CSBR: Transfer of Ownership: Proposal to salvage, integrate and house the LFCC herbarium at George Mason University.

这项研究将挽救和恢复对了解美国东南部植物区系至关重要的生物研究收藏，使研究人员能够广泛获取这一收藏的数据，并吸引下一代生物多样性科学家。这2万份标本收藏名为洛德·费尔法克斯社区学院植物标本馆(LFCC)，深入记录了美国历史上采集不足的维管植物物种，即弗吉尼亚州西北部的蓝岭地理省。2019年，费尔法克斯勋爵社区学院向乔治梅森大学植物标本馆(GMUF)捐赠了LFCC，为后代保护藏品。LFCC包含许多高质量的标本，代表了新发现的县和州记录，这些记录扩展了弗吉尼亚州植物群地图集和弗吉尼亚州植物群地图集。这些信息对于了解美国东南部植物区系的生态和演化，以及管理美国生物多样性热点之一的自然资源至关重要，该热点地区因人类改造而承受着越来越大的压力。这项研究将确保LFCC得到它迫切需要的维修和现代管理，以便充分利用它作为研究基础设施。LFCC和GMUF的结合将创建弗吉尼亚州第三大植物标本馆。在可预见的未来，这些重要研究材料的共存将增加它们对弗吉尼亚州和美国东南部的生物多样性和生态学研究的影响。该研究项目将使用高效的工作流程来挽救LFCC及其详细的收藏笔记本，将这些数据数字化，与科学界和广大公众共享，并教育学生自然历史收藏在科学研究中的重要性。LFCC标本将在存档条件下与GMUF的标本一起进行修复、注释和物理归档。LFCC标本的高分辨率图像及其标签元数据将通过SERNEC TCN Symbiota LFCC门户网站和iDigBio公开传播。为了扩大这一研究资源的影响，LFCC收藏笔记本也将被数字化，并与标本记录联系起来。来自代表性不足群体的本科生和一名研究生将在为期两年的项目期间接受策展助理培训。项目人员将开发一个使用LFCC标本的教学模块，其目标是培养本科生对基于收藏的研究和扩展标本概念的意识。计划开展多项外联活动，利用已建立的弗吉尼亚植物标本馆标签转录项目，通过自然笔记在线社区科学平台吸引更广泛的大学社区和公众参与。计划为学术和非学术观众举办一系列关于该项目成果的公开演讲和文章。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research will salvage and restore a biological research collection critical to understanding the southeastern US flora, make data of this collection widely accessible to researchers, and engage the next-generation of biodiversity scientists. The 20,000 specimen collection, the Lord Fairfax Community College herbarium (LFCC), deeply documents vascular plant species from a historically under-collected US region, the Blue Ridge physiographic province of northwestern Virginia. In 2019, Lord Fairfax Community College donated LFCC to the George Mason University herbarium (GMUF) to safeguard the collection for posterity. LFCC contains numerous high-quality specimens that represent newly discovered county- and state records that expand the Atlas of the Virginia Flora and the Flora of Virginia. Such information is essential for understanding the ecology and evolution of the southeastern US flora and for managing natural resources in one of the nation’s biodiversity hotspots, which is under increasing strain from human modification. This research will ensure that LFCC receives the repair and modern curation it desperately needs in order to be fully utilized as research infrastructure. The combination of LFCC and GMUF will create the third-largest herbarium in Virginia. The co-location of these significant research materials will increase their impact on biodiversity and ecological studies in Virginia and the southeastern US for the foreseeable future. The research project will use an efficient workflow to salvage LFCC and its detailed collection notebooks, digitize these data to share with the scientific community and the public at large, and educate students about the importance of natural history collections in scientific research. LFCC specimens will be repaired, annotated, and physically filed with those of GMUF under archival conditions. High-resolution images of LFCC specimens and their label metadata will be disseminated publicly through the SERNEC TCN Symbiota LFCC portal and iDigBio. In order to extend the impact of this research resource, the LFCC collection notebooks will also be digitized and linked to specimen records. Undergraduate students from underrepresented groups and one graduate student will be trained as curatorial assistants over the two-year project period. Project personnel will develop an educational module using LFCC specimens, whose goals are to develop undergraduate students’ awareness of collections’-based research and the extended specimen concept. Multiple outreach events are planned that will engage the broader university community and the public through the Notes from Nature online community science platform using the established Plants of Virginia herbarium label transcription project. A series of public presentations and articles about the results of the project are planned for academic and non-academic audiences.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.