Cabinet of specimen jars. Photo: Denise Gregoire-USGS |
Monitoring efforts and surveys are critical in collecting information about species occurrence. Specimens collected from these efforts are often deposited in museums whose data may be web accessible. Or the data may be compiled from a survey or an area in a database that is posted on the web. These databases may be based on geography or on taxonomy. The data obtained from them can be used to map species distributions.
Distribution information can also be fed into reporting systems and alert systems to notify biologists of new areas of occurrence.
Data sources are listed below:
