Fishes of Texas Project (FoTX) Database - Darwin Core

Dean A. Hendrickson; Adam E. Cohen

doi:10.17603/c3wc70

Fishes of Texas Project (FoTX) Database - Darwin Core

Citation

Hendrickson D A, Cohen A E (2025). Fishes of Texas Project (FoTX) Database - Darwin Core. Version 1.15. University of Texas at Austin, Biodiversity Collections. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.17603/c3wc70 accessed via GBIF.org on 2025-07-18.

Description

The Fishes of Texas Project aims to provide reliable occurrences of fishes from the entire extents of all the drainage basins that intersect Texas. Starting in 2006, with the database of specimens held in the University of Texas' Ichthyology Collection (TNHCi), we added specimen data collected from our study area from all of the museums we could find to create the initial version of the Fishes of Texas database. At the time, many of those were not online and all had their data in diverse formats and development of biodiversity data standards was in its infancy. We laboriously compiled these disparate sources into a schema derived from that of the Specify Collections Management software. We retain the verbatim data received from the data donors, but then did our own processing and quality control starting by normalizing formats and taxonomy. We manually georeferenced all localities, allowing us to map species to find outliers and, as possible, examined specimens and corrected determinations for misidentified specimens. We photographed specimens and original labels of many specimens examined. Uncertainty in dates is expressed using begin and end dates. Uncertainty in locations is expressed with a radius, that with coordinates (lat., long.), defines a circle in which the collection is determined to have occurred. The institutions holding examined specimens have been informed of our re-determinations and other corrections, but we do not control repatriation, so users may find our records for some specimens conflict with the data they might now independently publish. The database continues to grow and evolve, initially holding only specimen records from 44 institutions, now includes data from 116 institutions including non-specimen sources such as state and federal agencies, citizen scientists, peer and non-peer reviewed literature and word of mouth accounts. Thus, the dataset contains many records that are not openly published, for use by researchers and resource managers interested in the fish fauna of Texas and adjoining parts of its river basins. The same data can also be queried and explored in diverse ways via our website (http://www.fishesoftexas.org), where users will find additional documentation and other data-exploration tools. Please use our contact information there to notify us of any errors or other issues.

Purpose

This project addresses a long-needed effort to bring together in one database the world-wide museum holdings on the fishes of Texas (later non-specimen data as well). Before this project, museum data were only available from many disparate and often hard to find sources located in several countries and managed in various incompatible databases. Some of these museums lacked digital record of their collections and had paper ledgers only. Many are small museums that do not offer their data online. Some have no catalog at all, except what is recorded on jar labels. Extensive efforts were made to find, compile, format, and standardize data from these museums into one database.

Sampling Description

Study Extent

Our study area includes Texas and shared drainage basins going into neighbor states, Colorado, and the Gulf of Mexico (north of a line drawn from the eastern edge of Louisiana to the southern edge of Tamaulipas). Data were obtained based on database searches or personal requests for data from that area. In many cases provider data lacked the data fields to allow discovery of those records, in which case we requested data from larger geographic areas (eg. country). All records that were acquired are provided in the database, but only those in our study area have received the full processing efforts (georeferencing, suspect flagging, specimen examination, date corrections etc).

Sampling

The Fishes of Texas Project is a data acquisition and improvement project and thus includes data collected by others using various means. More recent funding has allowed the Fishes of Texas Project team to collect specimens from data gaps detected in the database using various collection methods. See our documentation to learn more: http://www.fishesoftexas.org/documentation/

Quality Control

Records from many disparate sources have been brought into a common format and standardized (taxa names, dates, and collector names in particular) allowing them to be queried in a single database. Localities have been georeferenced (including error estimate) if possible. These steps allowed us to map the records of each species and detect spatial and temporal outliers, which we flagged as "suspect". Early versions of the database were strictly specimen based and we've made extensive efforts to find specimens that we flagged and examine them to correct determination errors. See our documentation to learn more: http://www.fishesoftexas.org/documentation/

