Research Spotlight: October 2020
Unlocking the secret histories of bats in natural history collections
Article by: Caitlin J.Campbell, Graduate Assistant at the UF Department of Biology
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Taking the Pulse of Natural History Collections During COVID-19: Where are we now?
In mid-September, iDigBio coordinated a three-day webinar series focused on how the natural history collections community is currently handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
October 2020 Biodiversity Spotlight
Contributed by Cat Chapman
Have you ever been out on a walk through nature, or even in your neighborhood, and saw what appeared to be a clump of tiny leaves, debris, or lichen… only to see it move?
Upon closer inspection of this mysteriously motile clump of detritus, you may see that it has tiny little legs underneath it. It’s alive!
Meet the trash bug!
Webinar Alert: Genetic Considerations for Native Planting and Restoration
California is home to some of the most exceptional and threatened plant diversity in the world. In an attempt to protect and restore California natives from the devastating effects of environmental change and human development, major initiatives have been implemented to increase the use of California native plants everywhere from home gardens to industrial-scale plantings for landscaping and restoration. However, when executed without the necessary considerations, these efforts have the potential to further endanger our flora by disrupting the genetic integrity of unique species, ecotypes, and populations.
In order to address this issue, The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) is hosting a virtual, day-long symposium on October 16th, 2020 entitled Protecting California’s Diversity: Genetic Considerations for Native Planting and Restoration with the goal of bringing together leading experts in the biology, conservation, and management of the California flora to review the best available science on the genetic risks associated with moving native plants and explore innovative approaches for addressing these issues from a management perspective. Register at this link!
The symposium will have an opening and closing plenary and four main sessions:
Session 1: Local Variation and Cryptic Diversity
Session 2: Moving and Mixing
Session 3: Considerations for Rare Plants (concurrent)
Session 4: Scaling Up: Seed Collection, Increase and Transfer (concurrent)
Letter of Intent for Collaboration in a Global and Open Process for Interoperable Enriched Specimen Information Models
CONVERGING DIGITAL SPECIMENS AND EXTENDED SPECIMENS TOWARDS A GLOBAL SPECIFICATION
INHS among collaborators on NSF-funded project to digitize bryophytes and lichens
Illinois Natural History Survey mycologist Andrew Miller and colleagues from 25 institutions across the U.S. received a $3.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to image and digitize associated metadata for close to 1.2 million lichen and bryophyte specimens housed in their collections. Among the extensive holdings of the INHS Herbarium are more than 35,000 bryophyte specimens and more than 23,000 lichens from around the world.
2020 TCN and PEN Awards
Welcome to all of the newly NSF-funded Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC) projects. This year we have three new Thematic Collections Networks (TCNs) and 13 Partners to Existing Networks (PENs) joining the community.
2020 TCNs:
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