Health Ecological and Economic Dimensions of Global Change Program. Marine Ecosystems: Emerging Diseases As Indicators Of Change. Health of the Oceans from Labrador to Venezuela. Year of the Ocean Special Report. NOAA- OGP and NASA Grant number NA56GP 0623. (Eds.) P. R. Epstein, B. H. Sherman, E. S. Siegfried, A Langston, S Prasad, B. Mckay. December 1998. Published by The Center for Conservation Medicine and CHGE Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. 85p.

Historical Marine Mortality Events Project

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About the Content

Retrievable meta-data regarding past marine disease and mortality incidents occurring throughout the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and Atlantic Coast of the U.S. are needed to establish potential linkages with large-scale environmental factors and to establish potential trends over time and space.

The goal of this project was to charactierize status and trend of environmental condition for coasts and estuaries. Environmental condition can be reflected in the health of valued resources. Documentation of disease and mortality events can be used to infer changing environmental condition. Historical data on vulnerable populations of corals, fish and shellfish are essential to understanding these changes. Consequently, historical data are required on mortalities and disease of marine oranganisms. The ability to examine these historical data in a spatial and temporal context is essential to undersanding the relevance of current mortality events and trends in environmental condition.

Data available from the HEED Program (Http://heedmd.org) are extracted from peer reviewed journal articles, individual state data records, vetted newspaper accounts and personal documentation of marine-related dieseases and mortalities throughout these regions. Such data may be retieved in geospatial and temporal contexts to allow comparison of events over time and space through directed queries.

PLEASE SEE THE TERMS OF DATA USE SECTION

if considering making reference to data or graphs in this report. Several journal articles, including one in AAAS Science are also available, although this report/project and an academic Dissertation remain the primary source for data citation.

About Software

The companion data CD-ROM (housed at the University of New Hampshire as part of a bound Dissertation) contains a fully functional (but stand-alone) web server. Using a web browser, the user can can run programs as well as view html files contained as though a connection to a remote Internet server were present. To start the program the user must run the HEEDMD.exe program on the cd-rom (or if the user prefers, copy the content to a location on their computer's hard drive). Tthere is nothing to configure. Running the executable will automatically start a web browser displaying this page. Insertion of the CD-ROM may trigger auto-start of the program and launching of this page - should this become inconvenient, turn off the "autorun" feature option in your windows operating system preferences.

A stand-alone run-time version of Microsoft Access is also provided. This application represents a relational version of the data contained. Documentation describing tables and relationships is provided.


TERMS OF USE

User Acknowledgment:
By using data, software, or other information accessed through this CD-ROM Portal - a snapshot of a live ever-changing Internet product, I agree that, in any publication or presentation of any sort based wholly or in part on material so accessed, I will:

1. Acknowledge the use of specific records from contributing databases in the form appearing in the 'Citation' field thereof (if any); and in any event acknowledge the use of the HEED MD facility in the following prescribed form:
"Accessed in B.H. Sherman (ed.), <Insert DATE>. HEED MD Distributed Data Search (HEED MD World Wide Web electronic publication: www.heedmd.org) <Insert VERSION>."

Example: "Burreson; Eugene M. and Calvo; Lisa M. Ragone.1996. Epizootiology of Perkinsus Marinus Disease of Oysters in Chesapeake Bay; with Emphasis on Date Since 1985. Journal of Shellfish Research:15:1:17-34 Accessed in B.H. Sherman (ed.). 2003. HEED MD Distributed Data Search (HEED MD World Wide Web electronic publication www.heedmd.org).version 1.23"

Please reference all photographs, documents, or database information that you use within your document. For general references that refer to aggregated information in CalFlora the citation format follows the following: (recommended by the library staff at the California Academy of Sciences) EXAMPLE 1: General Reference HEED MD: Health Ecological and Economic Dimensions of Major Disturbances.[web application]. 2000. Teaneck, New Jersey: The HEED MD Database [a non-profit organization]. Available: http://www.heedmd.org/. [Accessed: Oct 10, 2003] For citing specific information (i.e. the species involved, a particular report) the reference should include not only the HEED MD Project but also the actual source of the information as elaborated. It is best to include the URL address for the data so that the exact query can be duplicated. EXAMPLE 2: Specific Reference The HEED MD Database. [web application]. 2003. Occurrence ID 1177 Obsrecno 529 Citation ID 512 "Mammal: Bottlenosed Dolphin Mass Mortality" Disturbance data from Lipscomb; T.P.; F.Y. Schulman; D. Moffett & S. Kennedy"|"1994"|"Morbilliviral disease in Atlantic bottlenose dolphins from the 1987- 1988 epizootic"||"Journal of Wildlife Diseases""30"4""567-571" regarding Morbilivirus investigation. http://www.HEEDMD.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-taxon=Tursiops+truncatus [Accessed 20 December 1998]

2. For information purposes, provide to the HEED MD Webmaster (info heedmd.org )the full citation of any publication I make (printed or electronic) that cites HEED MD or any constituent part. heedmd@heedmd.org.

3. It is required that copywriteable material derived from the content of this data system, specifically cite or quote an appropriate review article, such as: Sherman. B.H.; 2000. Marine Disturbance; A Survey of Morbidity; Mortality and Disease Events. Marine Pollution Bulletin Vol.41. No 1-6; pp.232-254 associated with the HEED MD data system and its compilation methods...... or should the findings represent new insight,

4. It is expected that a co-authorship opportunity be provided to protect prior effort and further support the validity of the pre-assembled data. Address inquires/offers to ben@heedmd.org.

Users beware

HEED MD renders information prepared by contributors accessible through dynamic on-line publication. The HEED MD group has not peer-reviewed the quality of the aggregated data provided. However, we are confident that the data are the best available in electronic form. Users must recognize that the analysis and interpretation of data requires background knowledge and expertise regarding marine disturbance (including their contextual ecosystems and species present). Users should be aware of possible errors in the use of species names, georeferencing, data handing and mapping. They should crosscheck their results for possible errors, and qualify their interpretation of any results accordingly. Appropriate caution is thus necessary in the interpretation of results derived from HEED MD.

Users must be aware that HEED MD data were compiled somewhat inconsistently from individual contributors. More data are missing than present (as is always the case). for appropriate contextual, explanatory and interpretive information, and for relevant metadata, users should collaborate with the intermediate data provider - HEED MD - and also refer questions that they have concerning such issues to individual contributors. Questions about the HEED MD database or GIS functions themselves should be directed to the HEED MD webmaster.