ICER and Conservation at ADBC Summit VII: Difference between revisions

*ICER at iDigBio Summit VII (2-3 November 2017) (this document)

*[[ADBC_Summit_2017 | ADBC Summit VII]]

** Many of us in the ADBC world look for ways to expand the community of users of museum collections data and to increase the ways in which collections data are used. Recently, in Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TrEE), an opinion piece was published by Scott A. Morrison, et al. titled "Equipping the 22nd-Century Historical Ecologist." In this paper, Morrison, et al. envision gathering ecological data in a way that provides future researchers a lens to best understand today’s ecological communities—a proposition that requires a more integrated relationship between museum collections/collectors and ecologists. At iDigBio, we have a working group Integrating Collections and Ecological Research (ICER) that is exploring ways to strengthen the ties between these two groups. ICER reached out to working group member Christina (Chrissy) Alba, Research Associate at the Denver Botanic Gardens (DBG). Chrissy looped in the DBG reading group, which includes both collections and ecological staff, to discuss the paper, and she worked with Database Associate Rick Levy to write a response to the Morrison, et al. opinion piece. We present their response [https://www.idigbio.org/content/natural-history-collections-primary-data-ecological-research here], and look forward to community feedback.