Digitization PEN: Addition of the Yale Peabody Museum to the Terrestrial Parasite Tracker (TPT) Network

节肢动物寄生虫（特别是昆虫及其近亲）对人类健康、野生动物保护和牲畜生产力等经济关键问题负有责任。由于自然历史藏品是过去和现在寄生虫标本的永久储存库，这些藏品及其数据可以帮助解决人类和动物健康与安全方面的这些重大社会挑战。自然历史藏品通常包含的标本和辅助材料对更广泛的群落来说是完全未知的，但却代表了关于生物栖息地、分布和寄生物-宿主关系的不可替代的知识。此外，这些收集所得的信息可用于模拟物种分布的生态过程和变化，预测人类和动物疾病的未来传播，更新分类，并有助于确定迫切需要采样的代表性不足的寄生虫类群和需要保护的受威胁的寄生虫多样性。该项目将提供宝贵的节肢动物寄生虫收集的数字记录（即标本标签数据和图像），使可供研究的基线数据可以在线访问，从而促进新的研究和教育举措。这些新数字化的数据将为我们理解生物关联、生物多样性等方面带来直接和持久的好处。陆地寄生虫追踪专题收集网络（ttp - tcn）将对超过100万种节肢动物标本进行数字化，这些标本代表了美国脊椎动物中重要的寄生虫和疾病载体。TPT-TCN是26个研究部门的合作，包括脊椎动物和无脊椎动物分类学家和策展人、流行病学家、生态学家、数据科学家和生物多样性信息学专家。现有网络合作伙伴（PEN）赠款允许耶鲁皮博迪博物馆加入合作，并将标本数字化，以填补现有TPT-TCN中地理和分类覆盖的关键空白。该项目将整合节肢动物数据与数百万脊椎动物宿主记录，以及由州和联邦机构合作者共享的媒介和疾病监测数据，为综合长期研究奠定新的基础。它还将为正在进行的公民科学和公众意识运动提供工具，以了解由于环境变化和全球运动而导致的节肢动物病媒和相关疾病的分布变化。教育方面的倡议包括与自然历史博物馆合作，通过科学讲座、展览、夏季青年项目、非正式演讲，向公众宣传寄生虫，并为服务不足社区的教师开发新的在线教育资源。该项目生成的所有标本图像将与iDigBio.org共享，并用于开发快速寄生虫识别工具，该工具将通过互联网和智能手机应用程序访问。TPT-TCN还将开发和实施以自然历史馆藏数据为重点的本科教学模块。这些模块将分发给美国各地的学术机构，并在网上提供。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。

Arthropod parasites (specifically, insects and their relatives) are responsible for economically critical issues in human health, wildlife conservation, and livestock productivity. Because natural history collections are permanent repositories for past and present parasite specimens, these collections and their data can help address these significant societal challenges in human and animal health and safety. Natural history collections often contain specimens and ancillary materials that are completely unknown to the broader community, yet represent irreplaceable knowledge about organismal habitats, distributions, and parasite-host associations. Further, these collections yield information that can be used to model ecological processes and changes in species distributions, predict the future spread of human and animal disease, update taxonomy, and help identify under-represented parasite groups in urgent need of sampling and threatened parasite diversity in need of conservation. This project will provide digital records (i.e., specimen label data and images) of invaluable arthropod parasite collections to make research-ready baseline data accessible online, catalyzing new research and education initiatives. These newly digitized data will have immediate and long-lasting benefits for our understanding of organismal associations, biodiversity, and beyond.The Terrestrial Parasite Tracker Thematic Collection Network (TPT-TCN) will digitize over one million arthropod specimens representing species that are significant parasites and disease vectors of vertebrates in the United States. The TPT-TCN is a collaboration among 26 research collections, and includes vertebrate and invertebrate taxonomists and curators, epidemiologists, ecologists, data-scientists, and biodiversity informatics specialists. This Partners to Existing Networks (PEN) grant allows the Yale Peabody Museum to join the collaboration, and digitize specimens that fill critical gaps in geographic and taxonomic coverage in the existing TPT-TCN. This project will integrate arthropod data with millions of vertebrate host records with vector and disease monitoring data shared by state and federal agency collaborators, creating a novel foundation for integrative, long-term research. It will also empower ongoing citizen science and public awareness campaigns with tools for understanding distribution changes of arthropod vectors and associated diseases due to environmental change and global movement. Educational initiatives include partnering with natural history museums to educate the public about parasites via science-focused lectures, exhibits, summer youth programs, informal presentations, and developing new online educational resources for teachers in underserved communities. All specimen images generated by this project will be shared with iDigBio.org and used in developing a rapid parasite identification tool, which will be accessible over the internet and smartphone apps. The TPT-TCN will also develop and implement undergraduate teaching modules focused on data held in natural history collections. These modules will be disseminated to academic institutions across the United States and made available online.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.