2020 Half-day Symposium

jlw_20121018_037_0SHC 2020 Symposium: Biodiversity Research Collecting Is More Important Than Ever—Ushering in a Collecting Renaissance

Thursday, July 28, 2020
10:00–2:30 p.m.
Location
: Botany 2020 – At the Dena’ina Center (Botany 2020 Conference Site)

Registration information: visit Botany 2020 website
Please sign up for this symposium when you register for Botany 2020.
Cost: $45 includes Snacks and Coffee.

Recent advances in data resources, technologies, public engagement strategies, research coordination, and funding opportunities position the community well for a renaissance of biodiversity specimen collecting to address big societal and scientific challenges. The symposium is designed to embolden the collecting and collections communities to new ambitions. It will focus on four themes: smart collecting, new goals for collecting, new collecting tools, and new species discovery. Speakers represent a diversity of organizational settings and career stages. We will be seeking audience input into answering the question: How do we better leverage these advances to usher in a collecting renaissance?

Speakers and Titles

Patrick Sweeney (Yale University) Assessing Two Centuries of Herbarium Specimen Collecting Effort in New England, with an Eye Towards Enabling Smart Collecting in the Future.

Mary Ann Feist (University of Wisconsin–Madison) Strategically Targeting Under-Collected Areas to Increase Our Understanding of Species Status and Distribution at a Statewide Level.

Barbara Thiers (New York Botanical Garden) Adjusting Collecting Practices to Create “Born Extended” Specimens.

Kelsey Yule (Arizona State University) Collecting Natural History Specimens to Monitor Change: The NEON Biorepository as a Test Case.

Austin Mast (Florida State University) Historical Descriptions of Biotic Anomalies on Specimen Labels Inform Efforts to Mobilize Collectors on the Front Lines of Observing Change Today.

Caleb Powell (University of Tennessee–Chattanooga) Expediting Specimen Label Creation and Record Transcription Using Born-Digital Field Notes.

Bonnie Isaac (Carnegie Museum of Natural History) Using iNaturalist to Enhance Herbarium Collections.

Lucas Majure (University of Florida) The Biodiversity Crisis, Plant Exploration, and Species Discovery in the Greater Antilles: the Roles of Floristic, Phylogenetic and Monographic Studies.

Organized by: Austin Mast, Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, and Patrick Sweeney, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University.

Past Symposia