I am begining to work on some range maps that will hopefully some day turn into a new Fishes of Ohio book. We have a lot of records here at the Museum that need to go into the maps and many of them are not georeferenced. If any Ohio residents (or others but knowing something about Ohio will certainly help) want to spend hours going over a list of locations for a species and figureing out coordinates in decimal degrees for them let me know. Of course they will have to be checked later for accuracy but it would save a lot of time if anyone is interested. I can somewhat take request on what species you want to work on but I will personally be doing the rarest species in the state.
Future Fishes of Ohio...
Started by
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, Jan 16 2008 05:07 PM
22 replies to this topic
#2
Guest_Brooklamprey_*
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Posted 16 January 2008 - 07:27 PM
I am begining to work on some range maps that will hopefully some day turn into a new Fishes of Ohio book. We have a lot of records here at the Museum that need to go into the maps and many of them are not georeferenced. If any Ohio residents (or others but knowing something about Ohio will certainly help) want to spend hours going over a list of locations for a species and figureing out coordinates in decimal degrees for them let me know. Of course they will have to be checked later for accuracy but it would save a lot of time if anyone is interested. I can somewhat take request on what species you want to work on but I will personally be doing the rarest species in the state.
Toss me Lepisosteids and Petromyzontidae if available and I'll give it a go.. I'm personally interested in this data anyhow and plan on spending much more time in your state and your neighbor Indiana than mine in the coming years.
#3
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Posted 16 January 2008 - 07:37 PM
I'm willing to help. I'm no ichthyologist, and I'm not that familiar with Ohio's geography BUT I have spent many many hours matching several thousand vague or outdated locality descriptions with actual collection sites and getting lat/long data for them (mostly herps, and mostly in the mid-south).
Let me know what I can do!
Let me know what I can do!
#6
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Posted 17 January 2008 - 03:31 PM
I'll help, let me know what species you want me to do.
I want you to pick then your more motivated to do it well. Pick something relatively common in the state that you like. I am not giveing out locality data for T and E species or others that are very rare in the state. Other than that as long as I have not already done the species (which is only about 8 or 9 I've done) there is not much of a limit.
#7
Guest_ashtonmj_*
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Posted 17 January 2008 - 04:05 PM
Ooo OOO can I update harelip sucker, sciot madtom, cisco's, etc.? 
But in all seriousness, has anyone taken the "Hybopsis" chubs? Brian, are you going to provide those assisting with a standard procedure or protocol and will this require us to have GIS capability or just be able to acquire and format data?
But in all seriousness, has anyone taken the "Hybopsis" chubs? Brian, are you going to provide those assisting with a standard procedure or protocol and will this require us to have GIS capability or just be able to acquire and format data?
#8
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Posted 17 January 2008 - 04:45 PM
By "Hybopsis" do you mean the one species still in the genus in Ohio or all previously in the group, so Erimystax and Macrhybopsis as well? That would give you 5 species one of which is possibly extirpated.
No you do not need to have GIS capabilities, you just need to have Excel. Here is the procedure...
I will export a text file from our database of all records for a particular species and convert it to an excel file. This does not work perfectly so part of what you will need to do with that file is make sure everything lines up and rename the columns, so a lot of busy work of deleting extra commas and blank cells and so forth. Once you have it all lined up properly you will need to go through the records one at a time and check (please check all existing coordinates for accuracy, like if they are in the stream rather than next to it correct this) and or find coordinates for them. These coordinates should be in Decimal Degrees. There will be location information with each record although it is often vague. Most have at least county and township along with stream name which for a state wide range map gets you close enough. Some have more specific info to help narrow down an exact spot. In some cases most or all of this is missing and or you may not be able to find the location, if this happens make a note and move on. There will likely be some for each species that are too vague to include in the maps. I will provide a blank excel file with the proper column titles and format I want them sent back in when you are done. Most species have between 100 and 1000 records for them so obviously some will be easier than others to complete.
Thanks to all those that have volunteered already i plan to begin exporting files today yet and should get some sent out by tomorrow.
No you do not need to have GIS capabilities, you just need to have Excel. Here is the procedure...
