A WEB‐BASED DIGITAL KEY TO EUGLENOIDS

Abstract

Uzwiak, D. J. & Triemer, R. E.Division of Life Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08554 USAWe are using Lucid Professional software to construct digital keys for the identification of Euglenoids. Digital keys offer a number of unique advantages over traditional paper keys, including: 1) users can describe characters in any sequence, and may skip uncertain characters, 2) the key program, by scoring as the user progresses, can “guess” what the result will be, and direct the user to the most informative characters, or narrow the field of likely taxa, 3) terms, characters, or taxa may be linked to descriptive pages that can include video clips, animations, microscopic images, and diagrammatic illustrations, as well as text. In additional to the advantages that a digital key offers over a traditional paper key, the Lucid key format includes html support, and this internet capability provides additional advantages over stand‐alone digital keys. For example, the key becomes as accessible as the internet, allowing distribution to users with a broad range of interests. When run on‐line, the key can hyperlink to related pages in the home site or in remote sites, allowing users to customize their experiences. While novice biologists may be directed to pages that illustrate and explain biological terms, experts will move quickly to species descriptions, which will include images, original species diagnoses, and a summary of taxonomic debate, where applicable. Our key will be housed in the Euglenoid project website (http://www.bio.rutgers.edu/euglena). In collaboration with others, we hope to link our keys to other similar keys so that any protistan taxa may be identified from one web address.