Designing a state-of-the-art taxonomic research workstation integrating digital and physical resources

命名、分类和鉴定物种的科学，即分类学，绝对是建立生物多样性科学研究计划的基础。如果不知道有机体是什么，也不能够明确地提到它，科学家就无法在粮食安全、医学研究和应对气候变化的能力方面取得所需的科学进展。然而，随着我们知识的发展，分类学变得越来越复杂。从1753年到2016年，已知植物物种的数量从6000种增加到39万种，平均每年增加近1500种。2015年发现了2000多个新物种。全球植物标本馆的标本数量也有所增加。现在世界上有3000多家植物标本馆，收藏着近4亿个标本。因此，现在任何从事工作的分类学家都有一项庞大而昂贵的任务，那就是收集他们正在研究的物种的信息，包括到不同的植物标本馆去，或者在借出标本时冒着标本损坏或丢失的风险。约有10-20%的开花植物物种仍有待描述，据估计，其中约有一半已被收集并保存在世界各地的植物标本馆。植物标本室的收藏对分类学和生物多样性的研究至关重要，因此我们需要找到解决方案，使信息更广泛地可获取，以加快我们所面临的挑战的研究进程。在许多情况下，带有电子采集数据的标本的高分辨率数字图像将使研究人员能够进行许多基础工作。通过将植物标本馆的藏品数字化，我们可以向世界各地的分类学家提供这些资源。然而，数字化只是这个过程的一个步骤。我们还需要创造一个环境，使分类学研究人员能够将所有的数字资源与物理标本结合起来，使用工具和设备使处理大量复杂信息变得容易和直观。这种工作站在诸如《犯罪现场调查》之类的电视节目中最为著名，但如果我们想要有机会及时为全球生物多样性提供分类基础，以帮助其生存，我们需要在我们的研究所实施技术和数据管理。

The science of naming, classifying and identifying species, known as taxonomy, is absolutely fundamental to building scientific research programmes on biodiversity. Without knowing what an organism is and being able to refer to it unambiguously, scientists would be unable to make the scientific progress required in food security, medical research and resilience to climate change. However, as we develop more knowledge the science of taxonomy becomes increasingly complex. Between 1753 and 2016, the number of known plant species has risen from 6,000 to 390,000, an average increase of nearly 1,500 species each year. Over 2,000 new species were discovered in 2015. The number of specimens held globally in herbaria has also increased. There are now over 3,000 herbaria around the world holding nearly 400 million specimens. Any taxonomist working now therefore has an immense and expensive task of gathering information about the species that they are studying, involving travel to various herbaria or the risk of damage or loss to specimens if they are sent on loan. With about 10-20% of flowering plant species still to be described, it is estimated that about half of these have already been collected and are held in herbaria around the world.Herbarium collections are vital to taxonomy and biodiversity research so we need to find solutions to making the information more widely accessible in order to speed up the research process given the scale of the challenges we are facing. In many cases, a high resolution digital image of the specimen with electronic collection data attached will enable researchers to carry out much of the basic work. By digitising the herbarium collections we can provide these resources to taxonomists in every part of the world. However, digitisation is only one step of the process. We also need to create an environment where taxonomic researchers can bring all the digital resources together with the physical specimens, using tools and equipment to make working with massive amounts of complex information easy and intuitive. This kind of workstation is most famously seen in television programmes such as CSI, but we need to be implementing the technology and data management in our institutes if we are going to have a chance to produce the taxonomic basis for global biodiversity in time to help its survival.