Aims
Motivation
Intellectual Merit
Broader Impacts


AMNH
WTAMU
IBUNAM
CAS


Principal Investigators
Collaborators
Graduate Students
Undergraduate Students
High School Students
Technicians
Volunteers


Fieldwork
Museum Collections
Databasing and Mapping
Databasing
Data Capture/Georeferencing
Mapping and Spatial Analysis

Taxonomy
DNA Sequencing
Phylogenetic Analysis
Publications/Authorship


Research Goals/Products
Training Program
Project Management

Retrospective Data Capture

and Georeferencing

Excluding newly collected material, which are databased and georeferenced upon acquisition, and the small proportion of existing material that is already databased, ca. 11,500 specimen-lots from existing collections will be processed for mapping and spatial analysis during the course of the project.  Senior personnel and trainees routinely undertake this procedure during their work on particular taxonomic groups.         
     Specimen label data are captured in the customized database and georeferenced retrospectively.  Where necessary, hardcopy gazetteers and topographical maps of Canada, the USA, Mexico and Guatemala, available, for example, from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas, are used for obtaining geographical coordinates of point localities.  However, electronic gazetteers represent our primary resource for georeferencing.  Of particular importance are the electronic databases derived from gazetteers published by Bureau for Geographic Names of the U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which contain standard names approved for official use, unapproved variant names, designations (cities, mountains, rivers, etc.) and coordinates:

USGS Geographic Names Information System 
GEOnet Names Server

The following additional gazetteers are also consulted:

Columbia Gazetteer of the World 
eGAZ
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names  
Global Gazetteer Version 2.1         
MapFinder

The laborious task of georeferencing localities retrospectively is assisted by the program GEOLocate, which allows large spatial data sets to be imported and automatically georeferenced within minutes to hours. After coordinates have been assigned to locality data, a detailed visualization and correction system allows users to refine results. The precision of coordinate data is assigned using codes reflecting the spatial resolution (decimal degrees, degrees/minutes, quarter-degree squares) and method of acquisition (GPS, electronic gazetteer, map-reading). Georeferenced records will be screened for precision using these codes assigned and by visually inspecting preliminary distribution maps for each vaejovid species. Only records of sufficient precision will be used in maps and analyses.