Working with Groups and Sets

Groups

A group is an informal list of taxa which you may wish to be considered together. Groups are useful tools when designing biostratigraphic chart panels, where group taxa can be included or excluded, plotted in aggregate and highlighted. Groups can also be used to populate a picklist.

You can include a genus in a group. This means that all species belonging to that genus are included (even when more species are added).

Groups can belong to StrataBugs projects - see below.

Note: A Group differs from a Category in that a taxon can belong to many groups but only to one category.

Right: A group window in the Taxonomic Database module showing the 'Selected benthics' group, which includes 3 taxa and one genus (total 9 individual taxa). The group has a red colour and the taxa are sorted in this window by category. The group belongs to the global project.

Creating a group

In the Taxon Database module, either select Group | Add.. or press the add group icon on the toolbar. In the dialog you must choose the group's name, project and colour.

Typing a description will help identify the purpose of your group. Group descriptions can be included in the chart key.

Adding taxa to a group

Open the group by by selecting Groups | Edit taxa..., by pressing the edit group icon on the toolbar, or by double-clicking it in the groups sidebar.

Next you should populate the taxon window. Press the search for taxa icon and select the taxa you want to work with (you can select more than one). You can then drag and drop the taxa from the table in the taxon window into the group window. This updates the groups without any need to save.

You can add genera to the group by opening the Genera window (Taxa | Genera...). Populate this list by pressing the search icon, or by dragging and dropping taxa from other windows (e.g. groups, the taxa window or the picklist). Drag and drop a genus to the group to add it. Note that any species from the group which use the new genus will disappear.

Group colours

You can assign each group a colour. The colour is displayed next to the group's name in the groups sidebar, and in a strip across the top of each group window. The default colour is white. Group colours are used in charts to distinguish between different groups in a set.

To edit the colour, make sure the group is highlighted in the groups sidebar. Then either select Groups | Edit details..., double-click on the colour cell next to the group's name, or right-click on the group's row and select Edit details from the pop-up menu. Use the dialog to choose a new colour.

More than one group can have the same colour.

Changing a group's name and project

Make sure the group is highlighted in the groups sidebar. Either select Groups | Edit details... or right-click on the group and select Edit details from the pop-up menu. Using the Group : Edit dialog you can change the group's name and description and select a different project. Note that you cannot change the project (except to "global") if (i) the group belongs to a group set in the existing project or (ii) the group is used in chart panel templates in the existing project.

Deleting a group

Select the group in the groups sidebar. Select Groups | Delete, or right-click and choose Delete from the pop-up menu. You cannot delete a group if it belongs to any group sets, or if it is used in any chart panel templates (use Group | Show chart panels to see which panels use the group).

You will be asked if you want to check legacy chart references to the group (see below). If you do not check references, the group will be deleted, and if you subsequently open the affected charts, the panels will be displayed with undefined results. If you decide to check the charts (which may take a while to execute on a large database), then any chart references found will prevent the group from being deleted.

Sets

A Set is a group of groups which you may wish to consider together. This may be so that you can plot a number of groups at once on a chart without having to select them individually. They can also be used in the calculations of abundance in certain specialised displays.

Add or edit a set with the Set dialog. You can open this via the Group | Sets menu (pressing Add... will make a new, blank Set, Edit... will edit whichever Set you have selected in the Sets sidebar, and Delete Selected will delete the selected Set). You can also open this dialog to edit a Set by double-clicking on it in the Sets sidebar.

Projects

Both groups and sets can belong to StrataBugs projects. This makes it easier to manage a large list of specialist groups which are only relevant to certain wells. Each group or set may only belong to one project, and those which do not belong to a specific project are "global", and can be used in any context.

In the Taxonomic Database Main Window, the Project Selector is used to restrict the lists of groups and sets. Items which belong to the current project are shown with the symbol; global items have the symbol.

Group sets can only contain groups from their own project or the global project. Global group sets can only contain global groups. Similarly, chart panel templates which belong to projects can only use groups or sets from that project (or from the global project). Global panel templates can only use global groups and sets.

Taxon Groups in Chart Panels

The biostratigraphy chart panel can use groups and sets to refine the display. In the example below, the whole panel is restricted to showing only taxa from the "Training Set". In the left-hand taxon panel, taxa in group "A" are highlighted in green. The right-hand taxon panel shows the relative proportions of taxa from groups A, B and C which comprise the Training Set.

You can also choose to exclude all of the species from a group using the "exclude group" property.

You can select Groups/Sets | Show chart panels... to see a list of all panel templates which make a reference to the selected group or set. There is also an option to create a list of all the groups which are not referenced in any chart panel. This is useful when removing groups from the database that are no longer required.

Note: This option may take a long time to run over a large database. Allow several minutes.

If you have added additional taxa to a well in a project, and need to ensure that all the taxa in the new well are included in the chart groups and sets you are using, you can use the menu option Advanced search in wells... Specify the project and exclude from the search the group set being plotted. The result will be a list of all the taxa that are not capured by the group set. Select all taxa in the list, and from the main taxon list table you can drag and drop them into the appropriate groups.

Page last updated: 13-Jul-2015 10:53