NMITA (Phase II): Integrating Interactive Identification Keys, Distribution Maps, and Stratigraphic Columns with the Neogene Marine Biota of Tropical America WWW Database

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Integrating Interactive Identification Keys, Distribution Maps, and Stratigraphic Columns with the Neogene Marine Biota of Tropical America WWW DatabaseThe project will continue development of the Neogene Marine Biota of Tropical America (NMITA) database, an online biotic database http://nmita.geology.uiowa.edu containing high-quality images and synoptic information on taxa collected as part of several associated multidisciplinary fossil-collecting projects in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. They include the Panama Paleontology Project (coordinated by Jackson and Coates of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) and the Neogene Paleontology of the Northern Dominican Republic Project (coordinated by Jung of the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland). NMITA provides basic information on authorship, synonyms, and type specimens of individual taxa identified in the collections, as well as diagnostic morphologic characters and stratigraphic and geographic occurrences. The website offers online identification keys and illustrated glossaries of morphologic terms, as well as interactive maps and stratigraphic columns for examining occurrences and interpreting distribution patterns.During the original first phase of the project, information was contributed by nine specialists at different institutions in the U.S., U.K., Switzerland, and Panama. A total of ~1300 taxa (~3800 images) belonging to two kingdoms and five animal phyla were included. The taxa consisted of: ~225 corals, ~330 bryozoans, ~350 mollusks, ~100 foraminifera, ~100 ostracodes, and ~230 fish; all except mollusks are at the species level.During the second phase of the project (supported by the present grant), data for ~1300 molluscan taxa and Oligo-Miocene corals will be entered, ongoing data entry for foraminifera and ostracodes will be completed, and remaining static pages for corals and bryozoans will be converted to a new Oracle system. Additional identification keys and morphology/ecology-based search routines will be implemented, and new dynamic maps and columns showing occurrences for individual taxa will be developed. Pilot projects will be performed sharing data with the NCEAS Paleobiology database, specimen databases, and STATPOD. Proper documentation will be developed for the NMITA database project, and made available online so that others could manage the database or develop a similar database elsewhere.When complete, NMITA will provide an image-based inventory of the marine biodiversity of tropical America over the past 25 million years. It will serve as a paleontological databank, accounting for taxa in quantitativeanalyses of diversity through geologic time. It will summarize ongoing systematic research on the fossil marine biota of tropical America and be instrumental in earmarking diverse clades in need of future systematic study. NMITA is unique among paleontological databases in its specimen basis and its emphasis on photographs and illustrations, and it serves as a model for future dissemination of taxonomic data in paleontology.