Digitization PEN: Invertebrates from the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains: University of Colorado Museum of Natural History expands taxonomic and geographic coverage of InvertEBase

北美西部的大平原和落基山脉生态系统支持着独特的、尚未得到充分研究的无脊椎动物生物多样性。这些脆弱的生态系统正受到该地区前所未有的人口增长的影响，导致土地利用的变化，如基础设施和娱乐活动的增加。这些生态系统也受到北美西部变暖和干燥趋势的威胁，这导致野火风险上升。为了减轻这些变化的负面影响，需要了解无脊椎动物物种分布和生物多样性，以帮助制定明智的土地管理和保护政策。科罗拉多大学自然历史博物馆（UCM）无脊椎动物收藏记录了120年来科罗拉多落基山脉和大平原生态系统的变化。该项目将允许研究人员、教育工作者和公众通过数字化并将收集的数据上传到包括InvertEBase和iDigBio在内的基于web的门户网站，免费访问该集合中的标本数据。这些标本数据将包括北美非昆虫无脊椎动物物种的分类和地理覆盖范围，重点是蜗牛、小龙虾、海绵、水蛭和蚯蚓。科罗拉多大学的本科生和研究生将接受数据管理、博物馆管理和最佳实践方面的培训。该项目将为中学夏令营项目开发活动。活动将旨在提高科学素养，并将主要服务于STEM中历史上代表性不足的群体。通过与现有的专题收藏网络（TCN） InvertEBase合作，该项目将为研究人员、土地管理人员和公众扩展有关北美无脊椎动物物种地理范围和生物多样性的现有数据。科罗拉多落基山脉和大平原地区超过43000种无脊椎动物的UCM标本记录将首次实现电子化。将采集和共享1000多个样本的高分辨率堆叠数字图像，其中包括277个主要类型标本。收集的大约150个历史显微镜载玻片将用扫描显微镜成像，从各种分类群中产生具有重要诊断特征的研究质量图像。最后，将对来自落基山脉和大平原的8000个腹足蜗牛记录进行地理参考，以促进科学和公众对这一群体分布的了解，以及海拔和气候如何影响它们的分布。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。

The Great Plains and Rocky Mountains ecosystems in Western North America support unique and understudied invertebrate biodiversity. These delicate ecosystems are being impacted by unprecedented human population increases in the region, resulting in changes to land use such as increased infrastructure and recreational activities. These ecosystems are also in peril from the warming and drying trend in Western North America, which is causing a rise in wild fire risk. To mitigate the negative impacts of these changes, awareness of invertebrate species distributions and biodiversity is needed to help make informed land management and conservation policies. The University of Colorado Museum of Natural History (UCM) Invertebrate Zoology collection documents 120 years of Colorado Rocky Mountains and Great Plains changing ecosystem. This project will allow researchers, educators and the public to freely access specimen data from this collection, through digitization and upload of the collection’s data to web based portals including InvertEBase and iDigBio. These specimen data will include taxonomic and geographic coverage of North American non-insect invertebrate species, with an emphasis on snails, crayfish, sponges, leeches and earthworms. Undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Colorado will be trained in data management, museum curation and best practices. The project will develop activities for a middle school summer camp program. Activities will be designed to promote scientific literacy, and will mainly serve historically underrepresented groups in STEM. By partnering with the existing Thematic Collections Network (TCN) InvertEBase, this project will extend the available data for invertebrate species’ geographic ranges and biodiversity in North America for researchers, land managers and the general public. For the first time, UCM specimen records will be electronically accessible for over 43,000 lots of invertebrates from the Colorado Rocky Mountains and Great Plains. High resolution stacked digital images of over 1,000 exemplar specimens will be taken and shared, and will include 277 primary type specimens. Approximately 150 historic microscope slides from the collection will be imaged with a scanning microscope to produce research quality images of important diagnostic features from a variety of taxa. Finally, 8,000 gastropod snail records from the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains will be georeferenced to allow advancement in scientific and public understanding of the distribution of this group, and how elevation and climate influence their distribution.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.