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Soltis, Pamela S. [1], Soltis, Douglas E. [1], Folk, Ryan [2], Beach, James [3].

Using Digitized Herbarium Data in Research: Applications for Ecology, Phylogenetics, and Biogeography.

Emerging cyberinfrastructure and new data sources provide unparalleled opportunities for mobilizing and integrating massive datasets from organismal biology, ecology, genetics, climatology, and other disciplines. Key among these data sources is the burgeoning volume of digitized specimen records from natural history collections. With over 75 million specimen records available online, these data provide excellent information on species distributions, changes in distributions over time, phenology, morphology, and more. Particularly powerful is the integration of phylogenies with specimen data, enabling analyses of phylogenetic diversity in a spatio-temporal context, the evolution of niche space, and more. Beyond testing a priori hypotheses, such data-driven synthetic analyses may generate unexpected patterns, yielding new hypotheses for further study. Ongoing efforts to link and analyze diverse data are yielding new platforms for comparative analyses of biodiversity data. However, the inundation of data and methods can be overwhelming. In this full-day workshop, we will provide hands-on instruction for novices and advanced users alike. We will divide into groups based on participants’ experience, so novices and advanced users are all welcome. For beginners, we will cover ways to access and download digitized herbarium data (from GBIF, iDigBio, and other aggregators) and prepare data sets for analysis. We will then offer a series of modules on using georeferencing software (GEOLocate) and applying Maxent software to construct ecological niche models and do paleoclimatic modeling. These modules will follow the successful training program we have used at past Botany meetings. For advanced users, we will provide new, innovative modules for linking specimen data to phylogenetic trees, conducting biogeographic analyses, and more. We will cover strategies to extract information from niche models, such as species occupancy in ecological space and niche breadth, and link models to phylogenetic trees to test hypotheses about niche evolution, including ancestral niche reconstruction. Participants will use new integrative software tools to link occurrence data, niche models, and ecological statistics calculated from the models, applying these to large trees using the QGIS GIS application. Participants will conduct analyses that link species distributions to patterns of environmental sorting and the legacy of historical biogeography in a new framework called Meta-Community Phylogenetic Analysis or “MCPA”, revealing the relationship between phylogenetic breaks and barriers to dispersal through display of results in QGIS windows that simultaneously display linked maps, phylogenetic trees, and correlation outputs that reveal phylogenetic and geographic discontinuities. Prepared datasets will be provided, but attendees may bring their own data.

1 - University Of Florida, Florida Museum Of Natural History, PO BOX 117800, Gainesville, FL, 32611-7800, USA, 352/273-1964
2 - University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History, PO Box 117800, Gainesville, Florida, 32611-7800, USA
3 - University of Kansas, Biodiversity Institute, 1345 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS, 66045, USA

Keywords:
digitized herbarium data
georeferencing
ecological niche modeling
phylogeny & niche models
biogeography
geospatial analysis.

Presentation Type: Workshop
Session: WS02, Using Digitized Herbarium Data in Research: Applications for Ecology, Phylogenetics, and Biogeography
Location: Sundance 4/Omni Hotel
Date: Sunday, June 25th, 2017
Time: 8:00 AM
Number: WS02001
Abstract ID:8
Candidate for Awards:None