Momentum for the Mid-Atlantic Herbaria Consortium’s (MAHC) data portal was originally catalyzed through NSF funding for the Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis (MAM) TCN in 2016 (NSF Award #s 1601697, 1600981, 1601393, 1600976, 1601429, 1601101, 1601503). While TCN funding has sunset for this portal community, many MAHC community members participated in a Portal Advancement Campaign in March 2023. Major accomplishments of the MAHC campaign included:
- Endorsing 5 new collections, making 100,526 specimen records available to the GBIF and iDigBio data portals from the HUDC, IUP, MCA, MOAR, and TAWES herbaria
- Adding 44,745 new specimen records to the portal
- Adding 2 new collections (17,750 records, 3,476 images) to the portal from the SHIP and CGCC herbaria
- Indexing 8,311 taxonomic names to the central taxonomic thesaurus, in turn making an additional 13,676 specimen records searchable in the portal
- Standardizing 616 basisOfRecord values
- Resolving 83% of reversed geographic coordinates
The Symbiota Support Hub thanks Cindy Skema, the MAHC Coordinator, and the entire MAHC community for their active engagement throughout this event.