engleski

The determination of earthworm species with a software key

Object. Not so many people are able to determine various animal groups to species level. Frequent reason lies in “unattractiveness” of taxa and insufficient availability of determination keys. Particularly unexplored are soil invertebrates with a trend recently being changed due to the importance of edaphobionts for functionality and health of ecosystems. The development of modern technologies and its applicability makes it necessary to implement in taxonomy as well. Therefore, in order to facilitate earthworm determination we have developed Earthworm Identification Key – ErIK as a computer program. Method. The software is written in the open- source programming language Python (version 2.7). The user interface toolkit chosen for the software is wxPython, which is based on the cross-platform wxWidgets library. The distribution maps are made in DIVA-GIS software, and all other drawings are made by the authors. Result. The key is designed so that the usage of different tools and images facilitates determination to species level. The main window contains descriptions (anatomy and morphology, distribution), map with species records, drawing of the species and the list of all species in Croatia. Determination can be carried out in two ways – using tabular and dichotomous key. The tabular key enables entering morphological and anatomical parameters of observed individuals. A total of 18 parameters can be inserted, with a minimum of 5. The dichotomous key is based on a classic determination key with two choices. The manual with the description of all morphological and anatomical characteristics is included within the software. Conclusion. The determination keys that can easily and freely be downloaded facilitate the determination of different organism group and make the determination available to everyone interested. This is also a good way to interest people for an earthworm determination and earthworms in general.

Erik, tabular key, morphology, software

nije evidentirano