Enhancing Access to Taxonomic and Biogeographical Data to Stem the Tide of Extinction of the Highly Imperiled Pacific Island Land Snails
Digitization TCN: Pacific Island Land Snails Biodiversity Repository
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Project Summary
Biodiversity is declining globally and any effective actions to halt or slow extinctions requires precise knowledge of species identities and distributions. Natural history collections are critical to fully understanding historical and contemporary biodiversity patterns, yet most of the museum specimens and their associated data remain inaccessible without directly visiting the museum collection, and even then, only to a select few. Digitizing these data and making it more broadly available electronically will facilitate biodiversity conservation efforts. Land snails, with approximately 25,000 species globally, are a major component of terrestrial habitats and provide services crucial for maintaining intact and fully functional ecosystems. Unfortunately, land snails have the highest number of documented extinctions of any major animal group, with the greatest losses among Pacific islands. Conservation assessments and identification of the remaining fauna are hampered because a large portion of this fauna has not been comprehensively studied for more than 100 years. Increased understanding of threatened biodiversity should be a national priority, particularly given the current biodiversity crisis. One goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive data resource (the Pacific Island Land Snail Biodiversity Repository; PILSBRY) to provide information needed to identify and assess the distributions and conservation status of Pacific island land snails. Researchers from five of the largest natural history collections in the nation will be joining forces to build an educational program to train and engage the science community, students, and citizen scientists to aid them in the digitization, mobilization, and enhancement of 3.6 million Pacific island land snail specimen records. This project will increase capacity of experts to support tropical island biodiversity research and conservation and accelerate species discovery.
Participants of this project, including the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel, Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan, Harvard Museum of Natural History, Florida Museum of Natural History, and the Field Museum, will digitize and mobilize data for 3.6 million specimens of Pacific island land snails held in these collections. These data, enhanced through georeferencing and imaging of primary types, will be made available to the public and science community via a centralized online database and integrated into multiple public data repositories, including iDigBio (idigbio.org), which is supported by the NSF's ADBC program. High school and undergraduate students from underrepresented groups in STEM will receive training in data management, bioinformatics, taxonomy and museum curation and will contribute to formal (e.g. conference presentations and publications) and informal (e.g. exhibits, social media and blogs) educational activities to improve their science communication skills and connect research to the science community and public. Additionally, citizen scientists will be able to assist in enhancing specimen records by transcribing data from scanned ledgers, field notes, and other associated data through online portals. Eventually additional web-based tools and smart phone applications can be developed for conservation managers, researchers, citizen scientists and the public to access Pacific Island land snail specimen records to further research and conservation management of this highly endangered fauna.
Current Research
Proposed research themes and uses for the data digitized and mobilized through the PILSBRY project include:
- evolutionary and ecological interactions, ecological niche modelling
- studies on environmental change and human disturbance and habitat destruction
- predictions concerning habitat use, susceptibility to global change impacts, or other spatially/temporally deep-scale interactions
- conservation ecology
- understanding the biogeography of Pacific Island land snail species
Project Websites & Social Media
Citizen Science & Outreach Projects
Project Leadership
Project sponsor: Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum (NSF Grant #190232)
Principal Investigator (PI): Norine Yeung (PI)
Project Collaborators
Digitizing Institutions
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
Norine Yeung (NSF Award #1902328)
Kenneth Hayes (co-PI)
Rich Pyle
Carl Christensen
Chandra Earl
University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Diarmaid O'Foighil (NSF Award #1902119)
Taehwan Lee (co-PI)
University of Florida
John Slapcinsky (NSF Award #1902020)
Harvard University
Adam Baldinger (NSF Award #1902188)
Alana Rivera
Field Museum
Rüdiger Bieler (lead of subaward to NSF Award #1902119)
Petra Sierwald (co-lead)
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
Gary Rosenberg
Paul Callomon
Protocols & Workflows
A basic guide to specimen photography in museum collections (Callomon 2021). This work was created as part of a series on photographing natural history specimens in a workroom or laboratory, but it should be useful for any project that requires “record photography” of relatively small objects. That term defines the basic purpose of the image: to create the most objective possible representation of an object so that it can compared with other similar ones. It is hoped that this will prove a practical guide that assists museum workers in setting up programs to produce large numbers of high-quality images. Some basic photographic principles are explained and options for equipment and techniques are presented, with specific reference to digital cameras.
A simple system for holding mollusk shells and other small objects for photography (Callomon 2020). A practical guide to making the photography mounts used in the Department of Malacology, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
Standard views for imaging mollusk shells (Callomon 2019). This stand-alone paper gives examples of standard poses and view sets for use in photographing mollusk shells. Standardization of orientation allows morphological comparisons within and across projects.
Publications
A basic guide to specimen photography in museum collections
Presentations and Workshops
Imaging Workshop: Specimen Photography in Museum Collections (recording available)