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Key Releases
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History of the Key |
| 2001: the Stream Ecology class taught by Jim Haney at the University of New Hampshire began a project to develop an image-based key to the stream invertebrates of the New England Region. Using taxonomic structure of Merrit and Cummins "An Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America", students outlined a detailed key in Powerpoint using images of features to navigate to the family for the specimen. Although initially this key was conceived of as a key to species of aquatic insects, quite early on it became apparent that because of the enormous species diversity within the stream insects, this was not an achieveable goal. Accordingly, this key has been developed to the Family level within the seven major Orders: Diptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Odonata, and Trichoptera.
The principle of the key was to be as simple and intuitive as possible, while preserving its accuracy and its scientific content. All writing and additions to the key were peer reviewed and revised as needed. The Stream Ecology course was taught alternate years so that since 2001 five courses have contributed directly to the development of the image-based key. Members of each class worked on a specific Order and Family, collecting organisms, taking images and videos and writing content for the Family page. In 2008, the key was transferred from a Powerpoint version to html pages for an web-based tool for the public. 2012: a major objective of the class was made to create morphological features pages for each of the Orders as well as "Ecology or Family pages that include detailed accounts of scientific describing several interesting findings about the ecology and behavior of that Family. Where possible important figures and images from the published papers have been modified and linked in the text to roll-over pop-ups that appear in the page. NSF EPSCoR support for development of the Stream Key was acquired for the summer of 2011 and 2012. The Stream Key was presented via Poster at the EPSCoR Conferences in Vermont (2011) and New Hampshire (2012). Spring semester of 2013 marked the release of the key in its Beta version, while students continued to form the framework of its style and function as "Stream Key"; An Image-Based Key to Stream Insects (Beta version 1.0). |
Faculty who contributed to the key include:
Jeffrey Schloss: supervision of students working on the key Donald Chandler: provided insects from the University of New Hampshire Insect Collection John Burger: assisted with insect identifications |
| Undergraduate students who have helped bring the key to its online beta version (1.0):
2008: Guila Fakhoury
Graduate students who have played a critical role in the design, development, and evolution of the key include:
2003: Shane Bradt 2005: Sonya Carlson 2008-13: Amanda Murby 2012-13: Jon Dufresne Class members who have added information and "character" to the key: 2001: Melanie Blanchette, Sara Sumner, Robyn Irwin, Adam Baukus |
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