Julian Donahue, Los Angeles, CA (Lepidoptera)
Rosser W. Garrison, Azusa, CA (Odonata)
Patrick McCafferty, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN (Ephemeroptera)--See also May Fly Central Homepage:
Douglass Miller, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, ARS, USDA, Beltsville, MD (Coccoidea)--See also Scalenet Homepage:
John Morse, Clemson University, Clemson, SC (Trichoptera)--See also Trichoptera Homepage:
Lois B. O'Brien, Florida A & M University, Tallahasse, FL, and Steve Wilson, Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, MO
(Fulgoroidea)
Norman Platnick, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY (Arachnida)
Randall T. Schuh, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY (Miridae)
Margaret Thayer, Field Museum, Chicago, IL (Coleoptera)-- See also Coleoptera Homepage:
F. Christian Thompson, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, ARS, USDA, Washington, DC, and Neal Evenhuis, B. P. Bishop Museum,
Honolulu, HA (editors, Diptera)
ODONATA
The most used and useful resources for the collection manager, and systematists in general, are check lists and catalogs. The number of battered copies of check lists and catalogs on the shelves of curator's/collections managers' offices are a testament to this fact.
The numbers, ecological importance, and economic impact of terrestrial arthropods are of major significance at a time of greatly increased interest in, and concern with, biodiversity and the biological resources of the world. Collections of plant and animal specimens held by various institutions and individuals around the world have diverse functions: 1) legislation, 2) commerce (labelling of samples), 3) biological control, 4) quarantine, 5) agriculture (programs within USA agencies such as Department of Defense, Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, Health and Human Welfare, State, US Department of Agriculture), 6) biodiversity, 7) evolution, 8) ecology, 9) biogeography, and 10) natural resources. The creation, curation, and maintenance of these collections depend on accurate and complete authority files of the species, genera, and families of organisms together with their synonyms.
Within a hierarchical framework, the nomenclatorial database consists of four tables: 1) species-group names, 2) biogeographic range table of valid species-group names, 3) genus-group names, and 4) family group names.
ORDER: The order to which the name belongs.
FAMILY: The family to which the name belongs.
GENUS: The generic assignment for this name.
SPECIES: The species-group name.
AUTHOR(S): The author(s) of the name.
DATE: The date of publication of the name. The brackets and parentheses conventions are ignored; only the valid date for the species-group name is given.
STATUS: The currently recognized status of a species-group name. The status field appears as a pop-up list in the data entry program and allows the following possibilities.
Valid: This name is the currently recognized senior synonym for a
species.
Syn.: This name is a junior synonym.
Homo.: This name is a junior primary or secondary homonym.
Unav.: This name is nomenclatorially unavailable. The name may
be infrasubspecific, a nomen nudum, or fail some other
criterion of availability under the Code of Zoological
Nomenclature.
Missp.: This name is a misspelling of an available name. In cases
of identical misspellings, only the first instance of the
misspelling is listed in the database.
Misid.: A misidentification of a specimen through the incorrect
application of a species-group name. Only
misidentifications that have been published and are
included in widely cited or important works will be
included, e.g., misidentifications in revisions,
identification manuals, and non-systematic papers.
Icomb.: This name is an invalid combination, representing an
obsolete classification. Some species of great economic
or social importance continue to be referred to by names
used in older classifications. For example the corn
earworm is now called Helicoverpa zea but commonly appears
in the literature as Heliothis zea. Only invalid
combinations of names of great importance will be
captured.
ORIGINAL GENUS: This is the generic name associated with a species-group name at the time of its proposal. For example the black cutworm Agrotis ipsilon Hufnagel was described as Phalaena ipsilon Hufnagel 1766. The original genus, therefore, is Phalaena. This field is included for the use of those who follow the parenthesis convention of authors names and for the detection of primary homonymies. The original genus also allows for the reconstruction of the original combination, which can be used a primary key for valid names in a database representing multiple classifications.
VALID GENUS, VALID SPECIES, VALID AUTHORS & VALID DATE: These four fields contain the valid name, author(s), and date for the species-group name. The valid species-group name is given for the species in its original orthography (spelling) of the name unless corrected under the Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
AUTHORITY & TELEPHONE: These two fields contain the name and telephone number (or E-Mail address) of someone who has offered to serve as an authority for the species-group name in the record in case the user of the database needs more information on a particular species.
NA SPECIES:A logical true or false field reflecting the occurrence or non-occurrence of the species in North America north of Mexico. A synonym or some other status name automatically takes the true or false value of the valid name for the species. The range table subdivides the Nearctic into Mexico, conterminous United States, Canada, Alaska, and Greenland.
COMMENT: The comment field is a memo field of no fixed length and serves various purposes. Primarily it lists the source of the name, either a publication or a non-published source. If the source is a publication, such as a catalog or revision, the inclusion of the source gives the user entry into more extensive literature on the species, e.g., biologies, foodplants, distributions, etc. The memo field is also used to include information about misspellings, misidentifications, unavailable names, and homonymies. Although unlimited in length the source field is not to be used for information outside the scope of a check list. The source memo field appears as a button in Fig. 1 whose selection produces a pop-up editing window.
All other buttons in figure 2 represented by words in brackets or parentheses are control buttons for the data entry program.
GENUS & SPECIES: These two fields contain the currently accepted name for a species and replicate each valid name in the species-group name table.
