Project Summary
(from grant proposal submitted on 1 January 2001)
Museum collections are the main repository for past and current baseline biodiversity information. A crucial task in the coming century will be utilizing that baseline biodiversity information as fully as possible for research and management decisions. This is especially critical in bioregions experiencing rapid environmental changes due to factors such as population growth, land development, and climate change.
In this proposal, the University of Colorado Museum, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and Denver Botanic Gardens are collaborating to convert their separate collections into one distributed biodiversity database and research toolkit for the southern and central Rockies and adjacent plains. This area was chosen because it features tremendous biological diversity, and has experienced and continues to experience many tremendous environmental changes that impact biodiversity. As well, our collections strength is in this region - our combined databased collections for our focus area is over 285,000 biological specimens.
The proposed conversion of our collections data to a format more usable for access, visualization and analysis relies upon linking distributed collections databases to a Geographic Information System (GIS) databases (ArcSDE) system itself linked to a GIS network system (ArcIMS). ArcIMS can not only be used to distribute maps on-line, but also used for query, analysis and synthesis of local and network GIS data through a Web interface. It is anticipated that our data and research tools will be useful to many in the biological community especially researchers, land and wildlife managers, and educators.
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