Internet Access to the Evolution of Terrestial Ecosystems Database

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This project will develop a World Wide Web interface for the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems (ETE) Database. ETE is an international project, designed to allow broad-scale comparisons of the paleobiology and paleoecology of terrestrial ecosystems and their plant and animal communities. Currently the Database contains information on over 8,000 fossil localities and more than 5,000 plant and animal species. It is accessed through an X-Window graphical interface, which allows one to plot fossil localities on maps displayed on screen, to query the screen display, and to construct output data sets for other analysis programs. Currently, the user interface application (called "Explorer") runs only on the host that also runs the project's database management software (Ingres). This makes the Explorer an effective tool in the context of a local network, but a user at a remote site must operate the interface (maps, menus, etc.) from across the Internet and must transfer via FTP any analysis output files to use locally. Users outside of North America find international network access too slow to use the Explorer during certain peak hours. This project will port Explorer to the Java computer language (JavaSoft, Mountain View, CA). A Java object file can be executed on any computer that has a Java interpreter without recompiling. Java interpreters are available for all major PC and workstation platforms, and are built in to WWW browsers such as Netscape 2.0 and HotJava. From within a Web browser, a special form of a Java application (called an "applet") is downloaded to the user's computer (via a standard WWW link to a URL), where it is executed. The result is a level of interactivity and complex behavior previously unavailable on the WWW. The new version of the Explorer will thus take the form of a Java applet embedded within a standard WWW HTML document. The result will be a robust, Internet-based, interactive, interface providing the Explorer's GI S-style approach to data exploration. That architecture will greatly increase the accessibility of the database to paleobiologists world-wide and catalyze additional research community feedback and professional interaction on the project. A WWW client for ETE will also likely make the database a significant resource for formal and informal education in paleobiology.