It is easiest for me if you submit your contributions using the WEB submission forms. However, if you have a lot of data to submit you may find it easier to send them via email. Instructions for submitting textfiles via email appear lower on this page.

Required lines are marked with an asterix on the form and in the descriptions below. If you are absolutely unable to fill in a line with required information, please type 'none' instead.

Here are the formats, descriptions, and examples of the six types of data you can submit. The column "Max Chars" contains the maximum number of characters that can be accepted for each item of data - e.g. Surname cannot be more that 20 characters.

• If you have no information to put on one of the lines then type none or n/a instead.
• Title can be Ms, Mr, Dr, Prof, or whatever you're entitled to. It can be left blank.
• Keywords should include the species or group of mollusc that you study and type of studies that you do.
• The last line of information (New name, or change?) indicates whether the name is a new one being added to the list, or an existing one being submitted with new information (e.g. Title, email, etc.). If you are using the form to submit the name this line is filled by selecting one of the radio buttons. If you are submitting the name via email then put "New" or "Change" for this line in the formatted text .

• the name used for the primer in original publication (up to 40 characters).
• the surname only of the person who designed the primer (up to 40 characters).
• the primer sequence (up to 80 characters). Please give the sequences 5' to 3' leaving a space every three nucleotides and using lower case letters (g, a, t, c, i = inosine). For degenerate primers use parentheses with commas between the alternative nucleotides for that position. For example agtc(a,t) would mean a mixture of 50% agtca and 50% agtct.
• literature citation of the original publication in the format used by Nature, but omitting all authors names except the surname of the first author (up to 160 characters).

• the name of the first primer (up to 40 characters). Make sure entries for primers have been submitted to the Primer Sequence Database under the same name. For example Boulding made sure that the primers 12sa-L (Kocher) and 12sb-H (Kocher) were both in the Primer Sequence Database before adding them to the Primer Pairs Database.
• the designer of the first primer - surname only (up to 40 characters).
• the name of the second primer (up to 40 characters).
• the designer of the second primer (up to 40 characters).
• the identity and size (in kilobases) of the fragment you tried to amplify (up to 80 characters).
• the species whose DNA you have tried to amplify with this pair of primers (up to 80 characters). Please do a separate entry for every species you tried with these primer pairs.
• the taxonomic class of the species used (up to 25 characters).
• the taxonomic family of the species used (up to 25 characters).
• the annealing temperature and time you used (up to 80 characters).
• the extension temperature and time you used, if any (up to 80 characters).
• either SUCCESSFUL or FAILED; if reporting a failed amplification please include the species you used as a positive control (up to 80 characters). When submitting with the form (rather than by email) select SUCCESSFUL or FAILED from the drop-down list. If you selected FAILED then type the name of the positive control species in the box to the right of the drop-down list - if you selected SUCCESSFUL then leave the box empty. When submitting via email type SUCCESSFUL or FAILED, and if FAILED append in parentheses the name of the positive control species.
• The surname and initials of the person who tested these primers on molluscs (up to 40 characters).

This is a standard literature citation broken into its components and having your comments attached to it. If you are submitting by email the comment field cannot contain any carriage returns. Think of it as a single paragraph - perhaps a very long one if you have a lot to say. If you are submitting using the form on this website there is no restriction - you may use carriage returns in the comments.
Please include your name at the end of your comments.

Again, if you are submitting via email the description must be a single paragraph without carriage returns, but apart from this restriction it may be as long as you choose. Please submit only websites of immediate interest to researchers on mollusc molecular genetics - your own website should be included with your entry in the list of people.
Please include your name at the end of the description.

And again the description must be a single paragraph if you are submitting via email. The focus should be on work not yet published or in the planning stages. We will publish exactly what you send us so you might want to use a spell checker or have an associate read it over. Please give the class and family of the group(s) of molluscs you work with. Use block capitals for the surnames of the people in your group. Do NOT give contact information as this should be listed in the directory of researchers.

If you have lots of data to submit - say, 30 primers, a primer pair tested on 30 different species, or 30 citations to essential publications for mollusc molecular genetics - you may find it too tedious to do them all one at a time using the forms on the submissions pages of this website. If this is the case, I can (reluctantly) add the data from properly formatted text files.

Send the information via email to me at boulding@uoguelph.ca in the body of the email or as an attachment. It should be as plain text - definitely not as HTML and not as a word processor document. If you use a word processor to compose the data please save it as 'text only'. Because the data are inserted into a database it is very important to use exactly the formats described above.

• Each line must begin at the left margin (no indent) and end with a hard carriage return (press the 'Enter' key).
• The maximum number of characters for each line is shown above in brackets.
• Make sure each record (i.e.person, primer, primer pair protocol, publication, website, or current research) has the correct number of lines of data.
• Separate records with a single blank line.
• Distinguish sections of data with headings denoting the type of data they contain.

I have included examples for People, Current research, and Web pages, but because I doubt anyone has more than one or two of these to submit I don't expect to receive any via email.

Example of data for submission via email: