Corals and sea anemones on line: a functioning biodiversity database

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Corals and sea anemones on line a functioning
biodiversity database
D. G. Fautin and R. W. Buddemeier
University of Kansas Department of Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology, Natural History Museum,
Kansas Geological Survey
NOAA Library, 21 November 2002
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National Science Foundation grants OCE 00-03970
(NOPP) to Daphne G. Fautin and Robert W.
Buddemeier DEB95-21819, DEB 99-78106 (PEET) to
Daphne G. Fautin Land-Ocean Interactions in the
Coastal Zone (LOICZ, an IGBP project)
Students and colleagues who have contributed
data, time, and ideas -- especially Adorian
Ardelean
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Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorals
(http//www.kgs.ukans.edu/Hexacoral/) An
on-line information resource system that consists
oftwo interactive databases one dealing with
taxonomy and biogeography of hexacorals
(corals, sea anemones, and their allies) one
dealing with environmental information for the
marine environmentlinked by front ends
offering user support for searching,
analyzing, and downloading the data
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Useful biological databases cannot be just
collections of numbers nor can the databases
that support and interact with them!
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SOME CONTENT
FUNCTIONALITY
A BIT OF SOFTWARE DETAIL
PHILOSOPHY AND SUGGESTIONS
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Hexacoral serves literature-derived,
specimen-based distributional and environmental
data on living hexacorallians of all orders
Holdings are most complete for the soft-bodied
taxa, but data on Scleractinia are expanding
rapidly and in coordination with NMITA
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961 genera and 7602 binomens and trinomens
2612 original descriptions 2712 valid species
1648 type specimen lots (on line about as many
waiting to be entered) 4404 images
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THE CORE PAGE

• In addition to the data listed at right, fields
  have been added for
• nematocysts
• symbionts and associates
• substrate type
• reproduction
• skeletal type

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SYNGRAPH a synonymy tool with both graphical and
tabular outputs
Developed by Adorian Ardelean, Syngraph has been
fully implemented for actinians, and is being
applied to other groups as the database expands
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IMAGES
illustrations from original descriptions origin
al photomicrographs of type material original pho
tos of type specimens
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Occurrence records displayed on a map use symbols
of a different color for each synonymous name.
This function can be used for investigating
whether a synonymy is justified.
Hexacoral as a research tool
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For taxa with georeferenced records, a query of
the companion global 30 environmental database
produces summaries of general environmental
conditions for individual entries or a summary
for the taxon
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Hexacoral as a research tool
to predict other places the species might
occur, including habitats that might be
vulnerable to invasion
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• Occurrence data are scarce
• To increase number of records per taxon
• gt collect more (from museums, field,
  literature)
• few museum records are on line, many are
  taxonomically dubious, or both
• gt include synonyms

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Hexacoral as a research tool
Anemones of most species seldom occur without
fish symbionts Anemonefish never occur without a
host anemone
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87 half-degree cells contain 516 usable anemone
records
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There is good overlap. Non-overlap is because of
biological reality (fish do not occur in Hawaii),
and sources of data (e.g. publications on
anemonefish in Japan are not vouchered by
specimens, research on anemones is scarce in
South Africa)
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PRECISION and ACCURACY Of locality and
taxonomy To minimize problems gt a centralized
database gt from the published record
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The combined search page yields an extended form
of the Hexacoral species data link page
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Joint search products
Hexacoral dynamic location maps of NMITA fossil
occurrences NMITA stratigraphy
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An On-line Atlas of Marine Diversity
and a growing inventory of others
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Hexacoral and its partners are members of OBIS
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  Systems used
ORACLE COLDFUSION ArcIMS
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Oceanographic data acquired electronically Diffe
r from biological data in being relatively
homogeneous continuous Lack taxonomic
resolution Lack historical dimension
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Two beautiful SeaWiFS satellite images of blooms
off Newfoundland in the western Atlantic, the
left-hand on 21st July 1999, the right-hand one
on 16th July 2000.
http//www.soes.soton.ac.uk/staff/tt/eh/satbloompi
cs.html
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Two more stunning SeaWiFS satellite images of a
probable (no ships have ever taken water samples
to confirm them there) coccolithophore bloom
cradling the Falkland Islands (Patagonian Shelf),
the left-hand one on 29th November 1999, the
right-hand one two weeks later on 13th December.
Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard
Space Flight Center and ORBIMAGE.
http//www.soes.soton.ac.uk/staff/tt/eh/satbloompi
cs.html
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SOURCES OF TAXONOMICALLY AND GEOGRAPHICALLY
RESOLVED DATA

• Museum specimens
• Published literature
• Field work

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REQUIRES HUMAN INTERVENTION In the
fieldIn museumsIn publication/capture from
publication

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Is no more costly than remote
sensing Is essential to many scientific and
societal issues
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Biogeoinformatics of Hexacoralswww.kgs.ukans.
edu/Hexacoral