Mapping Western Hemisphere Fauna

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Mapping Western Hemisphere Fauna

• Bruce E. Young
• bruce_young_at_abi.org

Association for Biodiversity Information(http//
www.abi.org)
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Association for Biodiversity Information(ABI)

• Mission To develop, manage, and distribute
  authoritative information critical to the
  conservation of the worlds biological diversity.

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What Information do we Need for Conservation?

• What is it?
• Where is it?
• How is it doing?
• What are its requirements?
• Where to conserve it?
• At a site, what are the threats and how do we
  address them?

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ABI 80 staff plus members of the Natural
Heritage Network

• A spin-off of The Nature Conservancy
• 77 independent member programs
• Common methodology
• Each program ecologists, botanists, zoologists,
  data specialists
• Programs in 50 U.S. states, 10 Canadian
  provinces, and 10 Latin American countries

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Organizational Homes for Natural Heritage
Programs(US and Canada)

• 78 State or provincial agency
• 12 University
• 5 Non-profit (e.g., Nature Conservancy)
• 5 Other (Navajo Nation, National Park,
  District of Columbia)

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What do Natural Heritage Programs Do?

• Gather, manage, analyze, and distribute
  information about the biological diversity found
  within their jurisdictions
• Secondary sources field inventories
• Map manage data
• Conduct environmental reviews assessments
• Design, protect, and manage conservation areas

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Element Occurrence

• Element Occurrence
• is an area of land and/or water in which a
  species is, or was present.
• has practical conservation value.
• tracked for endangered species

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Six generations to date of Natural
Heritage database software
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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Objectives
• Digitize the ranges of all bird and mammal
  species (5,600) of the Western Hemisphere
• Disseminate the data to the conservation public

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• History
• TNC-Wings Setting Priorities project (1,300
  birds-at-risk)
• WWF-US project in Southeastern Brazil (800
  birds)
• MOU among CI-CABS, WWF-US,
• TNC-Wings, ABI

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Strategy
• Gather existing digitized maps
• Digitize remaining maps
• Quality Standards
• Minimum 1 degree lat/long grid
• Comparable base map
• Up-to-date source

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Sources for Digitized Maps
• TNC-Wings
• WWF-US
• Gerardo Ceballos (UNAM)
• Patricia Escalante (UNAM)
• Stuart Pimm (U. Tennessee)
• Ross Keister (USFS)
• Don McNicol (CWS)

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Data Sources
• Birds
• North America Birds of North America
• Mexico, northern Central America Howell Webb
• Southern Central America James Zook
• South America Robert Ridgely
• Caribbean Raffaele et al.

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Data Sources
• Mammals
• North America Wilson Ruff
• Central America Reid
• South America Eisenberg Redford
• Caribbean Literature
• Expert Review Bruce Patterson

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Details
• ArcView 3.x
• Digitize polygons points (South American birds
  only)
• 15,000,000
• Degrade data as necessary

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Polygon data fields
• File name gggg_ssss_pl.xxx
• Family, genus species, common name
• Migratory status

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Point data fields
• File name gggg_ssss_pt.xxx
• Family, genus species, common name
• Migratory status
• Location
• Source type (specimen, observation)
• Institution/Observer
• Date
• Locational Uncertainty
• Comments

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project
Determine Source
Digitize Map
Expert Review
Redigitize
Data Roll-up
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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Final Products
• Compact Disk
• Downloadable Data
• InfoNatura (not funded yet)

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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Status
• Received about 4,000 maps
• Already digitized about 1,400
• Remaining digitizing, review, revision

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Courtesy of R. Ridgely, Academy of Natural
Sciences, Philadelphia
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Long-tailed Woodcreeper, Deconychura longicauda
Courtesy of R. Ridgely, Academy of Natural
Sciences, Philadelphia
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Bird and Mammal Mapping Project

• Challenges
• Variable precision of contributed maps
• Variety of base maps used
• Schedules of contributors
• Taxonomic instability
• Protecting unpublished information
• Reflecting movement status
• Funding for updates

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www.infonatura.org
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InfoNatura Search by Name
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InfoNatura Search by Country
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InfoNatura Search by Status
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InfoNatura Search Results
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InfoNatura Report
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InfoNatura Distribution