Each experiment is conducted at a unique site.
In the context of BETY, the term 'site' refers to a specific location and it is common for many sites to be located within the same experimental station.
By creating distinct records for multiple sites, it is possible to differentiate among independent studies.
- Before adding a site, search to make sure that site is not already entered in database.
- search for the site given latitude and longitude
- if an institution name or city and state are given, try to locate the site on Google Maps
- if a site name is given, try to locate the site using a combination of Google and Google Maps
- if latitude and longitude are given in the paper, search by lat and lon, this will return all sites within
degree lat and long.
- if an existing site is plausibly the same site as the one mentioned in the paper, it will be necessary to check other papers linked to the existing site.
- use the same site if the previous study uses the exact same location and experimental setup.
- create a new site if the study was conducted in a different fields (i.e., not the exact same location).
- create a new site if one study was conducted in a greenhouse and another in a field.
- do not use distinct sites for seed source in a common garden experiment (see 'When not to enter a new site' below)
- to use an existing site, click 'edit' for the site, and then select current citation under 'add citation relatinships'
- if site does not exist, add a new site.
[inline]When not to enter a new site: When plants (or seeds) are collected from multiple locations and then grown in the same location, this is called a 'common garden experiment'. In this case, the location of the study is included as site information. Information about the seed source can be entered as a distinct cultivar.
- Site name*
- Site identifier, sufficient to uniquely identify the site within the paper
- City
- Nearest city
- State
- State, if site is in US
- Country*
-
- Longitude*
-
- Latitude*
- Latitude and Longitude must be in decimal form. To convert minute-second to decimal degrees, see the equation in tab:traitconversion.
- Greenhouse*
- set Greenhouse = TRUE if plants were grown in a greenhouse, growth chamber, or pots. If a 'warming chamber' or 'greenhouse' is used as the experimental manipulation, but is not used in the control treatments, Greenhouse = FALSE.
- Soil
- Soil class is entered as a categorical variable that describes the texture. If percent clay, sand, and silt are given, fig:soiltexture can be used to look up the class.
- SOM
- Soil organic matter (% by weight)
- MAT
- Mean Annual Temperature (
C)
- MAP
- Mean Annual Precipitation (mm)
- MASL
- Elevation (meters above sea level, m)
- Notes
- site details not included above
- Soilnotes
- soil details not included above
- Rooting Zone Depth
- Depth of rooting zones in meters
- Depth to Water Table
- Depth to water table in meters
Figure 2:
http://soils.usda.gov/education/resources/lessons/texture/USDA soil classification.
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Figure 3:
https://www.betydb.org/sites/new Form for entering a new site.
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Subsections
David
2011-10-07