Data Without Borders ICE 2016: Difference between revisions

| Acquisition, management, and analysis of historical and contemporary data to discern legacy effects of ecological extinction on insect biodiversity

::Numerous economically important tree species are threatened with declines due to exotic pests or pathogens. Perhaps the best-known example is American chestnut, a culturally and ecologically important tree decimated by chestnut blight. The loss of American chestnut from the canopy in eastern deciduous forest had profound impacts on vertebrate food webs, but the effects of chestnut loss on insect biodiversity and trophic interactions remain largely unknown. The development of blight-resistant chestnut creates an unparalleled opportunity to study the effects of foundation species loss, and potential recovery, on insect food webs. Our objective is to generate and analyze historical and contemporary insect food webs for chestnut and oak focusing on herbivores and their natural enemies. We constructed a data matrix containing 1,049 records of individual insects associated with chestnut based on information and specimens from the Hopkins Notes and Records System housed at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. These records constitute 221 species, including herbivores and their natural enemies. In order to discern the extent of novel data derived from the Hopkins System, we surveyed the primary literature to construct a data matrix containing 259 records of individual insects representing 157 species associated with chestnut. Additionally, we placed three insect flight traps each in the canopies of American chestnut, Chinese chestnut, and red oak trees to discern the contemporary insect fauna sympatric with those tree species. This effort yielded 75, 72, and 75 samples, respectively, for the aforementioned trees with target insects exceeding 100,000 specimens. Lastly, we hand collected 279 lepidopteran larvae to discern host-natural enemy associations on the target tree species. This presentation focuses on three areas: (1) how multitrophic data derived from natural history collections, the literature, and contemporary sampling are gathered and managed; (2) questions data gathered from those sources might address using this research as an example; and (3) how products from this research are disseminated.

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| Digitizing natural history collection specimens to investigate the future of species conservation

::Natural history collections (NHC) are rich repositories that document our planet's ecosystems, both past and present. Within the past decade there has been a surge to revisit NHCs to digitize specimens. Digitized NHCs can provide a wealth of insight on the ecology, abundance, and distribution of rare and common bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila). Studies on the historic abundance and distribution of bee species in particular have revealed alarming trends of population decline and local extinctions. Given the rapidly growing digital vault of bee data across multiple institutions, we will discuss how NHCs can inform the conservation of bees. However, we will also highlight some of limitations and biases of digital specimen data that must be considered when characterizing bee communities.  

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| Harnessing specimen data to visualize and investigate the ecology of species

::The process of digitizing specimen data can be done via a collecting event approach in order to maximize efficiency and accuracy. The collecting event approach involves attaching specimen data to previously digitized collecting event information, rather than attaching data to specimens. Using source materials such as field notes allows for less transcription errors and increases the precision with which localities can be georeferenced. In addition, this approach distinguishes between true absences and collecting artifacts, allowing a researcher to investigate why specimens occur at certain sites and are absent at others. Several recent digitization projects using this method will be examined, including the North American Macroinvertebrate Database and CReAC. Specimen data can be digitized using source materials such as field notes in order to increase the accuracy of the data and the efficiency of the digitization workflow.  

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| Arthropod collection digitization and networking across the New World

::There are well over 500 million arthropod specimens housed in approximately 1,000 collections worldwide.  Although reliable estimates are not available, it is likely that less than 5% of these specimens have been digitized and the current rate of digitization is probably not even adequate to keep pace with the acquisition of new specimens.  If we hope to achieve the goal of digitizing all specimens by 2050 we need to develop global networks that can overcome many of the constraints we face today. We will review the current holdings of arthropods in collections across continents and digitization efforts from data providers to aggregators. More specifically, we will assess the type of collaborations needed and the technological and social network areas that are developing to obtain the goal of full digitization.

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