How to do a split

This page summarizes the general techniques for performing a taxonomic split in Avisys. There are two kinds of split; one where a species is split into entirely new species and the old species no longer exists, and one where part of a species is split into a new species but the old species still exists. We'll use the split of Antillean Mango into Hispaniolan Mango and Puerto Rican Mango as an example of the first kind of split, and the split of Eastern Meadowlark into Chihuahuan Meadowlark and Eastern Meadowlark as as example of the second kind of split.

Of course, you don't need to do anything at all if you have no sightings of the split species, so we'll assume here that you have sightings of Antillean Mango and Chihuahuan Meadowlark.

Preparation: before you run the taxonomy update

You only need to prepare in advance for the first kind of split, so here we'll only talk about Antillean Mango. First, rename the species to one of the split species. If you have sightings of both of the split species, never mind that until later; for now just rename the species to the split species for which you have the greatest number of sightings. So, if most or all of your Antillean Mango sightings are in the range of Hispaniolan Mango, rename the species to Hispaniolan Mango. To rename a species, highlight its name (by clicking on it), click on Edit->Edit Species/Family Name, change the name, and click OK.

For the Eastern Meadowlark/Chihuahuan Meadowlark type of split, there is nothing to prepare in advance.

Run the taxonomy update

How to do this is described here.

After the taxonomy update

If you have only seen Hispaniolan Mango but not Puerto Rican Mango, you are done with that split now. Likewise if you have only seen Eastern Meadowlark but not Chihuahuan Meadowlark, you are done with that split. If you have seen both of the split species, you have a little more work to do.

First, find Puerto Rican Mango and click on the name to highlight it. Then, either press Ctrl-F3, or equivalently click Utilities->Save Species for Edit. Either way, this will bring up a "Saved Species" dialog listing Puerto Rican Mango. Just click OK here. Then do a List Records of all of your sightings of Hispaniolan Mango in the range of Puerto Rican Mango. Change each of these records to Puerto Rican Mango. To do this, click on the first sighting and then click on Edit, and then on Species. Clicking on Species will bring up the Saved Species dialog that you saw before, and you then click on Puerto Rican Mango, and then on OK and Finished. You have now changed the species associated with this sighting from Hispaniolan Mango to Puerto Rican Mango. If you have a second sighting, highlight it and press enter, and then choose Yes for the question "Do you want to do mass modifys?", and then simply press enter on each subsequent sighting to perform the rename. Repeat this process for each relevant Place. The whole process is simpler than it sounds.

For the Chihuahuan Meadowlark type of split, the process is similar. Do a List Records showing all of your Eastern Meadowlark sightings that should be changed to Chihuahuan Meadowlark (e.g., select by Place) and move them all to Chihuahuan Meadowlark using the same procedure as described above.