I will export a text file from our database of all records for a particular species and convert it to an excel file. This does not work perfectly so part of what you will need to do with that file is make sure everything lines up and rename the columns, so a lot of busy work of deleting extra commas and blank cells and so forth. Once you have it all lined up properly you will need to go through the records one at a time and check (please check all existing coordinates for accuracy, like if they are in the stream rather than next to it correct this) and or find coordinates for them. These coordinates should be in Decimal Degrees. There will be location information with each record although it is often vague. Most have at least county and township along with stream name which for a state wide range map gets you close enough. Some have more specific info to help narrow down an exact spot. In some cases most or all of this is missing and or you may not be able to find the location, if this happens make a note and move on. There will likely be some for each species that are too vague to include in the maps. I will provide a blank excel file with the proper column titles and format I want them sent back in when you are done. Most species have between 100 and 1000 records for them so obviously some will be easier than others to complete.
Thanks to all those that have volunteered already i plan to begin exporting files today yet and should get some sent out by tomorrow.
#10
Guest_tglassburner_*
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Posted 17 January 2008 - 04:57 PM
Mudminnow & Esox Please!I want you to pick then your more motivated to do it well. Pick something relatively common in the state that you like. I am not giveing out locality data for T and E species or others that are very rare in the state. Other than that as long as I have not already done the species (which is only about 8 or 9 I've done) there is not much of a limit.
#12
Guest_ashtonmj_*
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Posted 17 January 2008 - 05:43 PM
I just thought of this... Matt if you really go back you'd have to add the two Nocomis in there as well and you would have 7!
I ment what was Hybopsis in the book since it was a nice round number of species and there weren't a bazillion records like some of the sunfish and minnows. Adding Nocomis is fine if necessary to keep them grouped together. I'm trying to manage my plate because I'm a few weeks away from getting a long delayed manuscript out in the home stretch of statistics and begining the editing war of another....so yeah.
#14
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Posted 17 January 2008 - 06:50 PM
There is certainly no rush on this, it will likely be several years before it becomes anything that resembles a book but it is a start.
Matt, I'll stick with the 5 for you and due to all the quick responses it will likely be next week till I even get it too you.
Richard was first so I worked on his set and got it ready, I'll wait and be sure my instructions are clear to him before sending anything to anyone else.
Richard, I don't think I have an e-mail address for you so PM me and I will send you all the files and instructions for your requested species...
Matt, I'll stick with the 5 for you and due to all the quick responses it will likely be next week till I even get it too you.
Richard was first so I worked on his set and got it ready, I'll wait and be sure my instructions are clear to him before sending anything to anyone else.
Richard, I don't think I have an e-mail address for you so PM me and I will send you all the files and instructions for your requested species...
#15
Guest_ashtonmj_*
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Posted 19 January 2008 - 05:23 PM
You want the coordinates to 4 significant digits? That has a decent margin of error, at least a couple hundred feet if I remeber correctly. Five woudl be better, six is best (something like a couple meters), though the precision may not necessarily be accurate.
#16
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Posted 19 January 2008 - 08:12 PM
You want the coordinates to 4 significant digits? That has a decent margin of error, at least a couple hundred feet if I remeber correctly. Five woudl be better, six is best (something like a couple meters), though the precision may not necessarily be accurate.
After looking over the data I received I can assure you that 4 would be sufficient as there is no way you could do much better than that with most of these records. Some amount of remote sensing / GIS modeling would be needed to get really close to exact locations. (And that is if you can find datasets) A good idea of suspected habitat could be extracted from some of this data to do this. Not sure if this would be needed though for the purpose here but thats Brians call... Me I'm interested anyhow so may look into do such a thing.
Brian The instructions are clear enough and I get what your looking for in format and structure.. Might have some more questions for you down the road though as I begin plugging away on this.
#17
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Posted 19 January 2008 - 10:40 PM
Good, I'm glad to hear the intructions were clear to you Richard. Also to answer Matt, since the purpose of this is to create state wide range maps 4 sig figs is plenty. You could probably even do less but this is the standard used by the OEPA and what we currently use at the museum for newly entered records. Since these are the major two data sets going into these maps I would like to be consistent on the digits used. Also as Richard pointed out many of the records are to vague to even pin them that close. Basically in those cases you just have to use the data available to make a best guess, and as I stated in the directions I sent to the two of you some records probably won't be useable. As for the rest of you that volunteered I will be exporting more files and getting them into excel files and sent to you next week. Matt or Richard, if you find anything unclear and you think I should make a change in the instructions before sending any more out, let me know before Tuesday. Thanks again to all who volunteered, this is probably going to be a long process but at least it's a start on something long over due.
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