Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam© is an interactive, icon-driven digital-imagedatabase/software package that displays over 500 illustrated Cenozoic Antarctic diatom taxa along with original descriptions (including over 100 generic and 20 family-group descriptions). This digital catalog is designed primarily for use by micropaleontologists working in the field (at sea or on the Antarctic continent) where hard-copy literature resources are limited. This new package will also be useful for classroom/lab teaching as well as for any paleontologists making or refining taxonomic identifications at the microscope. The database (Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare) is displayed via a custom software program (BugCam) written in Visual Basic for use on PCs running Windows 95 or later operating systems. BugCam is a flexible image display program that utilizes an intuitive thumbnail “tree” structure for navigation through the database. The data are stored on Micrsosoft EXCEL spread sheets, hence no separate relational database program is necessary to run the package

Covington, J. M.

Davenport, D. R.

Davis, A.

Doepler, N.

Egerton, V. M.

Falcon, W.

Harwood, David M.

Jiang, S.

Kulhanek, D. K.

Lopez, C.

Olney, M.

Pressley, T.

Ramdeen, S.

Schrader, H.

Sims, P. A.

Swedberg, O. L.

Wise, Sherwood W.

Wood, A. S.

English

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

University of Nebraska - LincolnDigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - LincolnPapers in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of2008Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aidfor research and teachingSherwood W. WiseFlorida State University, wise@gly.fsu.eduM. OlneyFlorida State UniversityJ. M. CovingtonBugWare, mitch.covington@bugware.comV. M. EgertonFlorida State UniversityS. JiangFlorida State UniversitySee next page for additional authorsFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/geosciencefacpubPart of the Earth Sciences CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of at DigitalCommons@University ofNebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Papers in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences by an authorized administrator ofDigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.Wise, Sherwood W.; Olney, M.; Covington, J. M.; Egerton, V. M.; Jiang, S.; Kulhanek, D. K.; Ramdeen, S.; Schrader, H.; Sims, P. A.;Wood, A. S.; Davis, A.; Davenport, D. R.; Doepler, N.; Falcon, W.; Lopez, C.; Pressley, T.; Swedberg, O. L.; and Harwood, David M.,"Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid for research and teaching" (2008). Papers in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.286.http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/geosciencefacpub/286AuthorsSherwood W. Wise, M. Olney, J. M. Covington, V. M. Egerton, S. Jiang, D. K. Kulhanek, S. Ramdeen, H.Schrader, P. A. Sims, A. S. Wood, A. Davis, D. R. Davenport, N. Doepler, W. Falcon, C. Lopez, T. Pressley, O.L. Swedberg, and David M. HarwoodThis article is available at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/geosciencefacpub/286U.S. Geological Survey and The National Academies; USGS OF-2007-1047, Short Research Paper 017; doi:10.3133/of2007-1047.srp017 Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid for research and teaching Wise, S. W.,1 M. Olney,1 J. M. Covington,2 V. M. Egerton,1 S. Jiang,1 D. K. Kulhanek 1 S. Ramdeen,1 H. Schrader, P. A. Sims,3 A. S. Wood,1 A. Davis,1 D. R. Davenport,1 N. Doepler,1 W. Falcon,1 C. Lopez,1 T. Pressley,1 O. L. Swedberg,1 D. M Harwood4  1Department of Geological Sciences, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4100, USA (wise@gly.fsu.edu) 2BugWare, Inc., 4027 Bobbin Brook East, Tallahassee, FL 32312 (mitch.covington@bugware.com) 3Botany Department, Natural History  Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK. 4Department of Geosciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0340 USA (dharwood1@unl.edu) Abstract   Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam© is an interactive, icon-driven digital-image database/software package that displays over 500 illustrated Cenozoic Antarctic diatom taxa along with original descriptions (including over 100 generic and 20 family-group descriptions).  This digital catalog is designed primarily for use by micropaleontologists working in the field (at sea or on the Antarctic continent) where hard-copy literature resources are  limited.  This new package will also be useful for classroom/lab teaching as well as for any paleontologists making or refining taxonomic identifications at the microscope.  The database (Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare) is displayed via a custom software program (BugCam) written in Visual Basic for use on PCs running Windows 95 or later operating systems.  BugCam is a flexible image display program that utilizes an intuitive thumbnail “tree” structure for navigation through the database.  