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The Key to the Cabinets: Building and Sustaining a Research Database for a Global Biodiversity Hotspot: Difference between revisions
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The Key to the Cabinets: Building and Sustaining a Research Database for a Global Biodiversity Hotspot (view source)
Revision as of 10:54, 23 August 2017
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=== Other project documentation === | === Other project documentation === | ||
== PENs == | == PENs == | ||
=== Digitization PEN: Integrating the herbaria of peninsular Florida, a biodiversity hotspot of endemism, rarity, and richness === | |||
This Partner to Existing Network (PEN) will join the South East Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (SERNEC) Thematic Collection Network (TCN), a collaboration that is digitizing and making data accessible for over 3 million plant specimens. These specimens document over 8,000 species of native or naturalized vascular plants in this region, a biodiversity hotspot. This project will extend the collaboration to add a quarter million herbarium specimen data records to SERNEC from the herbaria of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (FTG) and the University of South Florida (USF), which together document over 4,000 plant species in the southeastern USA. As biodiversity is inextricably linked to productivity, ecosystem services, and human health, the addition of these two herbaria will fill a crucial gap in the knowledge base, maximizing the data available to address environmental change and resource management among a growing human population. | |||
The most important botanical collections of the FTG and USF herbaria are the 125,000 specimens from central and south Florida, more than found in any other herbarium. Unique features of this region include the Lakes Wales Ridge, Everglades, Atlantic Coastal Ridge, and Florida Keys, all of which have experienced significant habitat loss and degradation. Among the 8,000 native or naturalized vascular plant species in the southeastern USA, about 1,200 are known only from central and south Florida. This number includes about 290 threatened or endangered, 130 endemic, 570 non-native, and 90 invasive plant species. The plant diversity of this region is of primary importance to the management of its resources, including air, water, and soil quality, agriculture, mining, construction, land reclamation, recreation, and biodiversity conservation. By engaging volunteers and high school and undergraduate students, FTG and USF will increase access to their vast collection of herbarium specimens, bolstering scientific and educational knowledge of plants in the region. These data are shared as a public resource through SERNEC and iDigBio (www.idigbio.org). | |||
''Project Sponsor'': | |||
University of South Florida [http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1701683 (NSF Award 1701683)] | |||
''Principal Investigators (PIs):'' | |||
[mailto:afranck@mail.usf.edu Alan Franck], Brett Jestrow | |||