1 Topic by Syrphus

  • Syrphus
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  • Registered: 16-12-2008
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Topic: The ‘Browse Species’ page again

I heard an item on the radio this morning about Segestria spiders.  Araneae is not my group, so I called up Segestria and discovered that it may refer either to a lichen or a spider.  Always good to start the day learning something new.  Then I found the first positive advance I have seen in the new site over the old - I can filter out the lichens and leave the spiders.  Brilliant!

But before I could do that, I had to find the correct group name, which is ordered on the English names.  For Araneae, I happen to know the English name that is used.  However, if I wanted to filter on insect orders I would need to forget that I have have always regarded dragonflies as ‘Odonata’ and find in the list ‘insect - dragonfly (Odonata)’.  And I can’t even type the ‘O’ to get closer more quickly.  I might have guessed that one, but I would not have known that to see Sipuncula (a name I have known for nearly half a century) I would need to know that they are under ‘peanut worms’ (a name I would never have guessed).  On the other hand, a non-zoologist looking for earthworms would have problems unless they knew that these were ‘annelids’.  Who is this list designed for - Joe Public or specialists?  At the moment, it is neither, a mish-mash with no consistency.  (In passing, there is also a group ‘parasitic roundworms (Nematoda)’ which - quite correctly in taxonomic terms - has no member.  And also on the matter of pseudotaxa, in ‘marine mammals’, a meaningless concoction of cetaceans and seals, there is the South American marine otter, Lontra felina, which I think would be a surprise to see in or out of the sea in UK.)

The point of this rant?  Please at least give us the option of filtering on this page by Latin names, and have that as the default.  I suspect that most people using this site will be far more familiar with the formal taxon names than the artificial (and as I have pointed out, not always accurate) taxon group names that appear here.  Also, please allow us to free-type into the box so that if I enter ‘odo’ it shows only taxon groups containing that string.  It is not difficult to code, and the advantages to users would be huge.

******

Then when I got the list of spiders (thankfully rather limited), because I wanted to see whether Segestria spp. are found in the N of Scotland, I began to go through the list of hyperlinks in col. 1:

Segestria bavarica    Segestria bavarica C.L. Koch, 1843, SPIDER (ARANEAE)    61
Segestria perfida     Segestria florentina (Rossi, 1790), SPIDER (ARANEAE)    79
Segestria senoculata    Segestria senoculata (Linnaeus, 1758), SPIDER (ARANEAE)    2404
Segestria florentina    Segestria florentina (Rossi, 1790), SPIDER (ARANEAE)    79

only to find that perfida is the same as florentina.  I perhaps would have noticed that were the species listed in order of preferred name, but had this been a larger taxon with more complex synonymies I would probably not have noticed that I was calling the same map several times.

In the old Gateway (the loss of which I am mourning, as is everyone else who has offered me an unsolicited opinion on the matter), I would have had to put up with visually identifying the spiders in the list, (yes, the filter is a great innovation) but the spider S. perfida would have appeared in its proper place as an invalid (!) synonym of florentina and I would not have clicked on two links to see identical maps.

So the point of rant #2 is to ask that in the taxon lists we have junior synonyms grouped with their preferred names, and preferably distinguished from them by font, style or colour.  Again not a problem to code - if the feature was included in the specification at the start.  It may be more difficult to edit the code in retrospect, but there is a lesson there, perhaps.

Murdo

Syrphus's Website

2 Reply by chrisjohnson

  • chrisjohnson
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Re: The ‘Browse Species’ page again

I'm in total agreement, the species search option has become over complicated. Please remember many people who use NBN are not scientifically trained and even those with a reasonable breadth of taxonomic knowledge are left puzzled at time.

We are trying to encourage our recorders to use the Gateway but I am somewhat reluctant to tell them to use the new system at the moment as it is likely to result in confusion and disillusionment.

Christine Johnson
OHBR

3 Reply by Graham French

  • Graham French
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  • Registered: 23-05-2006
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Re: The ‘Browse Species’ page again

Hello Murdo

The aim of the browse species page is to provide a link to the relevant information page for the required taxon irrespective of whether the name used is the preferred scientific name, a synonymous name or common name. The second column is there to inform the user of the preferred name for that taxon as this is the name used throughout the site.

