Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network (SCAN): A Model for Collections Digitization to Promote Taxonomic and Ecological Research
The Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network (SCAN) grew from the Southwest Collections of Arthropods Network TCN (Thematic Collections Network) funded by the National Science Foundation in 2012. The original SCAN (with the same acronym as current SCAN—–sorry) focused on ground-dwelling arthropods that occur in the Southwest, but we have expanded the focus .The original grant ended in 2016 although we will continue to sponsor new Partners in Established Network (PEN) projects through 2021. If you are interested in submitting a PEN proposal to NSF please contact Neil.Cobb@nau.edu. SCAN PEN proposals need to fit under the umbrella of the original SCAN and
The data portal houses arthropod occurrence records from the original Southwest Collections of Arthropods Network as well as an ever-growing number of collections. These additional collections are drawn from a much wider selection of geographic locations and arthropod taxa. We expect that eventually SCAN will include data for all arthropod taxa and from anywhere in North America. SCAN is built on Symbiota, a web-based collections database system that is used for other taxonomic data portals, including (Symbiota Portals).
The original Southwest Collections of Arthropods Network (SCAN) continues to grow under this larger umbrella . The original SCAN project brought together resources from 15 small to large sized arthropod collections located in the megadiverse but taxonomically underexplored ecoregion of the southwestern United States and adjoining Mexico to create a virtual collection network. SCAN will leverage new collaborations and institutional investments into collection resources to develop a dynamically structured, state-of-the-art digital platform designed to facilitate arthropod biodiversity and ecology projects in the southwestern US region. The project will focus on ground-dwelling arthropods (e.g., ants, selected beetle families, grasshoppers, spiders) because they are highly responsive to temporal and spatial environmental changes, taxonomically diverse, and among the most commonly monitored terrestrial arthropod taxa. We will use best museum stewardship practices and leading-edge informatics drawing on recent advances in collection cataloging (i.e., specimen-level data capture), imaging, networking, remote identification, and web delivery.
LepNet is an extension of the original SCAN program, and focuses on Lepidoptera of North America. This section of the LepNet project website is devoted to providing updates on SCAN groups other than Lepidoptera.
SCAN
The 100K Club, which is a list of the families that have more than 100,000 occurence records.
Maps of the five key SCAN taxa (Carabidae, Formicidae, Araneae, Acrididae, and Tenebrionidae)