Showing posts with label Maps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maps. Show all posts

Friday, March 18, 2011

WDIN’s Global Wildlife Disease News Map Promoted as an Educational Tool

The Global Wildlife Disease News Map, http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/wdinNewsDigestMap.jsp, developed by the USGS-NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN), is available to educators through AMSER, the Applied Math and Science Education Repository.  Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the National Science Digital Library, AMSER is a searchable portal used by educators to find engaging educational materials and services on a number of math and science related topics.  The Disease Map, a popular resource, is currently being enhanced to improve the user experience.  A Beta version is available and can be viewed here, http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/newsmap.  After user feedback has been incorporated, the next version of the Map will be officially released.

(Photo: screenshot of the Global Wildlife Disease News Map, courtesy of the USGS-NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node).

Friday, September 10, 2010

Announcing the Texas Coastal Fisheries Mapping Application


Gulf of Mexico coastal fisheries populations have tremendous value in ecological, economic, and social terms. As a result, each coastal state within the NBII Central Southwest Gulf Coast Information Node (CSWGCIN) region is involved in coastal fisheries management. Each agency that collects fisheries-independent (non-harvest) data in the Gulf of Mexico coastal waters does so according to agency-specific missions and goals; this leads to differing sampling methodologies and database formats. Each separate database tells part of the story about the state of Gulf of Mexico coastal fisheries resources. Combining them into a cohesive and complete data record is a difficult, yet important, task.

The goal is to combine coastal fisheries monitoring data from multiple Gulf states into an online mapping application. As a first step, CSWGCIN has acquired fisheries-independent monitoring data from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) Coastal Fisheries Division and made the data accessible through the Texas Coastal Fisheries Mapping Application. The TPWD coastal fisheries resource database dates back to 1977 and is based on a randomized sampling method. The database includes information on a host of estuarine species sampled using a variety of sampling gears: bag seine, shrimp trawl, gill net, and oyster dredge. Each gear type is used by TPWD to sample particular habitat types, species, and life history stages. Bag seines collect juveniles and small adult species that inhabit estuarine edge habitat along shoreline and marsh fringes. Shrimp trawls collect small- to medium-sized species inhabiting bottom habitat of the open bay. Gill nets capture large adult specimens that move along the shore. Oyster dredges are used to collect shellfish from oyster reef habitats.
 
Data include catch numbers, lengths of specimens captured, hydrological data (e.g., salinity, dissolved oxygen, water temperature), and metadata describing location, date/time, and other characteristics (e.g., depth, sampling effort, etc.) of the sampling event. The TPWD coastal fisheries database is unique in that it contains data for all species captured in the various sampling gears, regardless of recreational or commercial importance.


Data were analyzed to determine time series trends in relative abundance for multiple estuarine fisheries species. Indicator species for this project were chosen based on commercial, recreational, or ecological importance. The list below provides examples of species included in the mapping application:



Common Name
Latin Name
Atlantic croaker
Micropogonias undulatus
Bay anchovy
Anchoa mitchilli
Black drum
Pogonias cromis
Blue catfish
Ictalurus furcatus
Blue crab
Callinectes sapidus
Brown shrimp
Farfantepenaeus aztecus
Gafftopsail catfish
Bagre marinus
Southern flounder
Paralichthys lethostigma
“The goal is to combine coastal fisheries monitoring data from multiple Gulf states into an online mapping application.”
Abundance was reported as relative abundance (the proportion of individuals of one species relative to the total number of individuals of all species captured at one location or time). Relative abundances were displayed in an online mapping interface and made available to users via the CSWGCIN portal.


In addition to viewing the time series fisheries abundance data in an online mapping interface, users can view physical characterization data for each estuary. The mapping interface provides hydrological information detailing average salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and water temperatures for the eight major bay systems in Texas. The data portal also includes an option to download the coastal fisheries data, hydrological data, and supporting metadata.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Updates from the Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) Now Available for the Southwest

Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) is an interactive, searchable, and updateable Web-enabled database of butterfly and moth records. The database houses over 270,000 records and more than 4,500 species. The Live Maps and Data page of Southwest Information Node (SWIN) now provides updates for the southwest region via RSS feed.







(Photo: Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus) on goldenrod flower. © 2009 Bruce Avera Hunter, , from the NBII LIFE gallery).

Thursday, March 4, 2010

FGDC Publishes a Fact Sheet on the WDIN Global Wildlife Disease News Map

In September 2009, Technical Manager, Megan Hines, and Node Manager, Jennifer Carlino, of the NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN) were interviewed about the WDIN Global Wildlife Disease News Map application by the Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) Geospatial Line of Business group.

The Disease Map displays recently published media reports in a geographical context allowing users to see where news-worthy wildlife disease events are occurring around the globe. Before disease outbreaks become well-known, they often appear in informal sources, such as the news media. The Map visually organizes these news reports to show the global status of wildlife disease and to help government agencies and the general public stay abreast of ongoing developments. The Map also makes data freely available in compatible formats, which allows anyone to integrate this wildlife disease information with other applications, as seen in HealthMap.

The result of this interview generated a fact sheet on the project,
highlighting the impact the application has had on WDIN internal business, as well as what the application has provided for external users from the general public to other government agencies. The fact sheet was recently made available on the Geospatial Line of Business website.

Links that may be useful:

Monday, January 4, 2010

WDIN Interviews with the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Geospatial Line of Business

The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN) staff were interviewed on September 25, 2009 by the Geospatial Line of Business (LOB), a cross-agency coordination of federal geospatial activities, about the Global Wildlife Disease News Map application. The Geospatial LOB strives to identify opportunities for highlighting efficiencies in government services. The News Map was selected because of its unique spatial approach to visualizing unstructured media information about emerging wildlife disease around the world.