The annual iDigBio/ADBC (Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections) summit was held this week in Gainesville, at the Florida Museum of Natural History. This summit brings together personnel involved with a huge NSF-funded effort to digitize biodiversity collections in the United States. Most folks are involved either directly with iDigBio (the organizing unit for the specimen data and digitization efforts), or with one or more Thematic Collections Networks (TCNs), which are individual projects focused on digitizing specimens related to a particular research theme. Our lab is involved with a TCN that was funded in the most recent round of awards, and it is focused on digitizing herbarium and fossil collections of ferns and lycophytes (collectively referred to as pteridophytes): the Pteridological Collections Consortium: An integrative approach to pteridophyte diversity of the last 420 million years.
The PIs of the new TCNs introduced their projects at the summit and Carl Rothfels, lead PI on the Pteridological Collections Consortium, gave a talk about the PCC that you can watch at this link (skip to 59:00 to see Carl!): New TCN Introductory Talks
