Welcome to the Great Lakes Aquatic Tissue Analysis Repository (GLATAR)

This toolbox allows you to explore, visualize, and manage energy density, proximate composition, stable isotope, thiamine, fatty acid, mercury and PCB data for fish and aquatic invertebrates throughout the Great Lakes and North America.

Map of Locations

This panel provides an interactive map displaying the sample locations for data in GLATAR. To use, explore the map and click on each location to view the waterbody, site, species collected (i.e., common and scientific name), the name of the collector, and the data in GLATAR that was collected. The colour of each location indicates whether the sample was derived from a wild or lab organism.

Upload Excel File

Instructions

1. Go to the Documentation tab or download them from the links below for either the Basic or Extended Data Template (in Excel format)


• Basic Data Entry Template - collects energy density, proximate composition, and stable isotope data.
• Basic Data Entry Template (v21)
• Extended Data Entry Template - additional fields to collect thiamine, fatty and amino acid, mercury, and PCB data.
• Extended Data Entry Template (v21)


2. Please enter your data and associated information in the data template file. This file contains multiple sheets, with the "data_dictionary” sheet defining the fields (including units and format) that you will find on other sheets. Once oriented to file format, enter your data and other information on the three remaining sheets. These sheets are the following, "tbl_submission" which collects the name of the submitter, their associated email and affiliation. All fields on this sheet are required to successfully upload to the database. The next two sheets, "tbl_sources" and "tbl_samples", first collect metadata on the source material supporting the data that is collected which can be entered in "tbl_samples."


3. Once complete, select the Excel file you would like to upload.


4. Click 'Upload & Process'. The system will run a series of validation checks and process the data to adhere to database standards.


5. Review any validation errors — these will identify the specific rows, columns, and descriptions of any issues found.


6. If the upload is successful, verify your sampling locations using the interactive map that appears.


7. Click 'Submit to Database' to finalize the upload. A confirmation message (displayed in green) will appear and you will receive a confirmation email.

Search Taxa in the Database

Use the search bar to look up the taxa that are in the database. This tab servers two purposes 1) to let the user know what species exist in the database and 2) when uploading new data, the user can check validation errors to match what species are in the database.

About

Funding

• This database and toolbox are funded by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission through grant number 2025_JOH_460024.

Contributors

• The following individuals provided thoughts, critiques, and design for this project with the core group being Timothy B. Johnson, James E. Breck, Steven R. Chipps, David Deslauriers, Mark W. Kershner, Charles P. Madenjian, Brent W. Metcalfe, Steven A. Pothoven, Michael D. Rennie, and Benjamin L. Hlina.


• The following individuals contributed to the database design and thoughts on the programming of the toolbox: Benjamin L. Hlina, Michael H.P. O’Brien, and Jonathan D. Pye


• The following people have assisted in testing the database and toolbox: Carolyn J. Foley, Kate M.J. Storey, Andrew Welbourne, and Mark J. Wuenschel

Code & Maintenance

• The database and toolbox are authored and maintained by Benjamin L. Hlina.


• The source code is available on GitHub: View Repository


• This app has used LLMs as a tool to assist in development, however, any code that has been generated by LLMs has been meticulously screened, edited and redeveloped. If you would like to contribute to the code that generates the toolbox, please fork the repository, create a branch within your fork, implement your suggestions, and create a pull request on the main repository for the maintainer to review. This repository will not be accepting LLM submitted PRs nor PRs that contain directly copy and pasted code from LLMs that has not be vetted and edited. Issues that are submitted by LLMs and/or copied and pasted from LLMs will be deleted and ignored, as the issuer needs to have the ability to be able to write their own issues.

Citation

• If you use this toolbox in your research, please cite appropriately using the following: [INSERT CITATION].