UCFC (University of Central Florida Collection of Arthropods) database

At long last - we are ready to give it a fling. This has been 8 years in the making. An individual specimen data capture database of specimens in the UCFC or about to be in the UCFC. This database is not complete and is in constant flux as new material is added to the collection (complete with lot associations)(habitat associations) or as specimens are given further changes in taxa levels. At the moment there are about 135,000 specimens in the "core collection" (formal donation to the UCFC) and about 185,000 specimens in the database. (Soon to be added to the formal collection. This database is regional, as is the collection, originating as a study of the 1100-acre campus and enlarged to include various sites within the 5 surrounding counties. There is some "exotic" (continental and world localities) but the amount of this material is very limited and not an area of potential growth - at this time - for this collection.

Please keep in mind that at this time the operations of the database are very rudiment. With time as I can afford it, there will be structure updates and inclusion of better search functions and report presentations. As it is now one can get an idea of the holdings and the various habitats we have sampled over the years. With future efforts we should be able to provide means to do comparison and contrasts between two or more habitats. At this time you can search at any available taxa level, given habitat or geographic range. It is also possible to search for specific dates. If you can not find what you want now, or can not use this database in a fashion that suits you - wait and come back later (weeks, months). Also questions/comments are welcome at: stuartf@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu. I will do my best to provide an intelligent answer.

The collection is very heavy in hymenoptera with coleoptera running a close second. The most complete taxa work has been done with the hymenoptera with again the coleoptera running second. An effort will be made later to get all other orders in the collection into the database.

How it Works

There are three portions to the database: The taxa information, the "blue page"- habitat specifics, and the "pink page" - taxa specifics.

• The database opens to the taxa information and will normally show in chronological order by specimen number. You can sort the specimens in the database by clicking on the square icon to the right of the field name in the taxa information page. i.e. the icon next to ID, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Author, and Lot.
• The red icon to the left of the ID number may be clicked to open further information as to the taxa specifics, including who performed the identification and the location of the specimen etc.
• After clicking on the red icon, you must click on the "View as List" button in the top tool bar to go back to the Taxa information page.
  • The blue icon to the right of the Lot number may be clicked to open up the habitat specifics page.
  • Note: After going to the Lots page or "blue page" you must click on the "to specimens" button in the top toolbar to return to the taxa information page.
• In order to do a search, you must click on the Find button in the top toolbar, from there you can click on the individual fields i.e. the genus field, order field(taxa info page) or habitat field, method field(Habitat info, "the blue page") and select the criteria for the search, then you MUST click on the PERFORM FIND button in the LEFT margin TOOLBAR.
• (You MUST click on the up/down arrow in the fields other than ID and Lot)
  • For the Taxa information page there are three views in the Left side toolbar, Form, List, and Table
  • Form shows only one specimen at a time
  • List shows five specimens at a time
  • Table shows 10 specimens at a time note: in the table view there is no red/blue icon, so if you want to view 10 specimens at a time and then take a look at red or blue page info you will have to go back to the List view,
  • Currently we are not sure how to fix this so that you can view the entire list of specimens with a scroll bar on the side to navigate - (we hope to get this working in the future if at all possible)

That is all that you need to know to browse the database. Note: sometime in the future we hope to be able to have a report function so that you can print out customized lists from the information we have on the database.

Error Work Around

There appears to be a glitch in our Instant Web Published Database. I will try to explain in detail how to bypass this problem until we have a fix for it.

The error occurs in the Blue or Lots page. Lets say you use the Find Specimen function on the Data Entry Page. You look through the results and decide to look at the Lots(Blue) page for a particular specimen so you click on the blue icon. Then you are taken to the Habitat Info Page (Blue or Lots page). In the top right corner you see a box labeled Associated Specimens. Normally if you clicked on a specimen with lot number 837, it will take you to the Blue page/Habitat info page and show you all specimen that are in Lot 837 in the Associated Specimen Box.

For some reason this is not the case with our current set up. So if you need to take a look at all of the specimen in a particular Lot , you need to use the Find Specimen Function on the Data Entry Page (or Main Page) then enter the Lot number you are wanting to search through in the Lots Field and click on Perform Find, at which point it will bring up all Specimen related to whichever Lot number you entered.

Again if you have any questions or concerns please contact us at . . . stuartf@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu.