Scientist in the Spotlight: Jennifer Zaspel
Research
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.
Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Digitized Collections Data
Contributed by Pam Soltis and Adania Flemming
iDigBio supported five students in its inaugural mini-REU site program during summer, 2017. This program, modeled on NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program, was developed to provide undergraduates with research opportunities using digitized natural history collection data.
Research Spotlight: September 2017
Using convolutional neural networks to automate tropical pollen counts and identification
Contributed by: Derek Haselhorst, Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois
Research Spotlight: August 2017
Collections Data Reveals Complex Plant/Pollinator Network, Inspires Research
Contributed by Dylan Ricke and Annika Rose-Person, Archbold Biological Station
Shenzhen goes green for IBC 2017
Developing a Synthesis of Systematic Resources (SYNTHESYS)
contributors: Deborah Paul, Vince Smith, Laurence Livermore
Research Spotlight: June 2017
Hole-y Plant Databases! Understanding and Preventing Biases in Botanical Big Data
Research Spotlight: July 2017
Data Curation Profiles—An Information Science framework for data managers
-- Contributed by Wade Bishop and Kelly White, The University of Tennessee, School of Information Sciences
Data curation profiles (DCPs). DCPs give scientists, researchers, and data managers an enhanced and detailed understanding of the “data story” from the perspective of the data. A DCP “captures requirements for specific data generated by researchers articulated by the researchers themselves” (http://datacurationprofiles.org/purpose) and provides data managers a framework to acquire an in-depth understanding of the particular data curation needs of producers and their intended users. Read more about Wade & Kelly's work with the iDigBio community here.
Research Spotlight: May 2017
Using specimens to create a pollinator community assessment of restored tallgrass prairie
-- Contributed by Heather Cray, Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo
Animal species need space – a place to forage, grow, and nest. This is especially true of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), whose caterpillars generally feed exclusively on one genus or species of host plant (think monarch butterflies and milkweed). For the 4,000 or so species of native bees in North America, required forage plants and nesting sites vary from common suburban offerings (e.g., patches of bare ground, maples, willows, clover), to specialized needs which are ecosystem-specific. Enter tallgrass prairie – a grassland ecosystem with high forb diversity that supports a dizzying array of invertebrate life. As our continent’s most endangered ecosystem, the 1-3% that remains is a mix of remnant and restored habitat, and restoration efforts-- both large and small, are ongoing. Read more here.
Research Spotlight: April 2017
Publishing a new species? Add the unique identifiers!
Citation of voucher specimen data can be problematic. There are currently no formulated rules for how to cite a digital specimen in a publication, but data aggregators such iDigBio, GBIF, and VertNet offer suggestions. Pensoft is leading the way by providing efficient methods for publishing digital data (see their blog post here) - but it still rarely happens, or occurs in a non-systematic way. Recently, with my colleague Dr George Argent, a new species of Rhododendron from Mount Yule, Papua New Guinea was published in the February 2017 online volume of the Edinburgh Journal of Botany. The digital data for the isotype housed at the Bishop Museum is available through iDigBio and we wanted to cite this information in the published paper. As a test case, we added the Darwin Core occurrenceID and a link to the iDigBio record page. Read more here.
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