The data are stored on Micrsosoft EXCEL spread sheets, hence no separate relational database program is necessary to run the package.   Citation:  Wise, S. W., M. Olney, J. M. Covington, V. M. Egerton, S. Jiang, et al. (2007), Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid for research and teaching – Online Proceedings of the 10th ISAES, edited by A. K. Cooper and C. R. Raymond et al., USGS Open-File Report 2007-1047, Short Research Paper 017, 4 p.; doi:10.3133/of2007-1047.srp017. Introduction Diatoms (Sims, et al., 2006) are arguably the most important microfossil group used today in the study of Antarctic Cenozoic marine deposits from the nearshore to the deep sea, particularly those of Neogene age south of the present-day Antarctic Polar Front. Depth habitats of these organisms are restricted to within the euphotic zone.  Summaries of the literature for Antarctic Cenozoic diatoms, their geographic distribution, biostratigraphy, and taxonomy are provided by Harwood and Maruyama (1992) and Ramsay and Bauldauf (1999). These microfossils have great biostratigraphic importance in the Southern Ocean as they are often highly abundant and their stratigraphic ranges tend to be relatively short.  In addition, paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic studies increasingly rely on fossil diatom data.  Changing biogeographic distributions of given taxa indicate shifting paleoecological conditions and provide evidence of the surface productivity and temperatures of ancient oceans.  The generality of conclusions, though, is limited by variations in species concepts among the relatively small numbers of diatom specialists that work in this region.  The situation is further complicated by the fact that diatoms tend to be provincial in their distribution, particularly when compared to the calcareous microplankton, hence different oceanic realms have their own particular mix of diatom species and assemblages.  The broad research community, however, relies directly or indirectly on the accurate identification of diatom species.  During the past two decades, significant revisions of diatom taxonomy, classification, and  biostratigraphy have been published (e.g., Akiba and Yanagisawa 1986; Round, et al., 1990; Nikolaev and Harwood, 2000; Cersarek and Gersonde, 2002; Zerlinski and Gersonde, 2002).  The taxonomy has undergone major revison due to the impact of the scanning electron micrsocope, which is now used routinely to resolve ultrastructural features of valve morphology (Round et al., 1990). The biostratigraphy has been revised considerably due to the continued exploration of the ocean basins by scientific drilling (Intergrated Ocean Drilling Project and its predecessors [http://www.iodp.org/]) and, in the Antarctic, ship- and ice-based drilling projects such as the Cape Roberts Project (1997-1999; www.geo.vuw.ac.nz/croberts), SHALDRIL (http://www.arf.fsu.edu/projectsShaldril.cfm), and ANDRILL Projects (http://andrill.org).  These revisions, however, are scattered in the literature, and the most recent comprehensive guides for fossil diatoms (Barron, 1985; Fenner, 1985) are themselves over 20 years old. Fortunately, current technology can facilitate access to standard references needed to make accurate identifications, even in remote locations.  The potential for widespread use of computerized taxonomic identification databases has increased considerably as a result of advances in digital imaging technology, software, and storage along with a reduction in the cost of the supporting hardware.  Vast amounts of data in the form of digital images or text can be accessed rapidly and relatively inexpensively by a wide range of researchers in the scientific community.  Efforts to capture and organize text and digital image data, however, have not kept up with the technological and computer programming advances in many areas of micropaleontology.  Particularly needed for work in 10th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences remote areas of the high southern latitudes is an interactive image database of Cenozoic Antarctic diatoms that can be accessed from CD-ROMs and, if available, the Internet. The Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam Package We have developed an interactive, icon-driven digital-image catalog of modern and fossil Cenozoic diatoms from the Southern Ocean for use by specialists as an aid for rapid, accurate, and consistent species identification.  It is especially useful where it is not possible to maintain standard library resources such as onboard research vessels or at research bases in the Antarctic. At sea, SHALDRIL has proven the feasibility of placing a diamond coring system on an ice-breaking research vessel for work along the Antarctic continental margins and inland seas (Anderson, et al., 2006), whereas ANDRILL has recovered an unprecidented 1285 m of Neogene sediment via ice-based coring (West, 2007). All of these initiatives rely heavily on diatom biostratigraphy to achieve their research objectives. Our database, Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare, contains over 500 species representing over 100 genera.  