Background

As part of the National Science Foundation's Partnerships to Enhance Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET), we have assembled a database on sea anemones. The database includes a bibliography of the original literature in which each species is described, an inventory of type specimens, distribution maps, and images. You can view the original online version of the database at http://biocomplexity.nhm.ku.edu/anemones/images/index.html.

This database structure provided the basis for the Hexacoral database, the first version of which is now available at http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Hexacoral/Biodata/. We continue to add additional hexacoral taxa to our database, and will release progressive updates.

As an outgrowth of the geographic portion of the hexacoral database, we are creating an electronic atlas and gazetteer of locality data for marine organisms (pelagic and benthic), including expedition station lists. Ultimately, this will be available on the web in searchable and downloadable form for use by anyone who needs such data. All the data will be in latitude and longitude, and will be able to be displayed on a map, as we have already done for our locality data (see website). The data will be georeferenced, and the precision of all data will be part of the records. The gazetter will be useful for building any future geographic database of marine organisms.

We are searching for locality data to supplement what we already have. If you have such information in any electronic format for any marine taxa, we would like to use it. Station lists would also be useful. We would prefer it if the data were in a spreadsheet or database, but even word processing files would be valuable. Comments on precision and accuracy are desirable, especially if you converted localities in words to latitude and longitude. We would appreciate any suggestions you have of other sources of such data. Of course, all contributions to this project will be fully acknowledged.

If you have any data to contribute or have comments please contact Daphne Fautin fautin@ku.edu

Thank you for your assistance