Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Reveals Biggest Data on Biodiversity

Page, Lawrence M.; MacFadden, Bruce J.; Fortes, J.A.B.; Soltis, Pamela S.; Riccardi, Greg

doi:10.1093/biosci/biv104

Cited by 173 publications

(134 citation statements)

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“…Study of specimens in NHCs provides access to verifiable data that can be examined and re-examined over time to validate research and provide additional insight into the living world (Page et al 2015, Prather et al 2004, Suarez and Tsutsui 2004. Use of specimens in science education is by no means new, and many NHCs maintain educational material specifically for use in formal classes and workshops often related to the diversity of a particular taxonomic sub-discipline (e.g., botany, entomology, herpetology, etc.).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural History Collections: Teaching about Biodiversity Across Time, Space, and Digital Platforms

Monfils

Powers

Marshall

et al. 2017

Southeastern Naturalist

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-Natural history collections offer unique physical and virtual opportunities for formal and informal progressive learning. Collections are unique data in that they each represent a biological record at a single place and time that cannot be obtained by any other method. Collections-based experiences lead to an increased understanding of and substantive interaction with the living world. Global biological diversity and changes in that diversity are directly tracked through specimens in collections, regardless of whether changes are ancient or recent. We discuss how collections, specimens, and the data associated with them, can be critical components linking nature and scientific inquiry. Specimens are the basic tools for educating students and interested citizens through direct or virtual contact with the diversity of collections. Such interactions include instruction in a formal classroom setting, volunteering to gather and curate collections, and informal presentations at coffee shops. We emphasize how the recent surge in specimen-based digitization initiatives has resulted in unprecedented access to a wealth of biodiversity information and how this availability vastly expands the reach of natural history collections. The emergence of online databases enables scientists and the public to utilize the specimens and associated data contained in natural history collections to address global, regional, and local issues related to biodiversity in a way that was unachievable a decade ago.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural History Collections: Teaching about Biodiversity Across Time, Space, and Digital Platforms

Monfils

Powers

Marshall

et al. 2017

Southeastern Naturalist

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“…Accordingly, training future generations of biologists-as well as an informed public-will increasingly require understanding of the concepts, skills, and data needed to evaluate changes to biodiversity and the associated impacts on humans. Because natural history collections serve as vast, often untapped, repositories of knowledge regarding global biodiversity (Graham et al 2004;Page et al 2015;Ponder et al 2001;Pyke and Ehrlich 2010;Wen et al 2015), we believe that undergraduate learning experiences that capitalize upon these invaluable resources will be particularly effective in training students to aggregate, analyze, and interpret the biological data sets needed to address the challenges that Open Access *Correspondence: thammond@berkeley.edu 1 Museum of Vertebrate Zoology & Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article lie ahead. Here, we describe newly developed classroom exercises that make use of emerging biodiversity informatics resources-"big data"-obtained from museum specimens to provide authentic, inquiry-driven, placebased instruction in the scientific principles and procedures underlying modern climate change research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change, collections and the classroom: using big data to tackle big problems

et al. 2017

Self Cite

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Preparing students to explore, understand, and resolve societal challenges such as global climate change is an important task for evolutionary and ecological biologists that will require novel and innovative pedagogical approaches. Recent calls to reform undergraduate science education emphasize the importance of engaging students in inquirydriven, active, and authentic learning experiences. We believe that the vast digital resources (i.e., "big data") associated with natural history collections provide invaluable but underutilized opportunities to create such experiences for undergraduates in biology. Here, we describe an online, open-access educational module that we have developed that harnesses the power of collections-based information to introduce students to multiple conceptual and analytical elements of climate change, evolutionary, and ecological biology research. The module builds upon natural history specimens and data collected over the span of nearly a century in Yosemite National Park, California, to guide students through a series of exercises aimed at testing hypotheses regarding observed differences in response to climate change by two closely related and partially co-occurring species of chipmunks. The content of the module can readily be modified to meet the pedagogical goals and instructional levels of different courses while the analytical strategies outlined can be adapted to address a wide array of questions in evolutionary and ecological biology. In sum, we believe that specimen-based natural history data represent a powerful platform for reforming undergraduate instruction in biology. Because these efforts will result in citizens who are better prepared to understand complex biological relationships, the benefits of this approach to undergraduate education will have widespread benefits to society.

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“…Increasingly, NHCs have proven useful in providing evidence of climate change, pollution, species decline, habitat loss, and threats to agriculture and public health (e.g. : Colla et al 2012, Graham et al 2004, Lavoie 2013, Lister 2011, Page et al 2015, Pyke and Ehrlich 2010, Suarez and Tsutsui 2004, Winker 2004.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Complementary data such as field journal entries made by collectors or audio recordings of species' songs can be added to the entry for a specimen. This approach places a wealth of previously inaccessible "dark" information into the hands of all interested parties (Page et al 2015). Natural history collections and their data are on the forefront of biological research, and we are just now glimpsing the power and capabilities of this multidimensional source of biological data (Baird 2010, Scoble 2010, Suarez and Tsutsui 2004, Vollmar et al 2010.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Makelabels: a Bash script for generating data matrix codes for collection management

Dellinger¹,

Wong²,

Marek³

2016

BDJ

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Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Reveals Biggest Data on Biodiversity

Cited by 173 publications

References 5 publications

Natural History Collections: Teaching about Biodiversity Across Time, Space, and Digital Platforms

Natural History Collections: Teaching about Biodiversity Across Time, Space, and Digital Platforms

Climate change, collections and the classroom: using big data to tackle big problems

Makelabels: a Bash script for generating data matrix codes for collection management

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