How will taxonomic certification help me?
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Although diatoms have been integral to river and lake assessment for many decades, powerful resources to improve diatom data are now accessible to a broader audience. In this workshop, we will explore these new tools and their application to both small-scale and large-scale surveys to maintain data continuity over time. Diatoms of North America (diatoms.org) is a peer-reviewed web flora that guides identification to over 900 (and growing) species pages. Managers will learn how this project supports taxonomic consistency and how to use the site to make sense of their species data. Several regional voucher floras (northeast lakes, northeast rivers, southeast rivers, Pacific Northwest urban rivers, and California rivers) have been developed and are publicly available. We will discuss “what is a voucher flora?” and how we can use them to produce transparent, verifiable records of species data. Recently, through the USGS NAWQA program, QA/AC protocols have been refined to eliminate analyst bias. We will explore the steps necessary to design survey analyses so that analyst bias, if present, can be corrected. Finally, a diatom taxonomic certification program is being developed, and is planned to be administered through the Society for Freshwater Science (SFS). The taxonomic certification program will incorporate a series of training and testing modules so that diatom analysts have the ability to obtain up to four levels of certification for their expertise. The program will further manager’s abilities to select contracting laboratories and recognize the level of professional accomplishment by certified taxonomists.