Document of bibliographic reference 880

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

The Species Directory Marine Database: a hierarchical taxonomic database for species-oriented biological recording in the marine environment

Abstract

A database for storing information from a survey of the sublittoral benthos of the Northern Ireland coast was developed in the Ulster Museum during the period 1982-1985. The database included a thesaurus of species names compiled with the intention of covering all marine species known in the British Isles. This species dictionary was then edited and published by the Marine Conservation Society, with individual lists being checked by experts in each group. Code numbers allocated to the species were used to store information on the species present at each site surveyed.These data have now been transferred to a new database, programmed in Advanced Revelation. The relational features of Advanced Revelation have been used to store a hierarchical Linnaean taxonomy, enabling sorting of species in taxonomic order while taking into account changing taxonomies. Special consideration has been given to the coding of synonymous species names. Literature references have been incorporated into the database and linked to the species names. Specimens in the Ulster Museum collections and in the herbarium of University College, Galway have been entered into the database. Field sites have their own tables within the database, and specimen records are linked to the details of the sites where they were collected and the other species recorded at that site. Details of photographs are also stored and linked to species, sites and specimens where appropriate.The same species dictionary is in use by the Marine Nature Conservation Review team of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee of the UK, enabling exchange of data between these two databases. The BioMar project is using the MNCR database, and developing links between this and the Species Directory database described here. The BioMar project is funded by the European Union under its Life fund, with the objective of carrying out surveys of the marine habitats and species in the UK and Ireland, and developing databases and methodology for such surveys. A further aim is the development of a habitat classification for the British Isles, extendable to the rest of the NE Atlantic coasts of the EU.Both databases are capable of producing distribution maps and sorted lists of selected records. The selections may be made on any criterion, and complex criteria and sorts may be specified by a command language. Simple, frequently used, reports are programmed as menu selections making the database easier to use for beginners.The Species Directory Marine Database is described and the details of the structure of the database and the validation routines discussed. A strategy for entering all species names for the group Porifera, together with all citations of these names in the literature and all specimens held in museums around the world is presented.

Bibliographic citation

Picton, B.E. (1996). The Species Directory Marine Database: a hierarchical taxonomic database for species-oriented biological recording in the marine environment. Bull. Kon. Belg. Inst. Natuurwet. Biologie 66(Suppl.): 49-61

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true