The Pelecinus Project

Rationale

We are working to develop a model system for making systematic and biological information on taxa available over the web. The thesis is that the systematic collection community is the caretaker of a treasurehouse of biological information. While those of us in systematics may realize this, the larger scientific community definitely does not. The information is secreted behind locked cabinet doors, written in four-point type on labels pinned to the specimen. Support for natural history collections from the community will ultimately depend on making the existence of these data known to our colleagues and making it more accessible.

We decided to work with Pelecinus polyturator as a model because of its familiarity, large size (& therefore a better sampling of specimens available), and interesting biology. We are working to database the information available on the labels for all the Pelecinus stored in collections or in similar, relatively permanent depositories (not, for example, in teaching collections where the specimens will soon be destroyed). The data are stored using an implementation of the Association of Systematic Collections information model for biological collections using the Oracle RDBMS. The idea is to thereby have the primary data on distribution and phenology more directly accessible for analysis and summarization. These data are then integrated with our GIS to enable visualization and analysis on a geographic basis.

Pelecinus home page.

Return home icon OSU Insect Collection home page.