Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted our entire way of life, including how we do science and our understanding of what we need in such situations. The potential role of natural history specimens in pathogen discovery and mitigation is recognized in the museum world (DiEuliis et al. 2016, Dunnum et al., 2017) and by at least some disease ecologists (e.g. Mills and Childs 1998). Renewed efforts to align pathobiology with biodiversity discovery initiatives are critical (Kading and Kingston 2020). Moreover, linking both biodiversity infrastructure and capacity-building more closely to zoonotic (and other) pathogen surveys in biodiverse countries would substantially improve proactive responses to pathogen-related events before they once again wreak havoc across the globe. From a collections and observations point-of-view, what have we learned about our own administrative and scientific processes for gathering and integrating the data and expertise needed, across borders and departments? What problems do our researchers and decision-makers continue to face in addressing the need for access to data, specimens, and expertise for answering key research questions for these events? What new policies and procedures have groups put into place for “next time” or to prevent “next time”? We need to share otherwise tacit or localized experiences so that we can work on how to foster adoption and implementation of practices that change how a local-to-global community ecosystem conducts its science. Please join our session to listen and to add your experiences to inform key elements for moving forward.