Locations of plants on dot distribution maps in the Flora of Siberia (Flora Sibiraea, 1987–1997)

Study Extent

2569 dot distribution maps of vascular plant species and subspecies published in the first (Russian) edition of the Flora of Siberia (Flora Sibiraea, 1987–1997) were used. The total number of locations on the maps are 169854.

Sampling

The authors of the Flora of Siberia (Flora Sibiraea, 1987–1997; Flora of Siberia, 2000–2007) marked species and subspecies locations on the contour maps mainly on the base of label information of specimens stored in herbaria of Novosibirsk (NS, NSK), Tomsk (TK), Moskow (MW, MHA) and Saint Petersburg (LE). Sometimes technical personnel marked dots on the maps but by materials prepared by specialists. At the preliminary stage, the authors marked species and subspecies locations on the USSR contour map of the Main Department of Geodesy and Cartography (1982) which had been made in scale 1 : 25 000 000, in Kavrayskiy equidistant conic projection. While preparing print layouts of the Flora of Siberia volumes (Flora Sibiraea, 1987–1997), reduced or increased fragments of maps were used in depends of species distribution. As a result, the scales of dot maps in the Flora of Siberia (Flora Sibiraea, 1987–1997) vary from 1 : 20 000 000 to 1 : 45 000 000. Species and subspecies locations on maps in the print layouts were marked by dots 0.6–1.3 mm in diameter. Taking into account the map scales, it takes 20–50 km. We accept a dot diameter as a value of coordinate uncertainty at geocoding.

Method steps

1. 1. Scanning the dot maps from the Flora of Siberia (Flora Sibiraea, 1987–1997). 2. Species/subspecies locations geocoding. Using the Geographic Information system ArcView GIS 3.2a (registration number is 843181116338) and the module ArcView Spatial Analyst 2.0a (registration number is 849601104159) for every dot map the following procedures were made: – A scanned map made in Kavrayskiy equidistant conic projection was snaped by several grid intersections to ArcView map made in Krasovsky equidistant conic projection with the central meridian E 100° and standard parallels N 47° and N 62°. The Krasovsky projection is rather similar to the Kavrayskiy one. The difference is in the scale by meridian: in the Kavrayskiy projectiom it is m=1 and in the Krasovsky one it is m=0.997 (Gedymin, 1984); – Species/subspecies locations were marked; – Coordinates of locations were geocoded by means of the standard ArcView procedures; – Coordinates were exported to the database table. Related information (volume number, map number, species/subspecies name) were added in the table. 3. Calculation coordinate uncertainty of species/subspecies locations. For every dot map the following procedures were made: – The segment of the central meridian E100° between parallels N50° and N60° was measured with an accuracy of 0.5 mm. If the map did not include this segment, the nearest one was measured. The map scale was calculated using the segment length. The scale was rounded to the nearest multiple of 1 : 5 000 000; – The dot diameters were measured with an accuracy of 0.1 mm using a microscope with a micrometer eyepiece; – To determine coordinate uncertainty, the dot diameters were calculated taking into account the map scale. The coordinate uncertainty was rounded to the nearest multiple of 5 km.

Siberia is a huge geographical region which in the Flora of Siberia (Flora Sibiraea, 1987–1997; Flora of Siberia, 2000–2007) is accepted in the limits N 49°–79° and E 59°–163° and includes the following administrative subjects of Russian Federation: Altai, Krasnoyarsk and Zabaykalsky Krays; Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Kurgan, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tomsk and Tyumen Oblasts; Altai, Buryatia, Khakassia, Tuva and Yakutia Republics; Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs.