Each species is compared with your setup, one factor at a time. A factor is used only when a value is recorded, and the card links to the claim behind it.
How the list is worked out | Factor | What it compares | Weight |
| Temperature | How much of the range the enclosure holds sits inside the range the species does best in. | 30 |
| Substrate wetness | Substrate wetness against the recorded range, or against how the species is cultured when no range is recorded. | 18 |
| Air humidity | The same comparison for relative humidity of the air. | 12 |
| Establishing | Whether keepers report that it establishes in an enclosure. | 12 |
| Predation | Whether its breeding rate can keep up with the animals chosen. Used only when an animal eats springtails. | 10 |
| Airflow | The airflow of the setup against the airflow the species is kept with. | 8 |
| Substrate | The substrate you chose against how the species does on it in culture. Used only when you choose one. | 6 |
| Use | What you want the springtails for against what the species is used for. Used only when you choose one. | 6 |
Weights are relative. A comparison that does not apply, such as the substrate when none is chosen, leaves the sum.
A factor with no recorded value counts as neutral. When less than a quarter of the weight has data, the species is not graded and says so.
Temperature outside the range a species does best in holds it at poor. Humidity or wetness outside its range holds it at marginal. A species that is unlikely to establish, or breeds too slowly for the animals chosen, is held at marginal.
Most species have no recorded temperature or humidity range yet. For those the list leans on how sellers culture them, and the card says so. Without a temperature range a species cannot grade as ideal.
A curator can set the grade for a species in a standard type when a seller or keeper says so. Those grades are labelled and link to their claim.
How the list is ordered
Species are sorted by grade and then by score. Scores within two points count as equal. Equal species go by whether they are sold, then by how easy keepers rate them, then by how much is recorded. The same setup always gives the same order.
Assumptions in this model
Model assumption The grade for a species adds up every comparison that has recorded data and counts each missing comparison as neutral. Temperature counts most, then how wet the substrate is, then air humidity, whether the species establishes in enclosures, and airflow. A species with no recorded temperature range cannot be graded ideal. Unknown Open question How wet and how ventilated are real bioactive enclosures? Model assumption The match between how a species is cultured and how wet an enclosure stays is a curator estimate. Stock that sellers keep damp all the way through is matched to wet and damp enclosures. Stock kept with a dry side is matched to drier ones. The scores are choices made for this site and are not measurements. Unknown Open question Does the way a species is cultured predict how it does in an enclosure? Model assumption Whether a species can keep up with an animal that eats springtails compares its seller breeding rating with a curator estimate of how heavily the animal eats them. Species that spend more time on the surface count as easier to catch. The outlook is a model and not a count of real springtails. Unknown Open question How fast do common enclosure animals eat springtails? What the record says about the animals
Sellers say springtails serve as a self-renewing live food in dart frog and small gecko setups, and describe feeding springtails from a culture to a tiny dart froglet. Hobby consensus 2, 3 One seller says isopods may eat a springtail that is dead or too weak to move, but it found no record of an isopod catching a healthy springtail. Anecdotal 3 
