February 19, 2019
Dear Colleague:
The Systematics Collections Committee of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists has updated the recommendations on herbarium practices and ethics that were previously published by the Society in 1958 and 1973. The recommendations and considerations presented here are intended to provide a set of guidelines for proper management and care of herbarium collections.
Read the recommendations at https://doi.org/10.1600/036364419X697840
Evolutionary researcher and administrator to take over in Copenhagen on 15 March
Are you an open data champion? The 2019 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge will award up to €34,000 in prizes to the most innovative entries that leverage biodiversity data and tools from the GBIF network to advance open science.
Between 23 January and 1 August, individuals and teams can prepare tools and techniques that improve the access, usefulness and quality of open biodiversity data and submit them to this open-ended incentive competition.
On behalf of the network of national Participants, the GBIF Secretariat is pleased to invite nominations for the 2019 Young Researchers Award.
This annual programme aims to foster innovative research and discovery in biodiversity informatics by graduate students whose master’s and doctoral studies rely on GBIF-mediated data.
The National Center for Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (iDigBio), centered at the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), is developing an integrated national infrastructure for digitization of biodiversity collections housed in U.S. institutions. The resource is providing access to information critical to scientific research and education, including that designed to understand biodiversity and societal consequences of global change and other environmental issues.
University of Florida plant biologist Pamela Soltis has been appointed to a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committee investigating the value and future of biological collections.
Theresa Baker
It has been more than 50 years since scientists completed a comprehensive survey of Alaska’s plants. Now the University of Alaska Museum of the North will use a nearly $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to create an innovative online database of Alaska’s plants.
Curator Steffi Ickert-Bond credited the successful award to the museum’s curator emeritus, David Murray, and others who built the herbarium’s collections of 270,000 specimens and their digital metadata.
The openVertebrate (oVert) Thematic Collection Network (TCN)—funded by the US National Science Foundation—is seeking a postdoctoral scientist that will work with the oVert team to develop and fine-tune protocols for imaging using x-ray computed tomography (CT-scanning) and workflows for sharing digital anatomical datasets using on-line depositories. A portion of this position will be dedicated to project management and grant administration.
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) recently received funding from NSF's INCLUDES program to host a conference examining diversity and inclusion within data science professions with an emphasis on the environmental sciences (Boulder, CO, April 2-4, 2019). Funding is provided to support travel and conference expenses for selected applicants.
After twelve long months of preparations, the Caribbean Biodiversity Information Portal has finally been launched.
The National Science Foundation awarded Northern Arizona University and Utah State University a three-year, $700,000 collaborative grant to improve the usability and accessibility of Symbiota, an online platform that allows natural history collections to share data, including images, for millions of biological specimens. Currently, Symbiota includes data for more than 37 million specimens from almost 800 collections.
Dr John La Salle, an affable and charismatic scientist who paved the way in digital innovations, died unexpectedly on Sunday, May 27, aged 67.
June 12, 2018
GBIF is seeking a dynamic, visionary leader with international standing to fill the post of Executive Secretary and guide GBIF into the next phase of its development.
Contributed by Ana Dal Molin, INCT-Hympar/CAPES postdoctoral fellow at Laboratório de Biodiversidade de Insetos, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo. All images from Ana Dal Molin
from Deb Paul at iDigBio
The short version.
iDigBio is hiring a systems programmer at the ACIS lab in the Electrical Engineering department! Come join our 4 person team working on our data infrastructure and build out new systems around data quality, taxonomy, annotations, 3-D media, and linked open data.
This is a grant-funded position.
Applications *MUST* be submitted through the University of Florida jobs website:
http://explore.jobs.ufl.edu/cw/en-us/job/506274/systems-adminprogrammer-iii
iDigBio has partnered with the Biodiversity Collections Network in its annual survey of the collections and digitization communities. Community input helps both organizations better serve and advocate for collections and digitization.
Assistant Collections Manager (Full Time)
Chicago Academy of Sciences / Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
Position Overview:
The Helen Fellowship is a one-year residency for post-baccalaureate women to devote time immersed in computational scientific research and educational outreach at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City.
The UF Carpentries Club, Informatics Institute, Biodiversity Institute, and Marston Science Library are combining to offer a two day Software Carpentry Workshop, Monday-Tuesday, January 22-23, 2018, to help the UF community get started learning R and common software development tools such as the Unix shell, SQL, and Git. Need to learn some programming for a class?
The Global Genome Biodiversity Network is seeking feedback on the ease of use of the GGBN Data Portal. Please respond by January 23. surveymonkey.com/r/8DTBT65
Job Summary:
Position Summary
Cibraria cancellata – photo by Kim Fleming
The Florida Museum of Natural History recently released their 2014-2015 Annual Report that highlights the museum's research, outreach, and other achievements from the year. The report includes a two page spread on iDigBio which includes a summary of the project's outcomes, activites, and achievements from the past five years. The section can be found on pages 14 and 15 of the report.
Special Issue on Sustainability in Biobanking With guest editors Marianne Henderson, Daniel Simeon-Dubach, and Monique Albert.
From the Official Journal of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories.
The issue includes ten articles with free access through February 1, 2016.
