NSF Award
1502452
The New York Botanical Garden's William and Lynda Steere Herbarium (NY) proposes to join the existing Thematic Collections Network (TCN) entitled, Mobilizing New England Vascular Plant Specimen Data to Track Environmental Changes. The goal of this project is to mine data from preserved plant specimens in order to support studies of the nature and consequences of environmental change in the New England region over the last three centuries. The New York Botanical Garden will contribute approximately 150,000 digitized specimens to the 1.3 million specimens that will be digitized at other institutions. <br/><br/>Data generated through this project will be of immediate use to scientists who study climate and land-use change, and will provide a better understanding of how global changes will impact the distribution of native and introduced plant species in the future. The project will provide career-relevant management training for a recent college graduate, and will provide employment and job experience for college undergraduates, exposing these young people to an aspect of environmental science not commonly taught in universities. Citizen scientists will be invited to participate in this project by helping to transcribe label data, georeferencing, and scoring specimens for phenological state. This award is made as part of the National Resource for Digitization of Biological Collections through the Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program and all data resulting from this award will be available through the national resource (iDigBio.org).
