CSBR: Living Stocks: Database upgrade, digitization, and increasing accessibility of the Atlanta Botanical Garden Plant Collections

40多年来，亚特兰大植物园在植物科学研究、教育和保护方面一直处于领先地位。这些藏品收藏了来自25,335份遗传独特材料的106,028株植物，分别代表276个植物科和1,800多个属的12,096个分类群(种、亚种和变种)。最值得注意的是，ABG保存着美国最多样化的兰花收藏，有2328个分类群。与这些不同的植物采集有关的数据目前存储在内部数据库中，公众或研究人员无法访问。该项目的重点是将数据存储升级到具有公共接口的现代商业数据库，允许游客、研究人员、自然资源保护者和教育工作者远程或在花园中搜索ABG植物收藏。该项目将使亚特兰大植物园的植物收藏向公众开放，用于研究、教育和保护。植物园在基础植物研究中发挥着关键作用，它以非常低的成本向研究人员提供从大量活植物收藏中新收集的植物材料。此外，高技能的园艺师全职维护和保存收藏品。亚特兰大植物园的植物收藏已经被用于NSF资助的项目和许多其他研究项目，包括研究生研究，以及保护项目。为了提高研究收集的可见性和利用率，该项目将把现有的工厂记录数据库迁移到一个更新的平台，该平台将与外部数据库连接，使收集的数据可以公开搜索。优先植物收藏品将被数字化，永久种植的优先收藏品将绘制地图。研究请求将通过创建谷歌表格来简化。这将使收集信息能够通过与专业植物学会的接触和在花园的社交媒体页面上与更大的研究社区共享。我们预计收藏品的利用率将显著增加，从而允许对收藏品中的植物进行创造性和有影响力的研究。在展示藏品的公共活动期间，将推广公共数据库界面，以鼓励参观者在参观园地之前、期间和之后以数字方式探索藏品。最后，本科生和高中生将被整合到数字化项目中，学习植物形态和地理信息系统制图，这些都是有用的和可移植的技能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Atlanta Botanical Garden (ABG) has served as a leader in plant science research, education, and conservation for more than four decades. These collections house 106,028 individual plants from 25,335 genetically unique accessions representing 12,096 taxa (species, subspecies, and varieties) from 276 plant families and over 1,800 genera. Most notably, ABG maintains the most diverse living collection of orchids in the United States with 2,328 taxa. Data related to these diverse plant collections are currently stored in an in-house database and are not accessible by the public or researchers. The focus of this project is to upgrade data storage to a modern commercial database with a public interface allowing visitors, researchers, conservationists, and educators to search ABG plant collections remotely or while at the Garden. This project will make plant collections at the Atlanta Botanical Garden publicly accessible for research, education, and conservation.Botanic gardens play a critical role in basic plant research by providing freshly collected plant material to researchers from extensive living plant collections for very low cost. In addition, a highly skilled staff of horticulturists maintain and preserve collections full-time. The Plant Collections at the Atlanta Botanical Garden have been used in NSF funded projects and many other research projects, including graduate student research, and for conservation projects. To increase visibility and use of the collections for research, this project will migrate the existing Plant Records database to an updated platform which will be connected to external databases, making collection data publicly searchable. Priority plant collections will be digitized and permanently planted priority collections will be mapped. Research requests will be streamlined via creation of a Google Form. This will enable collection information to be shared with the greater research community via outreach to professional botanical societies and on the Garden’s social media pages. We expect utilization of the collection to significantly increase, allowing creative and impactful research to be undertaken with plants in the collections. During public events showcasing the collections the public database interface will be promoted to encourage visitors to explore collections digitally both before, during, and after their visit to the Garden. Finally, undergraduate and high school students will be integrated into the digitization project, learning plant morphology and GIS mapping, which are useful and transferable skills.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.