Mapping Species Distributions

WHAT DOES A BLANK DISTRIBUTION MAP MEAN?

Carolina mosquitofern (Azolla caroliniana), photo by Brian Klnkenberg

Blank distribution maps may occur periodically in E-Flora for one of five reasons.

• 1) We may not yet have distribution data for the species, subspecies or variety from any data provider. Sometimes this is because species discovery in the province is very recent and, while the name has been added to the flora, we may not have received an updated database with associated location information.
• 2) Nomenclatural changes are constantly being made to species in the North American and BC flora. This can mean that we list a species and provide a map on E-Flora, but the databases themselves may not yet reflect name changes.
• 3) Sometimes, while we may know that a taxon is present in the province but was previously overlooked or mis-identified, the herbarium specimens in some herbaria may not yet have been corrected, and the databases provided to us may not reflect current knowledge. This means that no distribution dot will appear until the data provider updates their specimen identification and those updates are provided to us.
• 4) One common cause of missing distribution dots is lack of precise locality information. While we may know a species occurs in BC because there is a specimen, sometimes older specimens lack precise coordinates to map. Until this precise information is added to the specimen/database, the record cannot be mapped.
• 5) Sometimes our data providers have not yet entered data for a family or genus of plants in their databases. For example, the UBC Herbarium has not yet completed data entry for all plant families. This could mean that there may not be dots to map at this point.