Mark Edlund and Avery Shinneman collect diatoms from the Khovd River

Databases

The data bases for the Mongolia project correspond to the target that was sampled:

• Environmental data (basic site identification, water quality, and surface sediment)
• Chironomid data (sample site identification)
• Diatom data (coming soon)
• Ostracode data (sample site identification)
• Sediment core data (sample site identification)

Different researchers may have used slightly different definitions or terms for what constituted a “site,” “sub-site,” “collection,” “sample,” and so forth, depending on what was being sampled. Consequently, each of the databases above should explain for the user the organization of the sample collections. To the degree possible, we tried to coordinate all the biotic collections with the water-quality samples and to use a consistent site-naming and numbering convention. At the most important and basic level, each biotic sample collection should be linked to a specific water sample (with a unique water-sample ID number) that is most representative of the habitat of the organisms collected.