Thursday, July 25, 2013
E-Flora BC/E-Fauna BC News
E-Flora and E-Fauna BC will be temporarily unavaiable while an electrical upgrade is carried out at UBC. Check back tomorrow. The sites should be up by 11 am.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Birds of British Columbia: New Articles Now Available
Red-Flanked Bluetail (Tarsiger cyanurus), photo by Greg Stuart.
Thanks to the hard work of BC birders, three new bird articles are now available on E-Fauna BC. The information presented in these articles is also presented on the atlas pages for the species.
First Record of the Red-flanked Bluetail (Tarsiger cyanurus) for British Columbia and Canada (by Rick Toochin)
First Record of the Fieldfare (Turdus pillaris) in British Columbia (by Rick Toochin)
Status and Occurrence of Stellar's Eider (Polysticta stelleri) in British Columbia (by Rick Toochin and Louis Havilland)
These articles include complete documentation for the occurrence of these species in BC, including listings of all sightings.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Changes Coming to E-Flora BC: new mapping and new presentation!
We are about to update E-Flora BC. Every now and then, we make adjustments to improve the site, either for clarity, to add content, or because our software has changed. This time around, we will be updating the interactive maps (new software) and changing our species listings for vascular plants (for clarity).
The ESRI interactive mapping software we use on E-Flora has been updated, so we are replacing the old software with the new. This means that the full-sized interactive maps that we display will be a little bit more user friendly. They will look similar, but should be more intuitive for using as ESRI has improved on their map presentation.
Also, we are updating the way search results for species listings are displayed. Presently, when you conduct a search, a list of species/subspecies/varieties appears on the search results pages. This week we are shifting this presentation so that the search results page will display only species listings. Sub-taxa (subspecies and varieties) will instead by linked to from the species pages. Each atlas page will tell you which sub-taxa are present in BC with direct links to those pages.
In keeping with this new presentation, we have already adjusted our maps so that the map that appears with each species page is 'the species map'. That is, it shows all distribution dots for that species--including subspecies and varieties. Sub-taxa maps will still be available on the sub-taxa pages.
This new presentation is an organizational change, and should allow you to quickly tell which species are present in the province.
The ESRI interactive mapping software we use on E-Flora has been updated, so we are replacing the old software with the new. This means that the full-sized interactive maps that we display will be a little bit more user friendly. They will look similar, but should be more intuitive for using as ESRI has improved on their map presentation.
Also, we are updating the way search results for species listings are displayed. Presently, when you conduct a search, a list of species/subspecies/varieties appears on the search results pages. This week we are shifting this presentation so that the search results page will display only species listings. Sub-taxa (subspecies and varieties) will instead by linked to from the species pages. Each atlas page will tell you which sub-taxa are present in BC with direct links to those pages.
In keeping with this new presentation, we have already adjusted our maps so that the map that appears with each species page is 'the species map'. That is, it shows all distribution dots for that species--including subspecies and varieties. Sub-taxa maps will still be available on the sub-taxa pages.
This new presentation is an organizational change, and should allow you to quickly tell which species are present in the province.
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