Assembling Biological Inventories for Analysis Robert J. Meese, Ph.D. University of California, Davis (530) Presented by Andrea Grosse IABIN Joint IABIN/CHM Meeting: “Building Partnerships through Effective Networking”

Knowledge Gap: reliable species inventory data difficult to obtain  Requisite field work not yet performed  Data on species occurrences not available  Data “available”, but idiosyncratic  Multitude of storage media  Cards, variety of electronic media  Word processor, spreadsheet, database files  Multitude of data structures  Even if electronic, data structures incompatible  Multitude of species names  Conflicting species names prevent comparisons  Common names used exclusively, not cross-referenced to scientific name equivalents

Filling the knowledge gap: assembling distribution data  Standardize species inventories  Names standardized  Data structures standardized  Data documented  Associated data (abundance, origin, breeding and residence status, etc.) standardized  How may this be accomplished?  One way is to create “custom input device”  Specialized computer program specifically developed to create standardized databases of species occurrence and related information

Custom input device: Visual MABFlora/MABFauna  Core is database of species names  Names derived from published sources  Widely recognized  Users of software select names from lists displayed by program  Standardizes on names  Eliminates typing errors  Recently, use of standardized codes (e.g., ITIS TSNs) for species names essential for data sharing among agencies

Users select from a list (i.e. a catalog) of all validly-published names ( cannot assume that all field personnel or those engaged in data entry are familiar with current taxonomic treatments ) Program automatically reconciles alternative names (e.g., synonyms) to those currently recognized as valid (i.e. to a single nomenclature)

 Document sources of information  Document data entry person(s)  Standardize associated data (e.g., abundance, origin, residence and breeding status, etc.) in vocabularies (e.g., abundance categories) and formats

 Automatically create files of entered data and append these data on to other computers  Export data for use in other applications  Provide standard queries of data and produce preformatted output

 Easy to learn and efficient to use  Most biologists cannot be expected to be expert database managers  Distributed at no cost  Most agencies cannot afford to deploy hundreds or thousands of copies of software if it is expensive  May be run over a network, so a single installation may serve many users

Current Status  ICE biological inventory databases contain over 413,000 records assembled through use of Visual MABFlora/MABFauna  208,607 plant records  204,565 animal records  1035 sites from 129 countries represented  All records documented as to source(s) and standardized to single taxonomic treatments  Web site receives > 2,000 “hits” per month

Three user support files provided 1. Windows Help file  Indexed  Searchable 2. QuickStart text file  English & Spanish  Gets you “up and running” quickly 3. Tutorial:  PowerPoint-based  Interactive  Just sit and watch

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