Is symbiota right for our (very small) collection?

[Carl Keiser]

Hello all!

I am an assistant professor at University of Florida, and my lab runs the Spider Parasite Digital Research (SPDR) Collection. It is a collection of host-parasite pairs focusing on the parasites of spiders, and our aim is to identify, preserve, sequence, geotag, and digitize each specimen so the data is freely available online. This collection is very new, but growing all the time. We only have ~70 specimen pairs in the collection but we'd like to start the digitization process properly so we don't end up switching to another database style in the future which seems like a headache. I was originally interested in using Specify, but Symbiota has gotten my attention because I like the collaborative nature and that it is all operated online.

Since managing a natural history collection is very new to me (I am a behavioral ecologist with very little museum experience), I want to make sure that Symbiota is even the right platform for us to use. We wouldn't be converting a database of information/photos, but rather initiating a database through Symbiota. Does this seem like the right place? If not, are there other platforms you would suggest?

We really appreciate the feedback!

Take care,

- Nick

[Miller, Andrew Nicholas]

Yes!

Since “Host” is not an officially-recognized DwC field, you will want to use the “Associated Taxa” field for your host-parasite relationships.  

I have been working with the Bark Beetle Microbiome group, headed by Jiri Hulcr at your institution, on a similar endeavor as yours.  His lab may be a good resource for ideas.

Cheers,

Andy

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–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Andrew Miller, Ph.D.
Mycologist and Director of the Herbarium/Fungarium
University of Illinois
Illinois Natural History Survey
1816 South Oak Street
Champaign, IL  61820-6970
phone: (217) 244-0439
email: amil...@illinois.edu
website: http://www.inhs.illinois.edu/research/pi/amiller

Office address:
Robert A. Evers Laboratory
Room 2003
1909 South Oak Street, MC-652

[James Ryan Allen]

Nick,

We helped a collection with ~400 plant specimens get their data into the SoRoHerbaria/SEINet portal last February. I do not think there is such a thing as a collection being too small. In fact I would argue that an aggregator like Symbiota is probably the best place for small collections because you get the benefit of continued development and more than likely there are other similar collections that would be happy to help answer questions.

Best of luck,

Ryan

J Ryan Allen

Project Coordinator Southern Rocky Mountain TCN

Project Manager Biodiversity Informatics

University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
Herbarium (COLO)

350 UCB

Boulder, CO 80309

303-492-3216

https://botanydb.colorado.edu/

http://www.soroherbaria.org/

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From: symbio...@googlegroups.com <symbio...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Miller, Andrew Nicholas <amil...@illinois.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2020 8:52 AM
To: symbio...@googlegroups.com <symbio...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Is symbiota right for our (very small) collection?

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/symbiotagroup/4F0C9B61-C611-40BC-BDBC-C617438C9BCB%40illinois.edu.