Use of online resources in the taxonomy and ecology of harmful phytoplankton

The internet is becoming increasingly important for the dissemination of biological information. Large target audiences are reached rapidly, large amounts of information can be assembled and distributed, sites can include search facilities, and information might be handled online or as printable output. Many websites are now producing libraries of phytoplankton images including toxic dinoflagellates. But while some provide valuable resources others lack focus and do not address any specific problems, for example the morphological variability in many major groups such as Dinophysis and Alexandrium. Yet it is this morphological variation which often hinders taxonomic and ecologic research of harmful dinoflagellates. Taxonomic information as well as information about sample origin and preservation methods is also often lacking. This makes comparisons between taxonomic websites difficult. Therefore, while documenting the presence of certain taxa, some sites cannot be used as a taxonomic training or research tool. Yet, if online resources were to reflect these complexities they could become valuable tools in the dissemination of data as well as actual research and training tools. One reason for the lack of consistency between sites could be that these sites, as a teaching and research tool, are a relatively recent development and no criteria have therefore been established as to the contents and structure of such sites, as are commonplace for conventional publications. This comment will discuss different approaches to, and tools for, the production of online taxonomic resources (depending on the site's objectives, e.g. research or teaching) using the Harmful Plankton Project ( http://www.liv.ac.uk/hab ) designed at the University of Liverpool as one example of a user‐friendly and adaptable tool.     

Darwin and the puzzle of primogeniture

A historical survey of the inheritance practices of farming families in North America and elsewhere indicates that resource allocations among children differed through time and space with regard to sex bias and equality. Tensions between provisioning all children and maintaining a productive economic entity (the farm) were resolved in various ways, depending on population pressures, the family’s relative resource level, and the number and sex of children. Against a backdrop of generalized son preference, parents responded to ecological circumstances by investing in offspring differentially within and between the sexes. Vesting the preponderance of family resources in one heir increased the likelihood of at least one line surviving across several generations, whereas varying degrees of parental investment in emigrating sons or out-marrying daughters might yield boom or bust harvests of grandchildren according to circumstances in more remote locales. Primogeniture (eldest son as primary heir) allowed early identification of heirs and appropriate socialization, as well as more time for parents to contribute to the heir’s reproductive success. Son bias and unigeniture decreased as numbers of children per family declined, as land became less critical to economic success, and as legal changes improved the resource-holding potential of females. We suggest that changing ecological conditions affected parental decisions regarding resource allocation among children at least as much as did changing ideologies of parent-child relations. Our initial research on this topic was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation Gender Roles Program. An early version of the paper was presented at the Santa Fe Institute at a conference on Biology and Economics, 14–26 April 1992, organized by Martin Shubik. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy and Debra S. Judge have been using archival data to study allocation of resources at death by residents of Sacramento and Yolo counties in California from 1890 through 1984 and of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Hrdy is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis, and the author ofThe Langurs of Abu: Female and Male Strategies of Reproduction andThe Woman That Never Evolved. Judge is a graduate student at UC Davis and has published articles on primate, avian, and human behavioral ecology. They share interests in evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, and the biology and culture of gender relations.     

The molecular biology database collection: an online compilation of relevant database resources

The Molecular Biology Database Collection represents an effort geared at making molecular biology database resources more accessible to biologists. This online resource, available at http://www.oup.co.uk/nar/Volume_28/Issue_01/html /gkd115_gml.html, is intended to serve as a searchable, up-to-date, centralized jumping-off point to individual Web sites. An emphasis has also been placed on including databases where new value is added to the underlying data by virtue of curation, new data connections, or other innovative approaches.     

Tutorial videos of bioinformatics resources: online distribution trial in Japan named TogoTV

In recent years, biological web resources such as databases and tools have become more complex because of the enormous amounts of data generated in the field of life sciences. Traditional methods of distributing tutorials include publishing textbooks and posting web documents, but these static contents cannot adequately describe recent dynamic web services. Due to improvements in computer technology, it is now possible to create dynamic content such as video with minimal effort and low cost on most modern computers. The ease of creating and distributing video tutorials instead of static content improves accessibility for researchers, annotators and curators. This article focuses on online video repositories for educational and tutorial videos provided by resource developers and users. It also describes a project in Japan named TogoTV (http://togotv.dbcls.jp/en/) and discusses the production and distribution of high-quality tutorial videos, which would be useful to viewer, with examples. This article intends to stimulate and encourage researchers who develop and use databases and tools to distribute how-to videos as a tool to enhance product usability.