| Abstract Detail
Herbarium Digitization for Research, Teaching, and the Public Mishler, Brent [1]. A new era for natural history collections: the impact of digitization and phylogenetics on analysis of biodiversity data. Digitization is rapidly making specimen data available to the public, via increasingly advanced bioinformatics. Inexpensive DNA sequencing and rapid advances in computational methods for both tree building and tree using have eclipsed previous limits on the scope of phylogenetic investigations and phylogenetic systematics. Natural history collections are the nexus where it all comes together; specimens and their associated metadata are the ground truth for all biodiversity studies. Specimens are essential DNA vouchers, fundamental phylogenetic, geographic, evolutionary, and ecological data points, sole resolvers of taxonomic issues, and primary evidence for global change and other human-caused modifications of the environment. I will present examples of new uses for specimen data, drawing mainly from two places with an advanced state of herbarium digitization, Australia and California but also from other efforts around the world. The many uses of collection databases include important practical applications, taking advantage of temporal aspects of collection data, such as: (1) Climate change modeling; (2) Spatial ecology / mapping historical habitats and landscapes; (3) Tracking the introduction of pathogens and invasive species; (4) Phenology estimates through time, as well as scientific applications, such as: (1) Identification of under-collected areas (targeted exploration) and other collection biases; (2) Production of floras and identification tools; (3) Discovery of previously undescribed taxa; (4) Reconstructing assembly of communities; (4) Biogeography and diversification studies; (6) Assessing biodiversity and endemism using new phylogenetic approaches. Broader Impacts:
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Related Links:
The Consortium of California Herbaria
The Jepson eFlora
Moorea Biocode Project
1 - University of California, Berkeley, University & Jepson Herbaria, and Dept. of Integrative Biology, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2465, USA
Keywords:
biodiversity
herbarium
Phylogenetics.
Presentation Type: Symposium or Colloquium Presentation
Session: SY02
Location: Elmwood/Riverside Hilton
Date: Monday, July 29th, 2013
Time: 8:00 AM
Number: SY02001
Abstract ID:768
Candidate for Awards:None |
