About the NMBCC Queries and Results

The NMBCC query pages allow you to search the NMBCC database. This database holds several hundreds of thousands of New Mexico specimen records from NM university and museum collections.

Levels of Data Access

• Public: This is the level of access you have when not signed in. The public has access to taxonomic name information, NM county of collection, and in many cases, collector and collection date. All locality information more detailed than county level is hidden.

• Professional: This is the level of access you have when you register with NMBCC and then sign in. In many cases, professionals have access to detailed specimen collection locality data and can map specimen collections when coordinate data are available. Data on rare & endangered species is typically restricted at this level. For more information see the registration help page.

• Collaborator: Professionals designated as collaborators by museum curators may gain access to sensitive species data and additional fields of data for permitted collections. Professional users seeking collaborator access may do so through the My Account section or by contacting the collection managers or curators for each collection directly.

Curators for each collection set policy concerning which fields are visible for each level of access. Curators are also responsible for marking sensitive records. Sensitive record access for each level is handled separately from non-sensitive record access policy. For a collection to be included in NMBCC, the minimum policy must allow access to catalog number, specimen name and county for all provided records. There is no requirement that collections give more access to professionals or collaborators, but they typically do.

All three levels of access allow data to be downloaded, however the data will be limited according to the policy in force at the time of the download.

NMBCC biodiversity data may be accessed programatically, that is to say, without having to use the query pages. This gives much more flexibility in determining search criteria and output fields. NMBCC implements the Distibuted Generic Information Retrieval (DiGIR) protocol to allow direct programmatic access to a Darwin Core view of the data. Via DiGIR, data in the NMBCC system is accessible through other national and multi-national systems such as ITIS and GBIF portals. Our permissions system is at the database level, so the data available for programmatic access will follow the same rules for public, professional and collaborator access as given above.

Query Pages

On the Quick Search Box on the NMBCC home page you can filter your results to a single taxonomic kingdom (e.g., just animals or just plants), search on a scientific name (or part thereof) or common name (or part thereof) or any combination of these. The Quick Search Box returns a default table view of specimens with 25 records per page.

On the NM Biodiversity Query Page in addition to these options you can also specify which counties and which collections you wish to include in your query and you can choose different view options. This is currently the only query page available regardless of access level. In the future, professional and collaborators may be given access to a different query page with more options.

Search Fields

Taxonomy Fields

The drop-down Kingdom field may be used to limit results to a single taxonomic kingdom (e.g., just animals or just plants). Its use, however, is optional. A search without kingdom specified will search across all records. All NMBCC records should have been populated with a value for Kingdom.

The Higher Taxonomy field contains all the higher taxonomic hierarchy information we have for a specimen concatenated into a single field, separated by spaces. Not all ranks are filled in for all records. Plants, for example, typically have only family and kingdom. An effort has been made to make higher taxonomy values consistent across collections within a taxonomic group, but this is not guaranteed. Like Kingdom, this field is also optional. A search without Higher Taxonomy specified will search across all records.

The Scientific Name and Common Name fields are case insensitive. Common name is not always available and so this field may not bring up as many records as searching on the associated scientific name. A given common name may also be applied to more than one taxon.

The name fields use a "like" function, so if you put "Pinus" in the scientific name field you get all records with pinus in them including lupines (the genus Lupinus), the alpine milkvetch (Astragalus alpinus), Geopinus (a genus of beetles), the Blue-winged warbler (Vermivora pinus), and many others. You can try limiting your results by specifying more of the name or by using the Kingdom and/or Higher Taxonomy fields.

Geography

You may select a county from the NM County list or leave it at the default which will return any specimens from New Mexico. Control-click to select multiple counties or to deselect counties.

The NMBCC system allows entry of county values that are not on this list. For example, specimens collected along the border between two counties might be entered as "Bernalillo/Valencia" or a county entered by the collection staff that was not stated on the label might be entered in parentheses. Current implementation will not reveal these results if the county is selected on the query page.

Museums

The default query searches across all museums. To search only a subset of collections, start by unchecking the Check/Uncheck All box and then select the museum(s) or collection(s) you wish to include. Checking a museum box automatically checks all collections within that museum.

Tip: Leave Kingdom, NM County and the name fields blank and you can get all records for the collection(s) checked under musuems.

View Options

The Table View - All Specimens option yields a table where each row represents a specimen. The columns contain the following information for each specimen: Serial Number, Specimen ID, Catalog Number (=Accession Number for plant collections), Museum Collection, Scientific Name, Common Name, County, and Year (of collection).The serial number is a link to a Details page with more information about that specimen. If the user professional level access, then Locality is shown as well.

The Table View - Group on Name option yields a table where each row is a unique combination of higher taxonomy, scientific and common name. The columns contain the following information for each combination: Serial Number, Higher Taxonomy, Scientific Name, Common Name, and Count of Specimens. The resulting table Serial Numers are links to more information about the specimens. There is no difference between public and professional level access results.

The Table View - Group on Name and County option yields a table where each row is a unique combination of Scientific Name, Common Name, and County. The columns contain the following information for each combination: Serial Number, Scientific Name, Common Name, Country, State, County, and Count of Specimens. The resulting table Serial Numers are links to more information about the specimens. There is no difference between public and professional level access results.

The Table View - Group on Name and Collection option yields a table where each row is a unique combination of Scientific Name, Common Name, and Museum Collection. The columns contain the following information for each combination: Serial Number, Museum Collection, Scientific Name, Common Name, and Count of Specimens. The resulting table Serial Numers are links to more information about the specimens. There is no difference between public and professional level access results.

The Table View - Group on Name, County and Collection option yields a table where each row is a unique combination of Musueum Collection, Scientific Name, Common Name, and County. The columns contain the following information for each combination: Serial Number, Museum Collection, Scientific Name, Common Name, Country, State, County, and Count of Specimens. The resulting table Serial Numers are links to more information about the specimens. There is no difference between public and professional level access results.

Options Available from the Query Results Page

Above the Results Table of your query, you have links to several options. From the Options line, you may choose to perform a new query, modify the current query, or view the SQL version of your query. You may also download your results (in tab or comma-delimited text or in html). The Printer Friendly Results option brings up a copy of the html results table without the surrounding headers and sidebars that may be easier to print.

On the results table, the column headers may be used to sort values within that column. Clicking a second time will sort in descending order.

Details Page

The serial number in the left column on all results pages is a link to a details page about that result. For All Specimen results, the detail page shows other information we have for that specimen including catalog number, collector, date collected, remarks and the higher taxonomy. With professional access the collection locality and latitude and longitude coordinates are given with further information about the georeferencing process if provided. Locality, coordinates and associated information are blanked out in Public Access mode.

Sensitive Data in Results

In some cases, the data in a field may be replaced by codes indicating that the data are restricted. D.R.-NP indicates that the data are restricted because we do not have a negotiated policy in place with the originating collection to provide the data. Typically this happens when the collection has not yet implemented a policy to mark sensitive records and so data for all records must be restricted. Records that are marked as sensitive by the collection managers may have fields that shows D.R.-S. Latitude and longitude are in numeric fields, so when the data are restricted an arbitrary number 999 is entered instead. You can see what filters are in place for each data set on the About the Data page.

Disclaimer: NMBCC data are for non-commercial use only and are the properties of the museum collections that provid them. They may not be reposted or distributed without permission of the collections. Questions concerning the data should be directed to the museum collections. Neither the participating collections nor NMBCC is responsible for any misuse or unintended consequences of use of these data. The data are provided "as-is" and no warranty is given or implied as to their accuracy or appropriateness for your use.