Shea Vatalaro
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Jennifer Bauer
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Museum of Paleontology / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 1 (9:00am – 9:50am)
Authors: Shea Vatalaro, Jennifer Bauer
Abstract
The University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology (UMMP) is a research museum that houses over 4 million specimens. Much of the data relating to these specimens are not accessible to researchers and are an underutilized resource. In Devonian coral species alone, there are thousands that have not been added to public global data aggregators – enough “dark data” to modify how Devonian marine biodiversity trends are currently understood. In order to measure the extent of this impact, we took the UMMP data on two extinct Devonian coral groups, Rugosa and Tabulata, from the Specify 7 database and cleaned it in order to ensure taxonomic, geographic, and stratigraphic integrity. This was then collated with data pulled from iDigBio, a global data aggregator, in order to calculate a percent change in the number of specimens that would be available on iDigBio once the UMMP data are aggregated. Statistical tests were performed in R using the ggplot2 package to determine the impact of the UMMP rugose and tabulate data on FAD/LAD and specimen density. This project reveals the unharnessed power of dark data in paper museum and archival records, as evidenced by a greater than 30% increase in accessible information for Rugosa and Tabulata corals separately and general Devonian corals in Michigan. Additionally, we have demonstrated the importance of having as comprehensive and accurate of a dataset as possible as the current climate crisis has expedited research on biodiversity. This is particularly true in regards to keystone species — such as coral — as having a more complete understanding of exactly which coral species survived the Late Devonian extinctions could be an untold boon to ecologists currently studying reef ecosystem conservation.
