| NSF Org: |
DBI Division of Biological Infrastructure |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 27, 2012 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | May 21, 2014 |
| Award Number: | 1202663 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Reed Beaman
rsbeaman@nsf.gov (703)292-7163 DBI Division of Biological Infrastructure BIO Directorate for Biological Sciences |
| Start Date: | August 1, 2012 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2016 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $140,350.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $140,350.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2013 = $88,889.00 FY 2014 = $4,530.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1 UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO ALBUQUERQUE NM US 87131-0001 (505)277-4186 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
Museum SW Biology, MSC03-2020 Albuquerque NM US 87131-0001 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH COLLECTION |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001314DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.074 |
ABSTRACT
An award is made to use computing technology developed in connection with previous NSF support to collaboratively geospatially reference, a.k.a. georeference, (i.e., determine latitude and longitude coordinates for) the estimated two million ungeoreferenced fish species occurrence records currently in the now greatly enhanced and soon to be expanded Fishnet2 network of fish collection databases (http://www.fishnet2.net/). The records will be georeferenced using the Community Georeferencing System of the GEOLocate software platform based at Tulane University (http://www.museum.tulane.edu/geolocate/). Each coordinate determination will include a new polygon method for describing uncertainty, which will be compared to the more traditional point-radius-based uncertainties currently in wide use to inform best practices in future georeferencing projects. Experiments in crowd sourcing will also be performed on subset of the georeferenced work at Tulane as an education and outreach activity involving local high school students and Tulane undergraduates.
Georeferencing natural history collection data is a critical step in a process of mobilizing biodiversity data that starts with digitizing collection records, continues through databasing and networking, and ultimately gives researchers remote access to the vast specimen and data resources of natural history museums. Having access to georeferenced specimen occurrence data allows researchers to address important scientific and societal questions in areas such as endangered species conservation, environmental restoration, and preparing for global climate change. The resource of georeferenced locality records provided by this project will serve several purposes, beyond its usefulness to the fish collection community. It can be used for georeferencing data for other groups of organisms, especially aquatic organisms, which were likely sampled at many of the same access points (e.g., in rivers near bridge crossings) or at the same time as many of the fish specimens. This project will reult in a compiled gazetteer of all georeferenced localities that is available to other collection digitization projects, including projects in the Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections (ADBC) program. The resource of georeferenced collection localities created through this project will also serve the fish collection and broader natural history collection community as a resource for cleaning taxonomic data, thanks to the map visualization of data it supports. Mapping specimen occurrences makes it easier for taxonomic experts to detect errors in specimen identity and distribution, resulting in more accurate taxonomic and geographic data. The education and outreach activities of this project will specifically target underrepresented minorities from New Orleans area schools in an effort to increase minority participation in natural history collection based research.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This collaborative project proposed to use GEOLocate’s Community Georeferencing system to georeference the estimated 250,000 fish sampling locations lacking geocodes (latitude and longitude coordinates) in the FishNet 2 network of fish collection databases. We also proposed to add several new data providers to the FishNet 2 network. A technician was hired at the University of New Mexico that worked collaboratively with 12 participating fish collections and was trained to georeferenced sampling locations in different areas of the world. The team conducted experiments to determine how well unpaid volunteers could perform as georeferencers.
In total, 282,199 sampling locations representing 1,299,241 species lots were georeferenced in the project (113% of the project goal). With the georeferencing phase of the project now concluded, emphasis has shifted to repatriating location geocodes produced in the project to databases at the 58 institutions that provided the data. Thirty three of these institutions (57% of the data providers, including the University of New Mexico Museum of Southwestern Biology) have downloaded their geocodes and ingested them into their databases, adding geocodes to 735,872 species lots to FishNet 2 (57% of the species lots georeferenced in the project). Eleven institutions (19%) have downloaded project produced geocodes for 398,485 additional lots of data (31% of project results) but have yet to incorporate the data into their databases. Eight institutions (14%) have yet to download geocodes produced in the project for 78,455 lots (6% of results). We are continuing to work with collection staff at these institutions to help them add geocodes produced in the project to their databases, so that all of the project results can be added to FishNet 2.
Significance of the Project: Retrospective georeferencing of natural history collection data is an important component of the collection digitization process, because it permits researchers to visualize species occurrences on digital maps, which allows them to detect misidentified species or occurrences that fall outside of a species’ native range. It allows ecologists to accurately relate species occurrences to environmental data for studies of habitat availability, changes in distribution and conservation. This project doubled the number of species occurrences in FishNet 2 and increased the number of georeferenced data records in the portal to over four million records, 1.3 million of which were georeferenced in the project. Our experiments suggest that volunteers can performs georeferencing tasks almost as accurately as experienced (paid) technicians. The range of difference between novice and expert georeferenced points was <1.0 to about 40.0 km, with a mean displacement of 8.3 km. Our results provide a first approximation of what can be expected from engaging citizen scientists with minimal georeferencing training in the georeferencing process. This is key because ongoing natural history collection digitization efforts are outpacing the human and financial resources of the natural history collections community. Engaging the public in this and other aspects of natural history collection digitization will increase their understanding and appreciation of the role of natural history collections.
Publications resulting for the project
Ellwood, E R, Bart, H L, Jr, Doosey, M H, Jue, D K, Mann, J G, Nelson, G, Rios, N and Mast, A R. 2016. Mapping Life – Quality Assessment of Novice vs. Expert Georeferencers. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 1(1): 4, pp. 1–12, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/cstp.30.
Last Modified: 11/03/2016
Modified by: Thomas F Turner
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