[Taxacom] problems with GBIF

[Michael Heads]

Hi Jim,
 
Herbaria are great but it would be nice to have the information online so you don't have to visit the country concerned and open the cupboards yourself. I've just been trying to find the distribution of a medium-sized plant genus in Australia. It's easy for Western Australia, the Florabase website is a real gem. I'd give the site 10/10. 
 
For eastern Australia things aren't nearly so straightforward... Australia Virtual Herbarium maps have beautiful overlays, dots (specimens) are coded according to which herbarium they're from - great - BUT unlike Florabase it won't let you map a genus (or a family) - only species! And it doesn't list the species names - you have to know what they are already! There's huge potential here - all the specimens are on the database - it's just not designed very well. 6.5/10.
 
If you're in the loop, you know that the names are available on another site (Aust. Plant Names Index). But even then, the inability to map a genus automatically is a major flaw and I haven't got time to download each of the 50 individual species and synthesize a genus map by hand. Again, there is a way out (if you know) - go to GBIF. On this site you can map genera, families etc. Great. But for the Australian plant genus they only seem to list specimens from NSW and CANB (and their base maps aren't so detailed, so you can't see where you are)... 
 
Does the $30 million for the Australian Living Atlas  project mean these problems will be resolved?    
 
Michael Heads

Wellington, New Zealand.

My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0

--- On Mon, 8/10/09, Jim Croft <jim.croft at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Jim Croft <jim.croft at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] problems with GBIF
To: "Michael Heads" <michael.heads at yahoo.com>
Cc: TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Date: Monday, August 10, 2009, 12:08 AM


One of my favourite sites for basic information on taxa is a
herbarium, but I would not bet the farm on its data.

And that is why we have taxonomy.

jim

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 6:52 PM, Michael Heads<michael.heads at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Two of my favourite sites for basic information on taxa are wikipedia and GBIF, but I wouldn't bet the farm on their data. Compare the GBIF map of the plant family Papilionaceae s.lat. (aka Fabaceae), ranging north exactly to the US/Canada border:
>
> http://data.gbif.org/species/13146161/
>
> with the butterfly family Papilionidae, ranging south to exactly the same border (and west to Alaska):
>
> http://data.gbif.org/species/13143363/
>
> Interesting vicariance! Must be climatic...
> If the 'developed' countries can't get their act together, what about the places where all the biodiversity is?
>
> Michael Heads
>
> Wellington, New Zealand.
>
> My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0
>
>
>
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