L is field-testing this feature, so please ask questions and note your observations. Our feedback will help the Specify team understand how paleo collections use this field.

Containers, in this context, signify a relationship between separate Collection Objects. By tracking this information, our database develops the capability to provide more detailed ecological data. The relationships are categorized into one of two container types- Matrix and Specimen.

• Matrix shows a population relationship on a slab of rock. A fossil slab filled with Sea urchins and Starfish is a good example of this.
• Specimen shows a physical relationship of one specimen interacting with another, like barnacles on a seashell or worm holes in fossil wood.

Container name is the catalog number of the dominant species- the most numerous in the fossil matrix, the host to a parasite, or a surface (such as a shell) which has other creatures attached to it. Other fossils in (or on) this primary container are given catalog number of the primary specimen plus a suffix. You will have to create a new CO record for each secondary specimens.

Containers relate to each other like nested files on your computer. Here's how the above example would look in 'file tree' format.

Both NPL 12345 and NPL 12345.1 are Collection Objects. They are 'inside' the container NPL 12345. Note all numbers are in Specify format.

Oftentimes, relationships in nature are more complex than this simple '2 things on a slab' example. Encrusting species, parasitic infections and predation/scavenging traces often exist in conjunction with specimens. When these occur as an interaction with a single specimen, it's simple enough to just assign the container type as 'Specimen'. But when the interaction is associated with a specimen that is already 'inside' a matrix-type container, we use letter suffixes to represent these relationships.

Looking more closely at our example slab, container NPL 12345.000, we see one of the starfish and a sea urchins are covered in bryozoans.

To record the interaction of the starfish and the bryozoan, we create a record with a catalog number NPL00012345.00A, and assign this record to container NPL00012345.000

With the sea urchin, which already has a numeric suffix, keep the numeric suffix and add a letter. Alphabetic suffixes combine with numeric entries to make an alphanumeric suffix- NPL 12345.01A.

We can follow the nesting relationships by thinking of them as a file tree again.