December 2012 Number 1 - Utah Native Plant Society

Utah Native Plant Society
The Digital Atlas of Utah Plants:
Determining Patterns of Biodiversity and Rarity
Leila M. Shultz, R. Douglas Ramsey, Wanda Lindquist, and C. Garrard
Floristics Lab and Remote Sensing/GIS Lab, Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract. The digital Atlas of Utah Plants is a web-based revision of the Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Utah by B.
Albee, L. Shultz, and S. Goodrich, published in 1988 by the University of Utah Museum of Natural History. The hard
copy version provided distribution maps for 2,438 native or naturalized plant species and an appendix with generalized
locations for 399 additional species that are either extremely rare, recently introduced, or at the edges of their
ranges – and known from one population. The new digitized version allows analysis of original data from pre-1988
herbarium collections (mapped at coarse level, resolution at approximately 10 km 2 ) and brings in herbarium records
for post-1988 collections (most of which are mapped at high resolution with global positioning devices) as well as
more than 6,000 observations and records of rare species from the database for the Utah Natural Heritage program.
While specific location sites for rare species are not displayed on the web-based version, the presence of rare species
is highlighted on the grid map displayed for each species. The digital version provides a tool for tracking reports of
new records as well as a tool for analyzing patterns of diversity. Open access to these records is currently available
and species lists have been compiled for each major ecoregion in the state.
The on-line version of the Atlas of Utah Plants by
Leila Shultz, R. Douglas Ramsey, and Wanda Lindquist
is a revision of the Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Utah
(Albee et al.1988). The new digital version displays a
source code for each mapped point, new records, general
locations for rare species, and nomenclatural updates.
The original Atlas was based on the authors’ examination
of approximately 400,000 herbarium specimens
of Utah plants housed within the natural history collections
of Brigham Young University (BRY), University
of Utah (UT), Utah State University (UTC), the Forest
Service Herbarium in Ogden (OGDF), and several Bureau
of Land Management and Park Service herbaria.
Although the original maps were hand-plotted on a gridded
base map from specimens that were not entered in a
database, the herbarium location for each voucher was
color-coded on the map. These original maps are archived
at the University of Utah Museum of Natural
History’s Garrett Herbarium (Shultz et al. 1998; Ramsey
and Shultz 2004).
METHODS
Technicians at the Remote Sensing/Geographic Information
System laboratory of Utah State University
hand-digitized the original maps. The first on-line version
was sorted by family name with access through a
web site. Development of GIS layers follows the methodology
reported in Ramsey and Shultz (2004). The
1992 version remained unchanged until the development
of the digital version (Shultz et al. 2007).
Voucher specimens on which the atlas is based represent
more than 150 years of work by scores of dedicated
professionals and amateurs, many of whom devoted
their lives to tracking down unusual plants in some of
the most isolated and physically challenging areas in
North America. Authors of the original atlas (Beverly
Albee, Leila Shultz, and Sherel Goodrich) spent approximately
seven years critically examining and mapping
locations for these approximately 400,000 collections
that are housed primarily in Utah herbaria. Each
point on the original maps is color-coded to show which
herbarium houses the voucher for a particular record.
Original maps are archived at the University of Utah’s
Garrett Herbarium (UT). While the lack of specific
voucher data is somewhat of a handicap, this problem
will be corrected as on-line retrieval systems are developed
through the developing consortium of herbaria in
Utah. Once these data are available, users should be able
to retrieve specific location records through the internet
links to individual herbaria, or a consortium of herbaria
(see the Intermountain Herbarium website for new reports,
at http://herbarium.usu.edu/holdings_ specimen _
database.htm).
RESULTS
Digitized version. The digital version allows for
analysis of distribution patterns and patterns of diversity
within the state. The composite geographic information
system for 2,840 plant species provides approximately
77,000 locations (some with multiple records) in 10 X
10 km grids (roughly equal to a township). The digital
122