[Taxacom] Geodetic datums do matter

[Karl Magnacca]

On Mon, March 23, 2009 7:10 pm, Frederick W Schueler wrote:
> * I don't know: certainly there are many situations where 200m doesn't
> matter, but there have been many times when a GPS has led me to the spot
> where a single specimen of a nearly-sessile snail was taken by a
> deceased colleague, or from which declining frogs had been heard
> calling, or where a particular rare plant had been discovered, or a
> colony of an invasive plant had been found. In these cases a 200m error
> or uncertainty would have ruined the replication I was trying to
> achieve.

I agree for many cases in entomology as well; 20m accuracy isn't great,
but the difference between 20m and 200m error is between being able to
eyeball the location of a particular patch of plants from the point, and
blundering around in dense forest for hours trying to find it.

Karl
=====================
Karl Magnacca
Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Zoology
Trinity College, Dublin 2
Ireland