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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The final version of a report entitled, "<i>Extending U.S. Biodiversity Collections to Promote Research and Education" </i> is now available (<a href="https://bcon.aibs.org/2019/04/04/bcon-report-extending-u-s-biodiversity-collections-to-promote-research-and-education/" id="LPlnk554479">https://bcon.aibs.org/2019/04/04/bcon-report-extending-u-s-biodiversity-collections-to-promote-research-and-education/</a>).
Both the full report (about 23 pages) and a shorter illustrated version (summary brochure) can be downloaded. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Readers of NH-Coll will know that during the past year we have solicited your thoughts about </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">the future
deployment of data held in U.S. biodiversity collections for research, policy and education. A workshop held last fall synthesized the responses from the surveys, as well as from discussion sessions held at several conferences and recent literature.</span></p>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Arising from these deliberations is a consensus to focus future biodiversity documentation on building a network of extended specimens that represent the depth and breadth of
biodiversity held in U.S. collections institutions. The extended specimen will consist of the physical voucher and preparations (e.g. tissue samples); digitized representations such as occurrence records and images; derivative products such as gene sequences
or metagenomes; and taxon- or locality-specific data such as observations, phylogenies or species distributions. </span></p>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">New collections, needed now more than ever to inform solutions to societal problems, should be “born-extended”, i.e., accessioned with a full suite of supplemental data.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Collectively, these extended specimens will form a network of linked data to enable exploration across taxonomic, temporal and spatial scales. Such exploration will help
us understand the rules that govern how organisms grow, diversify and interact with one another, and how environmental change and human activities may affect those rules. </span></p>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As a resource for formal and informal education (including citizen science), the extended specimen network will afford scalable learning opportunities for K-Life in data literacy
as well as biological science and the humanities. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To create this resource will require continued specimen digitization, new collections, standardization of existing
digital data to facilitate discovery, and implementation of a robust specimen identifier tracking system. It will also require new approaches to data sharing and collaboration, partnerships with national and international data providers, computer and data
scientists and educators. </span></p>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span id="" title="Search for suggestions" class=""><span id="" title="Search for suggestions" class="">Thanks to everyone who contributed their insights to the surveys, discussions,
and comments on the draft report!</span></span></p>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We launched the report at the National Press Club last Thursday (4 April). If you'd like to hear more about the Extended Specimen network, listen to the BCoN team talking about
it in the Bioscience podcast: </span><br>
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<a href="http://bioscienceaibs.libsyn.com/biodiversity-and-the-extended-specimen-network" id="LPlnk399129">http://bioscienceaibs.libsyn.com/biodiversity-and-the-extended-specimen-network</a><span></span><br>
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<a target="_blank" id="LPUrlAnchor677509" href="http://bioscienceaibs.libsyn.com/biodiversity-and-the-extended-specimen-network" style="text-decoration: none; color: var(--themePrimary);">BioScience Talks: Biodiversity and the Extended Specimen Network</a></div>
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Natural history specimens housed in museums, herbaria, and other research collections are revolutionizing science—largely as a result of growing efforts to digitize samples and share data among many users. To meet the robust promise of digital collections,
the Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN) has developed a national agenda that leverages new techniques and capabilities to create what they call the Extended Specimen Network. Members of BCoN join us on this episode of BioScience Talks to describe the newly
conceived network and to talk about its potential to change the way science is performed—both now and in the future. Pictured above are our guests at a National Press Club briefing where they formally released their report (from left to right: David Jennings,
Andrew Bentley, Linda Ford, Anna Monfils, Jennifer Zaspel, John Bates, Barbara Thiers, and Robert Gropp). Photograph: Samuel Hurd. Download the report. Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher. Catch up with us on Twitter. </div>
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bioscienceaibs.libsyn.com</div>
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<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">Dr. Barbara M. Thiers</div>
<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">Vice President</div>
<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">Patricia K. Holmgren Director</div>
<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">William and Lynda Steere Herbarium</div>
<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">The New York Botanical Garden</div>
<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">President-Elect, SPNHC</div>
<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">Editor, <i>Index Herbariorum</i></div>
<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">2900 Southern Blvd.</div>
<div style="font-size:13.600000381469727px">Bronx, NY 10458</div>
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<span style="font-family:Century,serif; color:rgb(0,32,96)">Download:</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:Cambria,serif; color:rgb(0,32,96)"><a href="https://webmail.nybg.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=DZKIfwlM-bRuN7VbYm3y6VYav1JKmR4c1-8AgqzXvwyyH2wh5FbVCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fsweetgum.nybg.org%2fscience%2fdocs%2fThe_Worlds_Herbaria_2017_5_Jan_2018.pdf" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(149,79,114)">The
World’s Herbaria 2017</a></span><span style="color:rgb(0,32,96)"> </span><span style="font-family:Century,serif; color:rgb(0,32,96)"> (second Index Herbariorum annual report)</span><span style="color:rgb(0,32,96)"></span></p>
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<span style="font-family:Century,serif; color:rgb(0,32,96)"><a href="https://webmail.nybg.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=vVPvApDN5rnGmmbKVYFc8fgw_ayLMiDK3Yb6MYRLAU-yH2wh5FbVCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fsciweb.nybg.org%2fscience2%2fIH_Questionnaire_2009.doc" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(149,79,114)"><span style="color:rgb(5,99,193)">Index
Herbariorum Registration Form</span></a> <br>
<a href="https://webmail.nybg.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=BEo_gpY-7iKK78FaX5YK2uIRJUi67YtCa4rtEJ8MJgOyH2wh5FbVCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fsciweb.nybg.org%2fscience2%2fIH_Questionnaire_2009_example.doc" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(149,79,114)"><span style="color:rgb(5,99,193)">Index
Herbariorum Registration Form Example</span></a></span></p>
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