NEARCTIC, NEOTROPIC, PALEARCTIC, ETHIOPIAN, ORIENTAL, AUSTRALIAN, OCEANIC & ANTARCTIC: The fields represent the various biogeographical regions. Within each field the presence of a species in that region is indicated with a small "x." The field is blank if the species does not occur in that region. The regions generally follow biological boundaries, although there are exceptions caused by practical limitations imposed by the type of geographical data available. For example, when a data source gives only "Mexico," then for practical reasons, that "Mexico" is considered part of the Nearctic region, even though Mexico is partly Neotropical and partly Nearctic. Without further information, it is impossible to determine whether the species recorded as occurring in "Mexico" occurs in the Neotropical or Nearctic parts of the country.
There are two exceptions to the rule of presence or absence of a species in a biogeographical region, the NEARCTIC and OCEANIC fields. The NEARCTIC field can contain five flags: 1) m = Mexico, 2) u = conterminous United States, 3) c = Canada, 4) a = Alaska, and 5) g = Greenland. For example, if a species occurs in the United States, Canada, and Alaska, the letters "uca" are entered in the field. The complete sequence of letters is "mucag." The state of Hawaii is part of the Oceanic biogeographical region.
The Nearctic region has been subdivided for a number of reasons. The first stage of the project is to produce a list of the North American species even though the eventual product will cover the entire world. The National Biological Survey also will need a list developed for the United States, and several Federal agencies need a break down of North American range based on legal and political definitions, not biological ones.
The state of Hawaii is in the Oceanic region. Presence of a species in Hawaii is indicated by the letter "h." If a species occurs in the Oceanic region, but not Hawaii, the letter "x" is used. If a species is absent in the Oceanic region, the field is left blank.
The other words in the screen (Fig. 4) represent database control buttons.
ORDER, FAMILY, GENUS, AUTHOR(S) & DATE: These fields are essentially the same as in the species-group name table.
STATUS: This field has the same structure as the equivalent field in the species-group name table with the same choices in the pop-up list. The possiblity of invalid combination (ICOMB), of course, is missing.
VALID GENUS, VALID AUTHOR(S) & VALID DATE: The accepted name if the genus-group name of the record is not valid.
COMMENTS: The same field as in the species-group name table.
Buttons in the top right-hand corner of the screen represent database controls.
ORDER: As in the species and generic group name tables. FAMILY, AUTHOR(S) & DATE: The family-group name as originally spelled, its author(s) and the date of publication.
VALID FAMILY, DATE, VALID SUBFAMILY, DATE, VALID TRIBE & DATE: These six fields are contained in a box in Fig. 6 labeled "The Current Classification" and represent the current classification into which the family-group name falls. This particular example is simple: The family-group name Anataelinae was proposed as a subfamily by Burr in 1909 and currently is considered to be a subfamily of the Pygidicranidae. There is no current tribal classification of this family of the earwigs. Therefore the tribal level of the box is empty.
COMMENTS: See under the species- and genus-group name tables.
The second level is an Advisory Committee. The members represent diverse interests by scientific study, biological group, and geographic location. They are available to advise the steering committee.
The third level of the organization consists of a network of collaborators. The list continues to grow as the project becomes better established. Responsibilities of collaborators vary. Some will provide parts of the database relevant to groups they work on. Others will coordinate other collaborators for major groups as well as enter data. For example, Margaret Thayer will coordinate the entry of the Coleoptera names for North America.
The management plan incorporates five levels of activity. Advice will be sought from the Advisory Committee and scientific community through the Entomological Collections Network. Advice will be considered by the Steering Committee and incorporated into the project. The database, standards and protocols established by the Steering Committee will be implemented by the Production and Scientific Editors. They will oversee the work of the catalogers, handle the data flow to and from the collaborators, and insure the integrity of the information. Data will be searched for and/or entered by the catalogers, who will make modifications as directed by the editors or in accordance to standards and protocols. Names and associated data ultimately will be provided by systematists, who will certify the final data.
The database also will be distributed on CD-ROM. A machine to master the CD-ROM has been acquired. The first CD-ROM will be the North American names, but will be expanded to cover the world fauna
CSIRO. 1993. Australian National Insect Collection. Database field specifications, data dictionary and user guide. 31 pp., CSIRO Division of Entomology, Canberra 25 May 1993.
Danks, H. V. 1979. Canada and its insect fauna. Mem. Entomol. Soc. Canada 108:1-573.
Gmelin, J. F. 1790Ñ1792. Systema Naturae, Editio decima tertia, aucta, reformata. 1(4Ñ6): 1517Ñ3020. Lipsiae.
Hammond, P. 1992. Species inventory. Pp. 17-39. In Groombridge, B. (ed.), Global Biodiversity. Status of the Earth's Living Resources. xix + 585 pp. Chapman & Hall.
IOPI. 1993. World Vascular Plant Checklist. A Case Model of Checklist Data. DRAFT, Version 4.0 04.02.1993.
Kosztarab, M, & Schaefer, C. (eds.) 1990. Systematics of the North America Insects and Arachnids: Status and Needs. Virginia Agric. Exp. Sta., Information Ser. 90-1, 247 pp.
Miller, S. E. 1992. Specimen databases and the lack of standard nomenclature: A proposal for North American Insects. Insect Collection News 7:7-8.
Thompson, F. C. (coordinator). 1990. Automatic Data Processing for Systematic Entomology: Promises and Problems. A Report for the Entomological Collections Network. [48 pp.] Entomological Collections Network, Baton Rouge.