It is run by a custom software program called "BugCam" written and adapted by one of us (J. Mitchener Covington).  The database/software package can be accessed from CD-ROMs on IBM-compatible Windows platforms or on Macintosh computers using appropriate conversion programs.  The images have been obtained by scanning photographs or sketches of holotypes, paratypes, and hypotypes selected from the literature or the Internet, by capturing original digital light-microscope images from our own research collections, and by direct digital output of an SEM.  The text has been scanned from published descriptions or keyed in manually as necessary.  The data fields can be accessed through Microsoft EXCEL sheets by the click of a mouse button, hence no relational database is necessary to run the package. We have modelled this DiatomWare/BugCam package after our previous product called “Cenozoic NannoWare” (Wise et al., 2004), three editions of which have been distributed at a nominal cost by the International Nannoplankton Association (INA; http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/ina/announce/INACDv3.htm) over the past five years.  The DiatomWare/BugCam package will also be distributed initally by INA beginning in the fall of 2007; eventually the database will also be available on the internet. Figure 1.  Sample of what the DiatomWare/Bugcam interface looks like with the Family-Genus-Species “tree” of thumbnail icons open in sliding frames on the left and two of the species “taxa” frames open on the right for comparison. All frame bars are moveable to allow for the adjustment of the size of each frame.  2Wise et al.: Cenozoic DiatomWare How the DiatomWare/BugCam Package Works BugCam is a flexible fossil-image display program that utilizes an intuitive photo-thumbnail "tree" structure for navigation through the fossil database.  As shown in Figure 1, this “tree” operates much like the hierarchical file directory used in Windows. The first level of the tree contains thumbnail images of some 20 families or family groups (Fig. 1, upper left panel).  Clicking the mouse on one of the family-group icons displays on the same screen thumbnail images of all of the genera within that group, whereas clicking on one of the generic thumbnails displays all of the species thumbnail-images within that genus.  This is illustrated in the lower left panel in Figure 1, which shows the genus Denticulopsis and three of its species (D. hustedii, D. hyalina, and D. lauta).  All of the images at any level are displayed on a sliding “window pane” so that one can quickly scan all of the genera or species within any family group.  In this way the user can quickly sort out (or "key down") an unknown specimen seen in the microscope in order to identify it down to species and to determine its age. In addition to the 3-level “tree” of thumbnails, complete records for any two species can be displayed simultaneously and compared on the same screen as illustrated in the two right-hand panels in Figure 1, where Denticulopsis hustedii and D. hyalina can be viewed side-by-side. Displayed for each species are a composite of illustrations including light and electron micrographs and a good drawing if available, including that of the holotype; light micrographs usually include plain-transmitted and, where possible, differential interference contrast (DIC) images.  A “blow-up” feature allows many of the images to be viewed in greater detail at higher magnifications.  Along with the original text descriptions, we often provide an English 35-word or less “mini-description” that gives in a nut shell the current concept of the taxon. These are crucial for the smooth and quick operation of the program because many of the original descriptions are in a number of different languages (mostly English, German, French, Japanese, and Russian) and some can run on for pages. Also given are the age range for the taxon and a list of similar species.  If the investigator is still in doubt about the identification, up to 4 similar species can be called up from a pop-down list and displayed in turn on the screen.  Scale and Scope Stratigraphically, the taxonomic database spans the time interval from the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary to the Recent.  