We are looking forward to the next WeDigBio, which is less than 2 weeks away! The event takes place April 18-21, 2024. There is still time to get involved, so please reach out if you are interested or have any questions at all about the event. The WeDigBio symposium for this event will focus on youth, young professionals and their inspirational career paths into science and in particular experience with natural history collections. More details to come soon. Looking forward to it, The Notes from Nature Team ..read more

If you’re watching wildlife from your kitchen window, you are witnessing several levels of biodiversity that cannot be seen through binoculars. Birds and mammals are hosts to many parasites that live amongst their fur and feathers—lice, fleas, flies, ticks and mites. Yet scientists are just scratching the surface of the world of parasites.  Millions of specimens are sitting in museums all over the world, but a lack of digital records make them hard to find and study. Thanks to Terrestrial Parasite Tracker volunteers at Notes from Nature, thousands of these specimens are now available to e ..read more

We closed out WeDigBio October 2023 with over 11,100 classifications. Thanks to all that made it possible! We sincerely appreciate all the symposium talks, onsite and virtual events, everyone that stopped by Notes from Nature and helped us spread the word. There are still lots of expeditions from a wide variety of organisms available on our site. As always feel free to contribute anytime and help by spreading the word. — The Notes from Nature Team ..read more

It’s been an exciting October WeDigBio so far. Notes from Nature has received over 6,000 classifications in the past two days. Thanks to all that attended the symposium on hyperlocal collections. We are particularly excited about the support our new projects have received. Capture the Collections (plants and lichens from Canada) has been very popular and even completed it’s first expedition! Please give it a try it a try. We also launched a very cool Salamander project called Cybermander. This is an important study that helps us understand thermoregulation habits of amphibians. Please check i ..read more

Amphibians worldwide are at risk of disease caused by chytrid fungal pathogens, which have caused drastic declines in some species. There are two main disease-causing members of this group- Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or Bd and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (also known as Bsal). While Bd is endemic to the US- that is, it is present in the US and has not been implicated in large population declines- Bsal is not yet present in the wild in the US. The potential emergence of Bsal in the USA threatens salamander populations, as the US (and specifically, the Appalachian mountains) contains th ..read more

We are thrilled to announce our newest digitization project: “Notes from Nature – Capture the Collections!” We’re also excited to be rolling out our first set of workflows under the banner “Letters from Lowlands – Flora of the Hudson Bay Lowlands.” In partnership with Parks Canada, we are imaging vascular plant, lichen, and bryophyte specimens collected in the Hudson Bay Lowlands region of Canada. Transcribing data from these images allows people to find and use the incredible wealth of information these specimens hold. By participating in the project, you’ll contribute to enhancing the under ..read more

The WeDigBio Board is pleased to announce a 1-hour symposium entitled “Energizing Understanding of Biodiversity Close-at-Hand with Hyperlocal Collections” on October 13 from 2–3 PM ET (UTC -4). Hear from diverse perspectives on the roles of hyperlocal natural history collections in advancing biodiversity understanding and conservation, and join in the conversation. 2:00–2:05 Welcome! by Austin Mast (Florida State University) 2:05–2:20 Curating a truly reciprocal resource: the Polly Hill Arboretum Herbarium leverages its focus on local flora to foster mutual community s ..read more

The next WeDigBio is a month away! The event will take place on 12-15 October 2023. People from all over the world join together to digitize specimen data and to celebrate biodiversity collections. We hope you join us! This is a fun and festive weekend at NfN. We’ll have a “classifying blitz” online at Notes from Nature, where we’ll classify as many Subjects as we can during the event. There will be new expeditions, and some of our data providers will host events such as online talks, tours, and discussions (and possibly some in-person events as well), so you’ll have opportunities to meet the ..read more

We are very excited to announce the launch of our new expedition workflow: Filing Folder Foray. In this new workflow we are asking you (clever citizen scientists) to transcribe the information documented on our herbarium folders. These folders store and organize the herbarium specimens that you are helping us transcribe in our main workflow. As we are in the process of digitizing the 1.5 million specimens in our herbarium, being able to include a storage location is incredibly valuable. Capturing this information will enhance the accessibility and usefulness of our collection, allowing us ..read more

Natural history museums across the world share a common goal – to conserve and make available knowledge about natural and cultural heritage. The Notes from Nature project gives anyone with internet access the opportunity to make a scientifically important contribution towards that goal. Every transcription that is completed at Notes from Nature brings us closer to filling gaps in our knowledge of global biodiversity and natural heritage. The challenge of making natural history data available for the broadest use is enormous. Today, there are ~10 billion specimens housed in natural history mu ..read more