niche occupancy profiles and disparity through time plots. Findings will inform environmental layers selection for future analyses and improve the understanding of biotic and abiotic factors that contribute to species distribution. Beyond informing a key question in evolutionary biology, these results will be integrated into the new planetarium program that aims to improve public scientific literacy relating to species' evolution, ecology and planetary change. Program content will align with Ohio's grade 8 learning standard for STEM and will be presented to museum guests in the onsite planetarium, while offsite school programming will be hosted in a mobile planetarium. Program evaluation will assess the impact of teaching evolution using planetariums, the contribution of museums to informal education, and best-practices for leveraging curatorial expertise in public and school programs.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.