Biogeographic coverage lies within the present-day Southern Ocean, extending from the interior seas and continental shelf of Antarctica to the deep sea as far north as the Subtropical Front, which separates surface waters originating in the tropics from those of Antarctic origin (see Belkin and Gordon, 1996). The entire DiatomWare/BugCam package occupies approximately 100 Mb of hard drive disk space. In the field, it can be run on a notebook computer. Discussion Our ultimate goal in developing the DiatomWare/BugCam package is to provide a useful tool for the research community, although we believe it will have useful applications at various levels for teaching as well. It is designed to provide a rapid and efficient means for species identification, minimizing the need for literature searches for various species descriptions, illustrations, and distributional information. We hope that: (1) The taxonomic, biostratigraphic, and biogeographic information will be updated and stay current by continual addition of information as it becomes available from the research community;  (2) It will promote uniformity based on the opinions of leading experts in the field; (3) It will thereby stimulate efforts to resolve outstanding taxonomic inconsistencies and will focus attention on lineages whose phylogenies are poorly understood.  (4) It will provide a means of passing on taxonomic knowledge from one generation of diatom experts to another; (5) It will be operable at remote Antarctic research stations, ships and facilities that have standard computer access but inadequate hard-copy literature.  (6) It will have useful educational value and application.  Diatom/Ware can be used at various levels of the educational system, such as in secondary schools to demonstrate the Linnean binomial nomenclature and system of classification, in undergraduate training to introduce diatoms in introductory paleontology classes (diatoms are a fossil group traditionally under-represented in such classes), and at the graduate level to aid in the training of future specialists in Antarctic diatoms. Acknowledgments.  We thank our co-editor/refereer, John Barron, and referee, Lloyd Burckle, for their helpful reviews of the manuscript, and our many colleagues among the diatom community who have contributed in innumerable ways to the compilation of the database.  To date, the diatom taxonomy has been done by Olney, Wise, Sims, Kulhanek, Schrader, and Harwood, but additional contributions from the user community will be gratefully accepted by Wise, who will be responsible for periodic updates in the future. We are also grateful to Dr. Jeremy Young who kindly supervised one of us (S. Ramdeen) during her gradaute internship at the British Natural History Museum, where she transcribed many of the older literature sources with the aid of Dr. Sims.  The project was supported by NSF grant OPP-0230469 to SWW.  References Anderson, J. B., J. S. Wellner, S. Bohaty, P. L. Manley, S. W. Wise, Jr. (2006), Antarctic Shallow Drilling Project Provides Key Core Samples, Eos Trans. AGU, 87(39), 402, 10.1029/2006EO390003.  310th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences Akiba, F., and Y. Yanagisawa (1986), Taxonomy, morphology and phylogeny of the Neogene diatom zonal marker species in the middle-to-high latitudes of the North Pacific, in H. Kagami, D. E. Karig, W. T. Coulbourn, W. T. et al., Init. Repts. DSDP, Washington (U.S. Govt. Printing Office), 87, 483-554. Barron, J. A. (1985), Miocene to Holocene planktic diatoms, in Plankton Stratigraphy, edited by H. M. Bolli, J. B.  Saunders, and K. Perch-Nielsen K., pp. 763-809, Cambridge University Press. Belkin, I M., and A. L. Gordon (1996), Southern Ocean fronts from the Greenwich meridian to Tasmania, J. Geophys. Res., 101, 3675-3696. Cersarek, B., and R. Gersonde (2002), Miocene diatom biostratigraphy at ODP Sties 689, 690, 1088, 1092 (Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean), Mar. Micropaleontol., 45, 309-356.  Fenner, J. (1985), Late Cretaceous to Oligocene planktic diatoms, in Plankton Stratigraphy, edited by H. M. Bolli, J. B. Saunders, and K. Perch-Nielsen K., Cambridge University Press, pp. 713-762. Harwood D.M. and T. Maruyama (1992), Middle Eocene to Pleistocene diatom biostratigraphy of Southern Ocean sediments from the Kerguelen Plataeu, Leg 120, in S. W. Wise Jr., R. Schlich  et al., Proc. ODP, Sci. Results, College Station, TX, Ocean Drilling Program, 120(2), 683-733. Nikolaev, V. A, and D. M. Harwood (2000), Diversity and system of classification in centric diatoms, in The origin and early evolution of the diatoms:  fossil, molecular and biogeographical approaches, edited by A. Witkowski and J. Siemimska, pp 37-53, W. Szafer Institute of Gotany, Polish Academy of Sciences, Cracow.   Ramsay A.T.S. and J. G. Baldauf J.G. (1999), A Reassessment of the Southern Ocean Biochronology. Geol. Soc., London, Mem. 18, 122 pp. Round, F. R., R. M. Crawford, and D. G. Mann (1990), The Diatoms.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 747 pp. Sims, P. A., D. G., Mann, D. G., and L. K. Medlin (2006), Evolution of the diatoms: Insights from fossil, biological and molecular data, Phycologia, 45, 361-402.  West, P. (2007), School of Rock, Nature, 446, 129-131. Wise, S. W., J. M. Covington, B. C. Ladner, and W. Wei, W. (Compilers) (2004), Electronic Calcareous Nannofossils, Version 3.  International Nannoplankton Association, CD-ROM Series, No. 1.   Zielinski, U. and R. Gersonde (2002), Plio-Pleistocene diatom biostratigraphy from ODP Leg 177, Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, Mar. Micropaleontol., 45, 225-268.  4

Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid for research and teaching

UNL | Libraries

University of Nebraska - Lincoln
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Papers in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of
2008
Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid
for research and teaching
Sherwood W. Wise
Florida State University, wise@gly.fsu.edu
M. Olney
Florida State University
J. M. Covington
BugWare, mitch.covington@bugware.com
V. M. Egerton
Florida State University
S. Jiang
Florida State University
See next page for additional authors
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/geosciencefacpub
Part of the Earth Sciences Commons
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of
Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Papers in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences by an authorized administrator of
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
Wise, Sherwood W.; Olney, M.; Covington, J. M.; Egerton, V. M.; Jiang, S.; Kulhanek, D. K.; Ramdeen, S.; Schrader, H.; Sims, P. A.;
Wood, A. S.; Davis, A.; Davenport, D. R.; Doepler, N.; Falcon, W.; Lopez, C.; Pressley, T.; Swedberg, O. L.; and Harwood, David M.,
"Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid for research and teaching" (2008). Papers in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
286.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/geosciencefacpub/286
Authors
Sherwood W. Wise, M. Olney, J. M. Covington, V. M. Egerton, S. Jiang, D. K. Kulhanek, S. Ramdeen, H.
Schrader, P. A. Sims, A. S. Wood, A. Davis, D. R. Davenport, N. Doepler, W. Falcon, C. Lopez, T. Pressley, O.
L. Swedberg, and David M. Harwood
This article is available at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/geosciencefacpub/
286
U.S. Geological Survey and The National Academies; USGS OF-2007-1047, Short Research Paper 017; doi:10.3133/of2007-1047.srp017 
Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid for research and teaching 
Wise, S. W.,1 M. Olney,1 J. M. Covington,2 V. M. Egerton,1 S. Jiang,1 D. K. Kulhanek 1 S. Ramdeen,1 H. 
Schrader, P. A. Sims,3 A. S. Wood,1 A. Davis,1 D. R. Davenport,1 N. Doepler,1 W. Falcon,1 C. Lopez,1 T. 
Pressley,1 O. L. Swedberg,1 D. M Harwood4  
1Department of Geological Sciences, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4100, USA (wise@gly.fsu.edu) 
2BugWare, Inc., 4027 Bobbin Brook East, Tallahassee, FL 32312 (mitch.covington@bugware.com) 
3Botany Department, Natural History  Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK. 
4Department of Geosciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0340 USA (dharwood1@unl.edu) 
Abstract   Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam© is an interactive, icon-driven digital-image 
database/software package that displays over 500 illustrated Cenozoic Antarctic diatom taxa along with original 
descriptions (including over 100 generic and 20 family-group descriptions).  This digital catalog is designed primarily 
for use by micropaleontologists working in the field (at sea or on the Antarctic continent) where hard-copy literature 
resources are  limited.  This new package will also be useful for classroom/lab teaching as well as for any 
paleontologists making or refining taxonomic identifications at the microscope.  The database (Cenozoic Antarctic 
DiatomWare) is displayed via a custom software program (BugCam) written in Visual Basic for use on PCs running 
Windows 95 or later operating systems.  BugCam is a flexible image display program that utilizes an intuitive 
thumbnail “tree” structure for navigation through the database.  The data are stored on Micrsosoft EXCEL spread 
sheets, hence no separate relational database program is necessary to run the package.  
 