Method steps

After data were acquired, either directly from source or via online data aggregator, they were (1) re-formatted; (2) georeferenced to coordinates with an error radius estimate (those then determined to be in our study area received the most complete data standardization); (3) standardized (when possible) taxa to AFS Common and Scientific Names of Fishes or the GBIF backbone; (4) standardized collector names when possible; (5) standardized dates to begin and end dates; (6) flagged records that we thought had erroneous data as "suspect" records; (7) examined "suspect" specimens, which usually turn out to be mis-identifications. See our documentation to learn more: http://www.fishesoftexas.org/documentation/

Taxonomic Coverages

All fish taxa

Actinopterygii
rank: class
Agnatha
rank: class
Chondrichthyes
rank: class
Osteichthyes
rank: class

Geographic Coverages

Our study area includes Texas and shared drainage basins going into neighbor states, Colorado, and the Gulf of Mexico (north of a line drawn from the southeastern edge of Louisiana to the southeastern edge of Tamaulipas). Data were obtained by database searches or personal requests for data from that area. In many cases provider databases lacked the data fields to allow discovery of those records, in which case we requested data from larger geographic areas (e.g. country). All records that were acquired are provided in the database, but only those in our study area have received the full processing efforts (georeferencing, suspect flagging, specimen examination, date corrections etc).

Bibliographic Citations

Contacts

Dean A. Hendrickson
originator
position: Ichthyology Curator
University of Texas at Austin, Biodiversity Center
10100 Burnet RD, PRC 176/R4000
Austin
78758-4445
TX
US
Telephone: +01 512-471-9774
email: deanhend@austin.utexas.edu
homepage: https://sites.cns.utexas.edu/hendricksonlab
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7835-0295

Adam E. Cohen
originator
position: Ichthyology Collections Manager
University of Texas at Austin, Biodiversity Center
10100 Burnet RD, PRC 176/R4000
Austin
78758-4445
TX
US
Telephone: +01 512-471-8845
email: TNHC_Fish_CM@austin.utexas.edu
homepage: https://integrativebio.utexas.edu/biodiversity-collections/collections/ichthyology-fish
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4881-3636

Adam E. Cohen
metadata author
position: Ichthyology Collections Manager
University of Texas at Austin, Biodiversity Center
10100 Burnet RD, PRC 176/R4000
Austin
78758-4445
TX
US
Telephone: +01 512-471-8845
email: TNHC_Fish_CM@austin.utexas.edu
homepage: https://integrativebio.utexas.edu/biodiversity-collections/collections/ichthyology-fish
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4881-3636

Dean A. Hendrickson
metadata author
position: Ichthyology Curator
University of Texas at Austin, Biodiversity Center
10100 Burnet RD, PRC 176/R4000
Austin
78758
Texas
US
Telephone: +01 512-471-9774
email: deanhend@austin.utexas.edu
homepage: https://sites.cns.utexas.edu/hendricksonlab
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7835-0295

Melissa J. Casarez
processor
position: Ichthyology Collections Assistant Manager
University of Texas at Austin, Biodiversity Center
10100 Burnet RD, PRC 176/R4000
Austin
78758
TX
US
Telephone: +01 512-475-8171
email: mjcasarez@austin.utexas.edu
homepage: https://integrativebio.utexas.edu/biodiversity-collections/collections/ichthyology-fish
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8373-459X

F. Douglas Martin
processor
University of Texas, Biodiversity Collections
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3421-4408

Casey Hartsough
programmer
position: Programmer
University of Texas, Biodiversity Collections

Adam E. Cohen
administrative point of contact
position: Ichthyology Collections Manager
University of Texas at Austin, Biodiversity Center
10100 Burnet RD, PRC 176/R4000
Austin
78758-4445
TX
US
Telephone: +1 512-471-8845
email: TNHC_Fish_CM@austin.utexas.edu
homepage: https://integrativebio.utexas.edu/biodiversity-collections/collections/ichthyology-fish
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4881-3636

Dean A. Hendrickson
administrative point of contact
position: Ichthyology Curator
University of Texas at Austin, Biodiversity Center
10100 Burnet RD, PRC 176/R4000
Austin
78758-4445
TX
US
Telephone: +01 512-471-9774
email: deanhend@austin.utexas.edu
homepage: https://sites.cns.utexas.edu/hendricksonlab
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7835-0295

Tomislav Urban
administrative point of contact
position: Senior Software Developer
Texas Advanced Computing Center
Austin
TX
US
email: turban@tacc.utexas.edu
homepage: https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9427-5827