Heteroptera: True Bugs

1
(No Transcript)
2
Heteroptera True Bugs

• 7 infraorders
• 85 families
• 40,000 described species

3
Miridae Plant Bugs

• 1,300 valid genera
• 10,000 valid species
• mostly phytophagous and host specific

4
PBI Target TaxaOrthotylinae Phylinae
Monophyletic worldwide

• 486 described genera
• 90 new genera
• 3905 described species
• 1200 new species

5
Exemplar Orthotylinae Phylinae
6
Species Accumulation Curves
7
Plant Bug PBIIndividual Participants

• 4 senior scientists
• 4 postdoctoral trainees
• 2 doctoral trainees
• 2 research assistants
• 3 undergraduate trainees
• IT support staff

8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
PBI Database Goals

• 650,000 total specimens
• 100,000 specimens from
  15 PBI-supported field trips
• 3500 host plant specimens

16
Acquisition of Collections
17
Appeal for Specimens

• To improve taxonomic coverage
• To improve geographic coverage
• To improve host documentation
• Please contact me during the conference or via
  email at schuh_at_amnh.org

18
Australian Miridaechanges from 1995--2004

• 210 described species 10
• 1,500 predicted spp. 750
• 1,400 recorded hosts 4000
• 75,000 specimens 300

19
South African Collecting and museum visits,
October 2004

• 15,000 specimens 700
• 250 species 150
• 200 new hosts 300

20
Processing of Collections

• Insects
• Mounting labeling centralized in AMNH New York
• Rough sorting centralized in AMNH
• Host plants
• Vouchers identified by specialists
• Vouchers deposited in recognized herbaria

21
Processing of Collections

• Management of Taxonomic activities distributed by
  group
• Phylinae American Museum
• Orthotylinae Australian Museum

22
Creating Specimen Database

• Software Choices
• Use off the shelf product
• Develop specialized application
• Platform Approaches
• Browser-based data entry
• Open source programs
• MySQL Database Engine

23
Specimen Database Concept

• Browser based
• Data entry on local machines
• Upload to web server
• Minimize fields
• Maximize efficiency
• Multiple Modes
• Museum Mode
• Field Mode

24
(No Transcript)
25
Field Mode Locality Data
26
Field Mode Host Data
27
Georeferencing

• GEOLocate
• Stand alone program
• Easy to use
• Individual batch processing
• Manual correction capability
• Limitations
• parsing of locality names
• still under development
• http//www.museum.tulane.edu/geolocate/default.asp
  x

28
(No Transcript)
29
(No Transcript)
30
Unique Specimen Identification

• Is it necessary?
• Machine readability
• Bar codes
• Matrix codes
• Alpha-numeric readability

31
(No Transcript)
32
(No Transcript)
33
(No Transcript)
34
Web Presentation of Taxonomic Information
35
Summary - Hurdles

• Tracking progress of specimen processing
• Management of host identification and vouchering
• Coordination of data entry and unique specimen
  identification
• Effective and efficient geocoding

36
Summary - Accomplishments

• 20 increase in total specimens
• 20 increase in known diversity
• increase in geographic coverage
• dramatic increase in host- documented specimens
• dramatic increase in host vouchers

37
Acknowledgements

• Sheridan Hewson-Smith
• Steve Thurston
• Other PBI project participants collaborators
• National Science Foundation
• American Museum of Natural History
• Australian Museum

38
(No Transcript)