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Chiton
Stacks software: Integrated taxonomic and biogeographic database
for worldwide chitons
An
integrated software package featuring a compilation of taxonomic
and biogeographic data for living and fossil chiton species
worldwide is described. This software was programmed over a
decade ago using Apple’s HyperCard program for Macintosh
computers, and has since been used exclusively by the author to
maintain a current species database. This compilation for all
recognized species and its associated biogeographic analysis is
being published separately (including a current compilation of
all nominal species and synonymies), but this contribution
provides an overview of the software’s capabilities, parts of
which are planned for public release. The incentive for the
development of Chiton Stacks was to provide a convenient means
of updating a global database of worldwide chitons, whenever new
publications or other sources of data became available. This
software could potentially be adapted for other marine taxa.
Among its most useful features are various utilities for
point-and-click entering of distribution records on a series of
regional maps, as well as various semi-automated methods of
generating biogeographic reports. These include reports
organized by marine biogeographic province, including map
plotting of all type localities by province, spreadsheet-format
global distribution matrices for species or higher-level taxa,
and stand-alone indexed HyperCard “stacks” of all
appropriate range maps of any species reported for one or more
provinces. Range data is maintained efficiently as map
coordinates for each species, not as map images, so province
boundaries or higher-taxonomic assignment can be adjusted and
then all reports recalculated with few additional modifications.
Chiton Stacks also provides a convenient way to organize image
files, including URL links to the many images available on the
Web. Over 600 links to such Web images of chitons are currently
entered in the database, representing more than 220 of the
approximately 850 currently recognized living chiton species.
These chiton image Web links have been exported in more concise
form as a single html-format Web page, organized systematically
by species,
and a link to a current version of this Web page is
provided herein. |
