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Calflora Update: December 2006
2006 was another great year for Calflora! We greatly expanded our
collection of data about wild plants in California and improved our
tools for understanding that data.
This is a brief update on what Calflora accomplished in 2006, what we
are planning next year, and how we'd like to encourage you to work with us to make more information about wild plants available through Calflora.
2006 Registration and Usage
- About 6000 Users Registered or Renewed This Year
This does not include IP-based users, visitors, users at libraries and schools...
- Calflora Free to Amateurs
Thanks to an anonymous donation, Calflora is free to amateurs and volunteers in 2006 and the future.
- Amateur Registrations Doubled through November
- More Sites have IP-based Access
3 UC Campuses plus other colleges, companies, and agencies.
- Daily Use: 1,800 Unique Visitors, 14,000 Queries.
Maintain and Expand our Architecture
- Expanded Plant Name Library.
The plant name library has been expanded to include records
from CNPS, ICPN and PLANTS supplementing the XWALK name table
that has been in use for several years.
There is now a total of more than 31,000 names.
A species report page shows old names (synonyms)
of the species and new names, if any.
(Example:
Epilobium angustifolium ssp. circumvagum
, which has both)
The
Scientific Name Query
helps users to find species by scientific name,
with respect to several nomenclature authorities.
It accepts pre-Jepson Manual names, Jepson Manual names,
and post-Jepson Manual names.
(Example:
Monardella species with all synonyms, according to ICPN, XWALK and CNPS)
The
Name Status
page shows the status of a scientific name
(current or synonym) with respect to several nomenclature authorities.
(Example:
Aster chilensis)
- New Dynamic Observation Query.
This page allows a user to query the observation database by characteristics
of observation records (e.g. location),
or by characteristics of the plants observed
(e.g. status: is it a weed?
is it rare?).
If a user invokes the map viewer from this page, she can
return to this page from the map viewer to refine the query.
The URL at any step in this process can be bookmarked or emailed,
allowing another user to pick up exactly where the first user left off.
A user may also choose which plant nomenclature authorities
(from the plant name library) will be used in interpreting results.
This page can also produce a species list from a set of observations,
group species by family, and show photos.
(Example:
Cal-IPC weeds found in Fresno County, grouped by family, with photographs)
- Improved Map Viewer.
Recent improvements to the map viewer include:
-
relief maps based on 30-meter DEMs from the USGS
-
15 zoom levels
-
5 levels of relief intensity, so that roads, points, etc.
can be visually emphasized or not;
-
mouse over a point or polygon identifies the area and species -- click
brings the records up in another window;
-
for observation queries that include species name,
the ability to turn on auto reload so that points
are automatically refreshed when the map area changes;
-
click through to a similar map on Google Maps;
-
many new polygons assimilated from public domain sources.
- Observation Groups.
Within the observation database, it is possible to identify a group of observations
made in the same area by the same organization or individual
(for example, location checklists for various areas in Marin County
from Marin CNPS). Such groups are useful in that they may reveal
what plants grow near one another.
The
Observation Group Query
allows a user to find groups in a particular county, or
containing a particular species, and will also produce
an abstract list of species within selected groups.
(Example:
Species observed with Alnus rubra in Mendocino County,
or on CNPLX,
What grows with Alnus rubra in Mendocino County?)
- Online Contribution System.
The Online Contribution System
now takes advantage of the recently expanded plant name library
to accept both current names and synonyms.
Most of Calflora's new observation data comes in through this system.
More Data 1: Working with CNPS Chapters: Location Checklists
In 2006 Calflora started actively soliciting high quality location checklists,
particularly from local CNPS chapters.
We concentrated on four counties, and
the results are spectacular (both in terms of polygons visible on the map viewer
and new county occurrences of species).
We have found local experts who have done
wonderful work and have been willing to share it with Calflora.
- Marin.
Doreen Smith and Wilma Follette of the Marin CNPS chapter contributed
37 lists (8,477 records)
(map viewer).
- Monterey.
Al Washburn, Jim Pittman and Mary Ann Matthews of the Monterey CNPS chapter
contributed 34 lists (6,256 records)
(map viewer).
- Sonoma. (Milo Baker)
ML Carle contributed a list for Schollenberger Park, Petaluma (83 records).
Jeffrey Barrett contributed a list for Southridge Preserve, Santa Rosa (133 records).
Lynn Houser contributed a list for Rincon Ridge Park (93 records).
Peter Warner contributed seven lists from around the county (2,843 records)
(map viewer).
- Mendocino. (Dorothy King Young, Sanhedrin)
Teresa Sholars contributed lists for four coastal state parks (977 records)
(map viewer).
Kerry Heise contributed a list for the
U.C. Hopland Research and Extension Center (674 records).
- Alameda and Contra Costa. (East Bay)
The East Bay CNPS Rare and Unusual Plants
data set was updated in April, thanks to Dianne Lake and Tony Morosco
(17,069 records, 39 georeferenced locations, 1013 taxa, 114 rare taxa).
(map viewer).
Demonstrations:
More Data 2: Proof of Concept: CNPS Vegetation Program, Western Riverside County
In August, we added data from the CNPS Vegetation Program Western Riverside County
project, provided by Todd Keeler-Wolf (13,873 records, 1059 georeferenced locations,
547 taxa, 17 rare taxa).
This data set stands out among other data sets available on Calflora for
its saturation of the area and the accuracy of its georeferencing.
This data set is not yet available to the public.
Western Riverside County is already fairly well represented
in the Calflora observation database because of data contributed by the
UC Riverside Herbarium. But, to illustrate what a difference
the Vegetation Program data makes, consider points representing
observations of native shrubs in one area of the county,
without the Vegetation Program data:
And the same area with the Vegetation Program data included
(light blue):
2007 Goals
- Watersheds on the Map Viewer
What grows in my watershed?
For that matter, which watershed do I live in, and where does it drain?
Digital watershed polygons for the whole State of California are available
from the California Interagency Watershed Mapping Committee (CalWater).
In the coming year,
Calflora will be adding these polygons to the map viewer at several hierarchic levels.
The goal is to be able to show what plants have been observed in any
particular watershed, and to make it easy for users to identify
the watersheds in their immediate environment.
- Observation Annotation
As a measure of quality control, Calflora would like to
enlist the aid of local experts to annotate observations.
For instance, if an expert thinks that a plant was misidentified
in an observation, she could annotate it as such.
A user would have the option of querying observations
through the filter of these annotations.
To make this work, some software needs to be written, but most important
is to find local experts willing to review Calflora's observation
records for a particular area (for instance, a county or part of a county).
- More Local Flora Projects
Calflora's experience with CNPS chapters in 2006 shows you can do it too!
- More CNPS Veg Data
This is fabulous data: Let's keep going!
- What Grows Here?
A new project in the planning and fundraising phase.
- Keep Reaching Out to Data Holders
- Funding...
Contact Us
We're always eager to hear your ideas about Calflora.
You can write to us by
email,
or send us U.S. Mail at:
The Calflora Database
1700 Shattuck Ave. #198
Berkeley, CA 94709
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