Working through your example of which Segestria spiders had records on the NBN Gateway in the NW Scotland the steps I used were
1 Click Browse species and start typing Segestria in the search box. The list starts returning after the second letter is typed and is ordered by best match so only typed 'sege; for the required taxon to move to the top of the list. The preferred name includes the taxon group in capitals to distinguish names that occur in more than group eg spiders and lichens in your example. These groups are the output groups as supplied by the UK species inventory and used in the old Gateway.
2. I didn't need to know that Segestria is also a lichen though it returns 5th in the list and 3rd under the spider is type 'Seges'. The lichen seems to be a synonymous name (Porina the preferred name)
3. Click on Segestria link goes to the information page for this genus. I didn't use the group filter which uses the output reporting groups
4. The taxonomy section shows there are 3 Segestria species and map shows that there are Segestria records in the NW Scotland.
5. Click on each of the species links in the taxonomy page to go to the information page for that species (Holding down the CTRL opened these pages in a separate tab).
- Segestria senoculata has records in NW Scotland
- Segestria bavarica - records only around English and Welsh coast
- Segestria florentina - (including the synonymous name Segestria perfida) records only in England

On the old site I could do the same but needed to scroll down the search results to find the 3 Segestria species at the bottom before clicking on each grid map link

The search functionality on the NBN Gateway does need to be intuitive to use and it will be interesting to see how people get on with it. I have added your issue with the output group filter and suggestion of sorting the preferred name by alphabetic order to the list of issues

Best wishes

Graham
NBN Technical Liaison Officer

Graham French's Website

4 Reply by Syrphus

  • Syrphus
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  • From: Strathpeffer, Highland
  • Registered: 16-12-2008
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Re: The ‘Browse Species’ page again

Thanks, Graham.  I would certainly not have called that process 'intuitive'.

I followed your method, and can see the logic of it, but I would never have guessed that was the way to use the page.

The genus I tested it on is Andrena.  And it works.  BUT (you guessed that was on its way!) the listing I get is sorted on subgenera.

Species    Andrena (Andrena) varians (Kirby, 1802)
Subgenus    Andrena (Charitandrena) Hedicke, 1933
Species    Andrena (Charitandrena) hattorfiana (Fabricius, 1775)
Subgenus    Andrena (Chlorandrena) Pérez, 1890
Species       Andrena (Chlorandrena) humilis Imhoff, 1832
Subgenus    Andrena (Chrysandrena) Hedicke, 1933
Species      Andrena (Chrysandrena) fulvago (Christ, 1791)
Subgenus    Andrena (Cnemidandrena) Hedicke, 1933
Species      Andrena (Cnemidandrena) denticulata (Kirby, 1802)
Species                  Andrena (Cnemidandrena) fuscipes (Kirby, 1802)

Andrena is a genus I know better than most folk, but I do not carry subgeneric names in my head - I suspect very few people do.  So finding a species amongst the 60-odd in the list is a toil, and would be even more so for some of the larger and more complex genera.  It does not help to click the subgenus to expand it, because a) I don't know the subgenus until I have located the species I want; and b) even if you do, it does not list the species in that subgenus!  We are back to baffling and utterly unhelpful inconsistency.

Please - give us a list that normal mortals can use.  A list sorted on subgenera is as useless to most folk as a random order.  R6 has just built in an option to report returning preferred names without subgenus.  It is an easy bit of coding.  And please make the links consistent - if clicking a genus returns a list of the contained species, then why does clicking a subgenus not do the same?  I have not dared to click on a family name to see what that does, never mind the orders.

M.

Syrphus's Website

5 Reply by Syrphus

  • Syrphus
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Re: The ‘Browse Species’ page again

Further on this, Graham, I have been pondering why I find the JNCC taxon groups so inappropriate here in the filter when I am happy to see them in other contexts.  These groups are for administrative convenience (that is obvious when you consider the ecologically-defined 'marine mammals' group - why that and not 'alpine plants' or 'insects specialising on oaks', and a myriad other possibilities?) and it can be useful to sort lists on these terms in certain situations.

When I send data to consultants etc. doing EIAs and the like I always sort on the JNCC groups then Latin names because the folk reading them are not likely to be familiar with the more obscure taxonomic terms, and they can quickly identify the general sort of organism, and see it in context with others of the same general nature.

In the Gateway, my whole approach is based on taxonomy, and so if I am offered a chance to filter results I want to filter on real taxonomy using Latin terms.  There is no reason why both filter options should not be offered to cater for all tastes, but for my purposes having only the 'taxon groups' filter is just an irritating waste of space.

M.

Syrphus's Website

6 Reply by Graham French

  • Graham French
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  • Registered: 23-05-2006
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Re: The ‘Browse Species’ page again

Hello Murdo

The NBN Gateway uses the UK Species Inventory without modification and so includes the subgenera in taxonomic names. I have added your request for these to be removed from the Gateway similar to that done in Recorder. The browse species functionality does allow searching on names without the need to know the subgenus as it does returns best match based on the individual words eg genus and species.

The taxonomic tree shown in the species information page is created from the recently created UK Species Inventory organism table which as far as I know allows parent-child relationships between the main taxonomic levels but does not include other levels such as subgenera which is the reason why clicking on a subgenus does not return its children species.

The searching functionality is part of the standard approach used throughout the Gateway eg to search on datasets, sites, designation etc but for species the additional ability to browse through a taxonomic hierarchy as an alternative method is required (I have added this to the suggestions), as you say trying to filter using the output reporting categories is not really that useful. The old Gateway used input reporting categories and may be these should be reinstated on the new Gateway?

Best wishes

Graham
NBN Technical Liaison Officer

Graham French's Website