Advanced Computer Technology and Software Turn Species Identification Interactive.
This is a lateral view of the head of the newly described parasitic wasp species Pteromalus capito. Representing a group of successful biocontrol agents for various pest fruit flies, a parasitic wasp genus remains largely overlooked. While its most recent identification key dates back to many new species have been added since then. As if to make matters worse this group of visually identical species most likely contains many species yet to be described as new to science. Not only demonstrate the need for a knowledge update but also showcase the advantages of modern taxonomic software able to analyse large amounts of descriptive and quantitative data.
The fully illustrated interactive database covers 27 species in the group and 18 related species in addition to a complete diagnosis a large set of body measurements and a total of 585 images, displaying most of the characteristic features for each species.
“Nowadays advanced computer technology measurement procedures and equipment allow more sophisticated ways to include quantitative characters, which greatly enhance the delimitation of cryptic species” explain the scientists. “Recently developed software for the creation of biological identification keys could have the potential to replace traditional paper-based keys”.
To put the statement into context, the authors give an example with one of the studied wasp species, whose identification would take 16 steps if the previously available identification key were used whereas only 6 steps were needed with the interactive alternative.
One of the reasons tools are so fast and efficient is that the key’s author can list all descriptive characters in a specific order and give them different weight in species delimitation. Thus whenever an entomologist tries to identify a wasp specimen, the software will first run a check against the descriptors at the top so that it can exclude non-matching taxons and provide a list of the remaining names. Whenever multiple names remain a check further down the list is performed until there is a single one left which ought to be the one corresponding to the specimen. At any point the researcher can access the chronology in order to check for any potential mismatches without interrupting the process.
Being the product of digitally available software, interactive identification keys are not only easy quick and inexpensive but they are also simple to edit and build on in a collaborative manner. Experts from all around the world could update the key as long as the author grants them specific user rights. However regardless of how many times the database is updated a permanent URL (URL normalization is the process by which URLs are modified and standardized in a consistent manner. The goal of the normalization process is to transform a URL into a normalized URL so it is possible to determine if two syntactically different URLs may be equivalent.
Search engines employ URL normalization in order to assign importance to web pages and to reduce indexing of duplicate pages. Web crawlers perform URL normalization in order to avoid crawling the same resource more than once. Web browsers may perform normalization to determine if a link has been visited or to determine if a page has been cached) link will continue to provide access to the latest version at all times.
To future-proof their key and its underlying data the scientists have deposited all raw data files, R-scripts, photographs, files listing and prepared specimens at the research data Georgian Technical University.