Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Schlinger Foundation

Searching the Database for the Fiji Arthropod Survey

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Over 273,000 specimens have been processed to order or family and sent to taxon specialists around the world for identification, and discovery and publication of new taxa. Specimens will ultimately be deposited in the Fiji National Insection Collection.

Data from the Fiji Arthropod Survey is freely searchable on the web, and links on detail pages from searches for specimens and taxonomic names can be mapped in DiscoverLife. Specimens identified to species will be served to GBIF through DiscoverLife in 2009.

How it's done: The web-optimized version of Mandala is queried by FXphp from web pages created using Dreamweaver® and FMStudio®. The underlying structure of this WebMandala is not the same as the production database, which sports an aesthetically pleasing user interface, rather, it is utilitarian, with a highly flattened structure with minimal relationships and static, fully indexed calculated fields. The results of these efforts speeds searches and display on the web, and is completely disengaged from the production database. Although the Fiji Mandala databases (production & web) are housed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, authorized users may remotely access the production database from anywhere in the world through a FileMaker Pro client and high speed internet connection.

For Contributions by Fiji Project Members
If you are a part of the NSF Fiji Arthropod Survey Project and want to add your data or update existing data in the Fiji Mandala database, you have several choices for accomplishing this.
* Preferred: Request from the database coordinator an output from the current database of the specimens of the taxa you have been sent. An Excel file with the data suitable for import into your own database structure or for use in publications will be returned for you to input the identifications you have made. Return the updated Excel file to the database coordinator.
* Add your data to the main Fiji Mandala database (requires FileMaker Pro 8.x or 9, high speed internet access, and username and password).
* Use one of the downloadable MS Excel® spreadsheets listed below:
* FijiNewLocCollEvents.xls for recording new localities and their associated collecting events
* FijiSpecimenIdentifications.xls for specialists putting identifications on specimens already labeled with unique identifiers (e.g., FBA_123456), which were sent to them or collected by the specialists, or to add taxonomic names to the database for future use.
Return spreadsheets, inquire about database access, and submit questions or comments to the database coordinator.