North American Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Digital Reference Collection
NAAMDRC
Summary
Our goal for creating this digital reference collection is to provide regional aquatic biology labs with a graphic tool to aid in the identification and verification of aquatic macroinvertebrates. Most aquatic labs possess a collection of âreferenceâ specimens so that technicians/ taxonomists may compare and confirm specimens collected from a sample with expertly identified and verified type specimens of a particular taxa type. Unfortunately, specimens in these collections are often delicate and subject to damage, eventually rendering them unusable for verification purposes. Because of the unstable nature of individual type specimens, the Aquatic Experimental Lab at the Fort Collins Science Center has developed a method for digitizing [...]
Summary
Our goal for creating this digital reference collection is to provide regional aquatic biology labs with a graphic tool to aid in the identification and verification of aquatic macroinvertebrates. Most aquatic labs possess a collection of âreferenceâ specimens so that technicians/ taxonomists may compare and confirm specimens collected from a sample with expertly identified and verified type specimens of a particular taxa type. Unfortunately, specimens in these collections are often delicate and subject to damage, eventually rendering them unusable for verification purposes. Because of the unstable nature of individual type specimens, the Aquatic Experimental Lab at the Fort Collins Science Center has developed a method for digitizing reference specimens in such a way that a series of digital images provides enough information on key identifiers that a physical specimen is no longer necessary for verification. By using the most up-to-date taxonomic keys available, we have annotated important defining characteristics of each specimen so that non-expert technicians can more easily identify invertebrates found in their samples. In addition to digital images of every taxa in our collection, we have included metadata associated with each specimen. This ancillary data documents habitat type, time and location of collection, as well as the names of the verifying taxonomists, and any additional taxonomic information associated with each specimen to further aid in identification.
