Building an agenda and community of biodiversity data science

人类活动正在迅速改变环境，包括栖息地丧失、过度捕捞和气候变化，以及许多其他变化驱动因素。管理和适应这些广泛的变化，既需要强有力的生态变化模式的科学证据，也需要在全球范围内跟踪这些变化的手段，以及与物种、它们生活的环境和依赖它们的人类社区有关的决议。这些知识对于加强对未来变化的预测、能够规划和确定保护和恢复干预措施的优先次序以及监测这类行动的有效性至关重要。目前，这种类型的数据、信息和知识来自各种各样的传感器和来源，具有不同的数据格式和规模，在很大程度上独立于不同的问题。生物多样性监测数据的复盖面有很大差距，这将使人们能够发现变化，并有助于以数据科学的方法获得相关信息。对生物多样性格局和变化的综合理解很少在规模上实现。该项目将帮助整合这些知识；制定具有明确优先事项的研究议程，为未来的技术投资提供信息，以监测生物多样性、管理决策和保护行动；并帮助扩大和支持负责推进这项工作的科学界。这些研讨会将特别及时地建设能力，以满足发现和了解生命多样性的广泛需求。该项目将召开一系列研讨会，评估生物多样性研究、监测和保护的优势、劣势、机会和下一步的观测和数据整合。研讨会将吸引不同学科、职业阶段和研究生态系统的专家团队。通过讨论、地平线扫描、综合和必要时的分析，研讨会小组将制定生物多样性监测和保护的框架和一套优先事项，以帮助制定未来十年的研究议程。该项目将召集解决生物多样性危机所需的科学和技术领域的领导人。研讨会产品将包括生物多样性保护和恢复数据科学需求的词汇表和框架、生物多样性数据和工具目录以及报告研讨会调查结果的白皮书。研讨会的联系还将形成未来合作的种子，并建立更广泛的生物多样性数据科学家网络。这一奖项反映了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。

Human activities are rapidly altering the environment, through habitat loss to overharvest and climate change, among many other drivers of change. Managing for and adapting to these widespread changes requires both robust scientific evidence of the patterns of ecological change and the means to track these changes globally and at the resolution relevant to species, the environments in which they live, and human communities that depend on them. Such knowledge will be crucial to enhancing predictions of future change, enabling planning and prioritization of conservation and restoration interventions, and monitoring the effectiveness of such actions. Currently this type of data, information and knowledge is generated from a wide diversity of sensors and sources, with varying data formats and scales, driven largely independently by diverse questions. There are large gaps in the coverage of biodiversity monitoring data that would enable detection of change and that would facilitate data science approaches to deriving relevant information. Integrative understanding of biodiversity patterns and change is rarely realized at scale. This project will help coalesce this knowledge; set a research agenda with clear priorities that inform future investments in technology to monitor biodiversity, management decisions, and conservation actions; and help expand and support the scientific community tasked with advancing this work. The workshops will be particularly timely in building capacity to address the widespread need to discover and understand the diversity of life.The project will convene a series of workshops that will assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and big next steps for observations and data integration for biodiversity research, monitoring, and conservation for organisms and ecosystems. Workshops will engage a diverse team of experts across disciplines, career stages, and ecosystems of study. Through discussions, horizon scanning, synthesis and, where needed, analyses, the workshop teams will develop a framework and set of priorities for biodiversity monitoring and conservation that help set a research agenda for the coming decade. The project will convene leaders in the science and technology needed to address the biodiversity crisis. Workshop products will include a vocabulary and framework for biodiversity conservation and restoration data science needs, a catalog of biodiversity data and tools, and a white paper reporting workshop findings. Workshop connections will also form the seeds of future collaborations and build a broader network of biodiversity data scientists.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.