Citation:  Wise, S. W., M. Olney, J. M. Covington, V. M. Egerton, S. Jiang, et al. (2007), Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid for 
research and teaching – Online Proceedings of the 10th ISAES, edited by A. K. Cooper and C. R. Raymond et al., USGS Open-File Report 2007-1047, 
Short Research Paper 017, 4 p.; doi:10.3133/of2007-1047.srp017.
 
Introduction 
Diatoms (Sims, et al., 2006) are arguably the most 
important microfossil group used today in the study of 
Antarctic Cenozoic marine deposits from the nearshore 
to the deep sea, particularly those of Neogene age south 
of the present-day Antarctic Polar Front. Depth habitats 
of these organisms are restricted to within the euphotic 
zone.  Summaries of the literature for Antarctic Cenozoic 
diatoms, their geographic distribution, biostratigraphy, 
and taxonomy are provided by Harwood and Maruyama 
(1992) and Ramsay and Bauldauf (1999). 
These microfossils have great biostratigraphic 
importance in the Southern Ocean as they are often 
highly abundant and their stratigraphic ranges tend to be 
relatively short.  In addition, paleoclimatic and 
paleoceanographic studies increasingly rely on fossil 
diatom data.  Changing biogeographic distributions of 
given taxa indicate shifting paleoecological conditions 
and provide evidence of the surface productivity and 
temperatures of ancient oceans.  The generality of 
conclusions, though, is limited by variations in species 
concepts among the relatively small numbers of diatom 
specialists that work in this region.  The situation is 
further complicated by the fact that diatoms tend to be 
provincial in their distribution, particularly when 
compared to the calcareous microplankton, hence 
different oceanic realms have their own particular mix of 
diatom species and assemblages.  The broad research 
community, however, relies directly or indirectly on the 
accurate identification of diatom species.  
During the past two decades, significant revisions of 
diatom taxonomy, classification, and  biostratigraphy 
have been published (e.g., Akiba and Yanagisawa 1986; 
Round, et al., 1990; Nikolaev and Harwood, 2000; 
Cersarek and Gersonde, 2002; Zerlinski and Gersonde, 
2002).  The taxonomy has undergone major revison due 
to the impact of the scanning electron micrsocope, which 
is now used routinely to resolve ultrastructural features 
of valve morphology (Round et al., 1990). The 
biostratigraphy has been revised considerably due to the 
continued exploration of the ocean basins by scientific 
drilling (Intergrated Ocean Drilling Project and its 
predecessors [http://www.iodp.org/]) and, in the 
Antarctic, ship- and ice-based drilling projects such as 
the Cape Roberts Project (1997-1999; 
www.geo.vuw.ac.nz/croberts), SHALDRIL 
(http://www.arf.fsu.edu/projectsShaldril.cfm), and 
ANDRILL Projects (http://andrill.org).  These revisions, 
however, are scattered in the literature, and the most 
recent comprehensive guides for fossil diatoms (Barron, 
1985; Fenner, 1985) are themselves over 20 years old. 
Fortunately, current technology can facilitate access 
to standard references needed to make accurate 
identifications, even in remote locations.  The potential 
for widespread use of computerized taxonomic 
identification databases has increased considerably as a 
result of advances in digital imaging technology, 
software, and storage along with a reduction in the cost 
of the supporting hardware.  Vast amounts of data in the 
form of digital images or text can be accessed rapidly 
and relatively inexpensively by a wide range of 
researchers in the scientific community.  Efforts to 
capture and organize text and digital image data, 
however, have not kept up with the technological and 
computer programming advances in many areas of 
micropaleontology.  Particularly needed for work in 
10th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences 
remote areas of the high southern latitudes is an 
interactive image database of Cenozoic Antarctic 
diatoms that can be accessed from CD-ROMs and, if 
available, the Internet. 
The Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam 
Package 
We have developed an interactive, icon-driven 
digital-image catalog of modern and fossil Cenozoic 
diatoms from the Southern Ocean for use by specialists 
as an aid for rapid, accurate, and consistent species 
identification.  It is especially useful where it is not 
possible to maintain standard library resources such as 
onboard research vessels or at research bases in the 
Antarctic. At sea, SHALDRIL has proven the feasibility 
of placing a diamond coring system on an ice-breaking 
research vessel for work along the Antarctic continental 
margins and inland seas (Anderson, et al., 2006), 
whereas ANDRILL has recovered an unprecidented 
1285 m of Neogene sediment via ice-based coring (West, 
2007). All of these initiatives rely heavily on diatom 
biostratigraphy to achieve their research objectives. 
Our database, Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare, 
contains over 500 species representing over 100 genera.  
It is run by a custom software program called "BugCam" 
written and adapted by one of us (J. Mitchener 
Covington).  The database/software package can be 
accessed from CD-ROMs on IBM-compatible Windows 
platforms or on Macintosh computers using appropriate 
conversion programs.  The images have been obtained 
by scanning photographs or sketches of holotypes, 
paratypes, and hypotypes selected from the literature or 
the Internet, by capturing original digital light-
microscope images from our own research collections, 
and by direct digital output of an SEM.  The text has 
been scanned from published descriptions or keyed in 
manually as necessary.  The data fields can be accessed 
through Microsoft EXCEL sheets by the click of a 
mouse button, hence no relational database is necessary 
to run the package. 
We have modelled this DiatomWare/BugCam 
package after our previous product called “Cenozoic 
NannoWare” (Wise et al., 2004), three editions of which 
have been distributed at a nominal cost by the 
International Nannoplankton Association (INA; 
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/ina/announce/INAC
Dv3.htm) over the past five years.  The 
DiatomWare/BugCam package will also be distributed 
initally by INA beginning in the fall of 2007; eventually 
the database will also be available on the internet.
 
