Calflora Modernization Plan

This biological infrastructure project will modernize the Calflora Database, a major biodiversity resource containing millions of records on plant species and specimens from 2026–2028. By expanding the system’s capacity to store, analyze, and share large-scale ecological data, the project will support new advances in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and biodiversity science. Researchers will be able to upload, visualize, and extract far larger and more complex datasets than currently possible, enabling improved analysis of species distributions, habitat change, and range shifts over time. The upgraded platform will also support reproducible research by integrating with common data science and AI tools, allowing scientists to directly access and verify data used in published studies. These improvements will accelerate innovation in ecological forecasting, conservation planning, and data-driven biological research. The project will fill gaps in data sharing, digitization, acquisition, quality, linking forms of data, and integration of different forms of data. It will integrate with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The project will implement a read/write Application Programming Interface (API), giving users the ability to programmatically manipulate large data sets. An API will also make public Calflora data more widely available, both to researchers and the wider public. This will be accomplished by creating integrations and client libraries for other, more generic data analysis and GIS systems, including ESRI’s ArcGIS, the R statistical computing system, as well as the Python programming language. This realtime data access will enable the documentation and visualization of changes in plant distribution over time. This is of great concern to resource managers dealing with the spread of non-native invasive plants and for researchers looking at the effects of climate change on the distribution of native and rare plants. Moving to a cloud-based architecture will facilitate the scalability and resiliency required to accomplish these goals. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2423690 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Cynthia Powell | Institution: The Calflora Database, BERKELEY, CA | Award Amount: $789,167 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2423690 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2423690.html