Mapping Species Distributions

E-Flora MAPPING

Aquilegia formosa (Sitka columbine ) photo by Kent Brothers

Introduction

Sample Maps

Links to other Maps

References

Introduction

As an atlas of the plants of British Columbia, E-Flora BC revolves around maps and GIS.  Using plant specimen data from key data providers including the UBC Herbarium, the Royal BC Museum, the National Herbarium of Canada and the Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification database, we have developed both comprehensive static maps and dynamic interactive distribution maps for BC plants.  Formatting and display of the maps continues to be programmed, and new data will allow us to map non-vascular plant distributions in addition to vascular plants.

Eventually, a search conducted in E-Flora will provide not only distribution maps for a species, but also clickable overlay maps of the province's climate, precipitation, topography, snow cover, biogeoclimatic zones, etc., all with zoom capability.   The ability to overlay maps will make E-Flora BC an important information and research tool for those investigating our provincial flora.  Development of the overlay mapping is underway.

Sample maps

Source:  BECWeb
(http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hre/becweb/papermap/BGC_Zones_2003-03.pdf) 
 

Mean April Maximum Temperature
 

Mean September Total Precipitation

The climate data used to produce the above two maps was obtained from
Climate Source
 

Key links to other biogeography maps

Rare plant hotspots in BC--Map (Scudder 2003)
Vascular Plant Richness in BC--Map (Scudder  2003)

References

Scudder, G. 2003. Biodiversity Conservation and Protected Areas in BC. Department of Zoology, UBC, Prepared for the Sierra Legal Defence Fund.