This is a work-in-progress!! Questions? Contact Lisa Chang (lhc4c@virginia.edu)
9 February 1997
The basis of this database is the observation of a particular organism. Our ultimate objective is to enter all observations of a particular organism reported in the scientific literature pertaining to research on the Eastern Shore. Let's take an example. A team of researchers published an article in 1990 in which they report high abundances of the Atlantic silverside (Menidia menidia) - one of the most common fish in the waters around the Eastern Shore - at three study locations behind the seaside barrier islands off of the Eastern Shore: Wachapreague Channel and Inlet between Cedar and Parramore Islands; Sand Shoal Channel and Inlet between Cobb and Wreck Islands; and Fishermans Island.
This is already quite a lot of information to start with. However, in order to enter these observations of menidia into the Biodiversity database, two things have to be already established in the database. First, the species in question must already be registered in the database - within the TAXA listing of species. Second, the location in question must also be entered into the database within the LOCATION listing of geographical references. The species and location may have already been entered into the database - which you can easily check, by scrolling down the TAXA and LOCATION scrollbars on the data entry page - however, if they are not already entered, then you must enter them. First, I will describe how to enter information on menidia into the database; then I will discuss how to enter information on the three locations reported on in this study (Wachapreague Channel and Inlet, Sand Shoal Channel and Inlet, and Fisherman's Island).
To enter a species in the database, you need some basic information about that species. In particular, you should find out its taxonomic order, family, genus, species, the authority under which the name was assigned, and its common name. Even if you do not have all of this information, at a minimum you should have the genus, species, and common name. This is enough information on the species to go ahead and add a new taxa to the database. So, for example, in our example of menidia observations from the Norcross and Hata (1990) paper, I gathered several essential bits of information: menidia's genus name is also Menidia; its species name is of course menidia; the author notes that all species mentioned in the paper were named after Robins et al., 1980 (this would be the authority); and menidia's common name is Atlantic silverside. The paper lacks information on menidia's taxonomic order and family, but I can easily find these from library books on fish taxonomy. With this information, I would select the ADD NEW TAXA button on the data entry screen, and enter MNDMND for the species identification, and fill in the rest of the data fields with the appropriate information.
A further piece of information that this database is designed to receive at this point is a (digital) picture of the organism. This is something that you can search the Web for. Perhaps the best way to go about this is to take a couple of hours at some other time and browse the Web, looking generally for organisms in the taxonomic order that your group is covering. Record any URLs for images of organisms that you find, and enter the URLs for the correct species either when you are adding TAXA to the database or are editing them. We are all in the process of locating productive sources of Web images; if you come across a good source of Web images, let us know!
At this point, you have entered all the necessary basic species data, and you can submit the TAXA entry. The database is designed, however, to receive a great deal of descriptive (textual) information on species - descriptions of its physical characteristics, its natural history, its typical habitat, biological/reproductive/life cycle characteristics, and even its economic uses and human interactions. Inputting such descriptive information for a particular species is done by EDITing a TAXA entry - so, for example, I could research the natural history of menidia on the Web and in the library. Supplied with information about menidia's natural history, I could then add it to the existing record for menidia. I would highlight MNDMND on the TAXA scroll bar, and then select EDIT TAXA. A screen with buttons leading to places to type in descriptive textual information (species physical description, species natural history, typical habitat of species, species biological characteristics, and economic uses and human interactions for species) will appear, allowing me to flesh out the MNDMND entry.
To enter a LOCATION into the LOCATION database, you should have a few bits of information. First, you should develop a 10-character-or-less location ID - for example, the abbreviation, ESHORE was used to describe the Eastern Shore location, which encompasses the entire study area. For Wachapreague, one of the study sites in Norcross and Hata (1990), I used WACHPRG. Next, you should determine the latitude-longitude coordinates of an imaginary bounding box that would enclose the study site. A good way to do this for our Eastern Shore sites is to consult the Virginia Geographic Names Information Service (Virginia GNIS), to which there is a link from the VCRLTER homepage. You only need to input pairs of coordinates for only two corners of the imaginary bounding box - by convention, we are inputting only the upper left (UL) corner of the bounding box and the lower right (LR) corner. You can enter geographic coordinates by either degree decimal notation or degree-minute-second notation. The Virginia GNIS system uses the degree-minute-second notation. Figure 2 displays the approximate geographic location of the Eastern Shore.
Another piece of information you may include in the LOCATION description at this point is a description of the habitat at this location. Finally, you can also include the URL (if you can find one) of an image of this site.
Like the TAXA database, however, this section of the database is designed to receive more detailed descriptive information about a location. Specifically, you may enter a detailed text description of the site. For example, for the three study sites at the center of the Norcross and Hata (1990) paper, the following site description can be developed:
Site is located in channels directly behind the barrier islands, and adjacent to the marsh complex. A variety of depths, habitats, and substrates are found. Sand substrate is found at inlets, creek mouths, and along river margins. Mud substrate predominates in the creeks of the saltmarshes. The site is part of a contiguous system of shallow bays, extensive saltmarshes, and barrier islands which constitute the seaside of the eastern shore of Virginia. These bays and saltmarshes are transected by main channels approximately 400-1000m wide near inlets and 40-250 m wide at the upstream end. Channel depths range from 3-20 m at Mean High Water (Norcross and Hata, 1990).
In addition, the authors describe the basis for their site selection - information that the LOCATION database is also designed to capture.
The study objective was to describe the utilization of the waters behind the barrier islands of Virginia by finfish. It has been speculated that the seaside bays of the eastern shore are primary nursery grounds for juvenile flatfish but this has never been documented with direct observation. While preliminary sampling at many eastern shore sites was conducted prior to this study by the same author, three sites - Wachapreague, Sand Shoal, and Fishermans Island - were selected for this study based on presence of juvenile finfish, accessibility, and diversity of habitat.
Again, like the TAXA database, you must go back and EDIT an existing LOCATION record in order to input this detailed descriptive information.
Now you are finally ready to enter the species observation! The major pieces of information you will need to enter the observation are: the species code name (MNDMND for this example), a full citation for the study (see Footnote on page 1 for the complete citation), the location ID (WACHPRG for this example), the kind of habitat in which the species was observed (for this example, "lagoonal waters behind Virginia barrier islands" will do), and the name of the primary observer (the first author of the paper, B.L. Norcross, will usually suffice). Once you have entered this data, you have completed the observation entry!