[Nhcoll-l] Reminder: Webinar today at 2:00 p.m. Eastern

[Nelson,Gil]

iDigBio is exceedingly pleased to welcome Dr. Katja Seltmann, an accomplished entomological researcher and collections professional, to present today's webinar: The Importance of Digital Data for Entomological Research. Katja has been deeply involved in digitization, research, the Entomological Collections Network, and iDigBio activities since the beginning of the ADBC program in 2011 and is currently affiliated with the NSF-funded Big Bee Project (https://library.big-bee.net/portal/index.php). You will not want to miss her talk. See below for the registration link.

February 17, 2026: The Importance of Digital Data for Entomological Research (2:00-3:00pm Eastern)

Speakers:
Katja Seltmann (University of California - Santa Barbara, Cheadle Center)

Abstract: Insects underpin terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem function, yet many of the questions most urgent to entomological research, including drivers of decline, shifts in phenology, biogeography, and trait evolution, cannot be addressed efficiently without robust digital data. Natural history collections provide the long term, vouchered evidence base for these analyses, but their value scales dramatically when specimens are translated into interoperable, machine readable datasets that can be discovered, linked, and reused across projects and disciplines. In this talk, I discuss “digital data” in an entomological context and move beyond the common shorthand of occurrence records. While georeferenced occurrences are foundational, digitally enabled collections also encompass high resolution images and 3D models, ecological interactions, trait measurements, and determination histories. When these components are structured using shared standards and persistent identifiers, collections become not just archives but analytical infrastructure. Using examples from the Big Bee project, I highlight digitization strategies that explicitly anticipate research use, capturing data at the right resolution for downstream questions, integrating imaging with trait extraction, and building pipelines that connect specimens to interactions, traits, and derived products. The central argument is straightforward. Digital data do not merely document insect diversity. They enable the next generation of entomological science by making specimens computable, comparable, and actionable at scale. I also invite discussion of how these approaches align with the NSF Biological Sciences Directorate’s recently released cross cutting thematic areas: Foundations of Life, Living Systems, and Bioinnovation and Infrastructure.

Register here:
https://www.idigbio.org/content/webinar-series-importance-sustaining-biodiversity-specimen-collections-digitization-absence

For past recordings and upcoming events, visit the series Wiki page:
https://www.idigbio.org/wiki/index.php/Sustaining_Collections_Digitization_Beyond_NSF_Funding:_A_Webinar_Series

Best,
Gil



Gil Nelson PhD, Director

Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio)

Immediate Past President, Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA)

Florida Museum of Natural History

University of Florida

gnelson at floridamuseum.ufl.edu<mailto:gnelson at floridamuseum.ufl.edu>

[FM_logo_horizontal_CMYK]


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