Figure 1.  Sample of what the DiatomWare/Bugcam interface looks like with the Family-Genus-Species 
“tree” of thumbnail icons open in sliding frames on the left and two of the species “taxa” frames open on 
the right for comparison. All frame bars are moveable to allow for the adjustment of the size of each 
frame. 
 2
Wise et al.: Cenozoic DiatomWare 
How the DiatomWare/BugCam Package Works 
BugCam is a flexible fossil-image display program 
that utilizes an intuitive photo-thumbnail "tree" structure 
for navigation through the fossil database.  As shown in 
Figure 1, this “tree” operates much like the hierarchical 
file directory used in Windows. 
The first level of the tree contains thumbnail images 
of some 20 families or family groups (Fig. 1, upper left 
panel).  Clicking the mouse on one of the family-group 
icons displays on the same screen thumbnail images of 
all of the genera within that group, whereas clicking on 
one of the generic thumbnails displays all of the species 
thumbnail-images within that genus.  This is illustrated 
in the lower left panel in Figure 1, which shows the 
genus Denticulopsis and three of its species (D. hustedii, 
D. hyalina, and D. lauta).  All of the images at any level 
are displayed on a sliding “window pane” so that one can 
quickly scan all of the genera or species within any 
family group.  In this way the user can quickly sort out 
(or "key down") an unknown specimen seen in the 
microscope in order to identify it down to species and to 
determine its age. 
In addition to the 3-level “tree” of thumbnails, 
complete records for any two species can be displayed 
simultaneously and compared on the same screen as 
illustrated in the two right-hand panels in Figure 1, 
where Denticulopsis hustedii and D. hyalina can be 
viewed side-by-side. Displayed for each species are a 
composite of illustrations including light and electron 
micrographs and a good drawing if available, including 
that of the holotype; light micrographs usually include 
plain-transmitted and, where possible, differential 
interference contrast (DIC) images.  A “blow-up” feature 
allows many of the images to be viewed in greater detail 
at higher magnifications.  
Along with the original text descriptions, we often 
provide an English 35-word or less “mini-description” 
that gives in a nut shell the current concept of the taxon. 
These are crucial for the smooth and quick operation of 
the program because many of the original descriptions 
are in a number of different languages (mostly English, 
German, French, Japanese, and Russian) and some can 
run on for pages. Also given are the age range for the 
taxon and a list of similar species.  If the investigator is 
still in doubt about the identification, up to 4 similar 
species can be called up from a pop-down list and 
displayed in turn on the screen. 
 
