For the third straight year, iDigBio hosted a full-day workshop on research methods using digitized herbarium specimen data at the annual Botany conference (Botany 2016, Savannah, GA), sponsored by the Botanical Society of America and its affiliated societies. After successful workshops on Georeferencing (Botany 2014, Boise, ID) and Ecological Niche Modeling (Botany 2015, Edmonton, Canada), the iDigBio team developed a workshop plan to integrate multiple topics and methods into a research workflow. iDigBio Director for Research Pam Soltis co-organized and presented the workshop with iDigBio staff member Shelley James, iDigBio post-doc Charlotte Germain-Aubrey, NSF post-doctoral fellow Ryan Folk, and University of Florida graduate students Blaine Marchant, Richie Hodel, Greg Stull, Johanna Jantzen, Andre Naranjo, and Iwan Molgo.
The workshop was entitled, “Using Digitized Herbarium Data in Research: A Crash Course,” and covered the following topics: data downloads, data cleaning, data management, georeferencing, ecological niche modeling, geospatial analysis, reconstructing ancestral niches, paleo modeling, and linking specimen data and models to phylogenies. In addition, examples of research use cases with applications of specimen data to questions in evolution and ecology were presented. All workshop materials will be placed on the iDigBio wiki soon.
The workshop filled to capacity (30 slots) very soon after it was announced, and eventually the waiting list of 25 additional participants was also accommodated, making this the largest iDigBio workshop at a Botany conference yet. The team is available to take the workshop – which is not plant-specific – to other venues and conferences as well.
Enthusiastic learning during the iDigBio-sponsored "Using Digitized Herbarium Data in Research: A Crash Course" workshop at Botany 2016!
Are you a member of the Botanical Society of America? You can see other interesting talks from the meeting at http://cms.botany.org/users/login/returnpage/video/view/movies/
