Research
Research Spotlight: February 2021
by: Vaughn Shirey, Michael Belitz, Vijay Barve, Rob Guralnick
February 2021 Biodiversity Spotlight
Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Weinell, University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum
Research Spotlight: November 2020
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
Using Digitized Herbarium Data in Research: A Virtual Botany 2020 Workshop
Scientist in the Spotlight: Diego Barroso

Research Spotlight: September 2020

Botany Students Study Effects of Climate Change — Using 100-Year-Old Plants
What can 120-year-old flower buds neatly pressed to paper teach you about climate change? As it turns out, a lot.
Nineteen botany students had the chance to dive into more than a century of California’s plant data this spring in an exploration of the nuances plant life using computer programming and statistical analyses.
Scientist in the Spotlight: Jennifer Zaspel

Scientist in the Spotlight
Research Spotlight: July 2020
Contributed by: Aaron Goodman, Graduate Student Department of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences.
Research Spotlight: June 2020
Article by: Zoliswa Nhleko, PhD candidate at the UF School of Natural Resources and Enviroment
Research Spotlight: April 2020
Contributed by Luis D. Verde Arregoitia.
Find him on Twitter @LuisDVerde or on his Website.
Research Spotlight: May 2019
Conservation Focus: New Insights for Conservation from Expansion of Physical‐Collection Digital Data
Libby Ellwood, Pam Soltis, and Mary Klein
Research Spotlight: April 2019
Climatic Niche Modeling for Beetleweed
(Galax urceolata, Diapensiaceae)
Contributed by: Shelly Gaynor
Save the Date: Methods, Protocols, and Analytical Tools for Specimen-based Research in the Biological Sciences
Research Spotlight: March 2019
Emerging frontiers in phenological research
Libby Ellwood, Katelin Pearson, and Gil Nelson
Research Spotlight: February 2019 (Phylogenetics)
Spatial Phylogenetics of Florida Vascular Plants: The Effects of Calibration and Uncertainty on Diversity Estimates
iDigBio at SPNHC 2019: Making the Case for Natural History Collections
The SPNHC 2019 theme: Making the Case for Natural History Collections offers everyone a chance to share the value of collections for society and science. iDigBio staff look forward to contributing to this story and visiting the Field Museum who are hosting this year's SPNHC meeting.
Some of the events iDigBio is organizing or participating in include:
Research Spotlight: November 2018
Augustus Fendler Herbarium Specimens: A Locality Improvement Project
A component of the Southern Rocky Mountain Flora Database Project
Lance J. Gloss and Timothy J. S. Whitfeld
Brown U. Herbarium (BRU)
Dec 2017 - May 2018
Introduction
Research Spotlight: October 2018
Metabolic rates, climate, and macroevolution: a case study using Neogene molluscs
Luke C. Strotz, Erin E. Saupe, Julien Kimmig and Bruce S. Lieberman
Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference
The Annual Conference
Research Spotlight: July 2018
Digital Coyote; an online archive of skulls
Contributed by: Osrica Mclean and Declan McCabe
How can you provide an authentic opportunity for undergraduate students to study geographical variation without hauling them to major metropolitan museums and arranging access to valuable specimens? This question started a slightly obsessive odyssey that began with a single coyote skull and now stands at 125 skulls….and counting.
Workshop Report: Developing an ontology for insect natural history data
Research Spotlight: February 2018
From the Tropics to the Drawer and Back: Digitized New World Swallowtail Butterfly Specimens Inform Biodiversity Patterns
Contributed by: Hannah Owens from the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida
ICEDIG: Innovation and consolidation for large scale digitization of natural heritage
Imagine an ADBC-type program for the EU and related countries with their very own version of Thematic Collection Networks and an iDigBio-like hub. This very idea is coming soon with the monicker: DiSSCo -- Distributed System of Scientific Collections. How will it be structured? What human resources will be needed? What about the cyberinfrastructure? What experiences and lessons learned can iDigBio share to benefit DiSSCo?
Research Spotlight: January 2018
New Insights from Old Herbarium Specimens
Contributed by Richard B. Primack (Boston University; primack@bu.edu) and Charles G. Willis (Harvard University; charleswillis@fas.harvard.edu)
“Live in each season as it passes - breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit & resign yourself to the influence of each.” Thoreau, in his Journal. 1835
Big Data and Bugs: How Massively Collected Biodiversity Data Are Changing the Way We Do Insect Science - Symposium at EntSoc 2017
by Deborah Paul, Ana Dal Molin, and Pam Soltis, with contributions from all symposium presenters. Symposium from iDigBio and Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Brazil
Natural History Collections as Primary Data in Ecological Research
Prologue: 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.