Scale and Scope 
Stratigraphically, the taxonomic database spans the 
time interval from the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary to 
the Recent.  Biogeographic coverage lies within the 
present-day Southern Ocean, extending from the interior 
seas and continental shelf of Antarctica to the deep sea 
as far north as the Subtropical Front, which separates 
surface waters originating in the tropics from those of 
Antarctic origin (see Belkin and Gordon, 1996). The 
entire DiatomWare/BugCam package occupies 
approximately 100 Mb of hard drive disk space. In the 
field, it can be run on a notebook computer. 
Discussion 
Our ultimate goal in developing the 
DiatomWare/BugCam package is to provide a useful tool 
for the research community, although we believe it will 
have useful applications at various levels for teaching as 
well. It is designed to provide a rapid and efficient means 
for species identification, minimizing the need for 
literature searches for various species descriptions, 
illustrations, and distributional information. We hope 
that: 
(1) The taxonomic, biostratigraphic, and biogeographic 
information will be updated and stay current by 
continual addition of information as it becomes 
available from the research community;  
(2) It will promote uniformity based on the opinions of 
leading experts in the field; 
(3) It will thereby stimulate efforts to resolve outstanding 
taxonomic inconsistencies and will focus attention 
on lineages whose phylogenies are poorly 
understood.  
(4) It will provide a means of passing on taxonomic 
knowledge from one generation of diatom experts to 
another; 
(5) It will be operable at remote Antarctic research 
stations, ships and facilities that have standard 
computer access but inadequate hard-copy literature.  
(6) It will have useful educational value and application.  
Diatom/Ware can be used at various levels of the 
educational system, such as in secondary schools to 
demonstrate the Linnean binomial nomenclature and 
system of classification, in undergraduate training to 
introduce diatoms in introductory paleontology 
classes (diatoms are a fossil group traditionally 
under-represented in such classes), and at the 
graduate level to aid in the training of future 
specialists in Antarctic diatoms. 
Acknowledgments.  We thank our co-editor/refereer, John Barron, and 
referee, Lloyd Burckle, for their helpful reviews of the manuscript, and 
our many colleagues among the diatom community who have 
contributed in innumerable ways to the compilation of the database.  To 
date, the diatom taxonomy has been done by Olney, Wise, Sims, 
Kulhanek, Schrader, and Harwood, but additional contributions from 
the user community will be gratefully accepted by Wise, who will be 
responsible for periodic updates in the future. We are also grateful to 
Dr. Jeremy Young who kindly supervised one of us (S. Ramdeen) 
during her gradaute internship at the British Natural History Museum, 
where she transcribed many of the older literature sources with the aid 
of Dr. Sims.  The project was supported by NSF grant OPP-0230469 to 
SWW. 
 
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Cenozoic Antarctic DiatomWare/BugCam: An aid for research and teaching

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