Biodiversity Information Projects of the World

Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative's National Atlas for Amphibian Distributions

Project Website

http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/armiatlas/

Project Description

The Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) National Atlas for Amphibian Distributions (or simply, the ARMI Atlas), is a compilation of current and historic records of amphibian occurrences. These records are from published, peer-reviewed scientific literature, museum records, state and regional herpetological atlases, and other confirmed and validated observations. However, sources were added state-by-state, and state sources are not standardized in their precision. Thus, currently, some of the records in the ARMI Atlas may represent assumed presence, as published in certain state or regional sources. In an effort to increase the precision of the ARMI Atlas, we have gradually begun to move towards displaying only confirmed records, and away from assumed records of presence. In the future, the ARMI Atlas we hope to make the site more interactive, including a database query option, so that users can select locations and view the species which have been documented there.

This project began in 1999, when distribution maps and an associated database were first assembled for all amphibian species known to occur in the United States to accompany the book, "Amphibian Declines: the Status and Conservation of United States Species" (Lannoo, 2005; see Acknowledgements). The amphibian distribution map database was transferred to the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in 2001, under the support of ARMI. This project is now periodically updated. Records for amphibians in the ARMI Atlas are depicted with counties or sub-counties (minor civil divisions) as the mapping unit, and maps are displayed at a national or regional scale, with a few specific exceptions. Some species are so limited in their distributions that we have included close-up views of their distributions

Contact

Linda Weir
Contact Person
United States Geological Survey

Project Type

Data Aggregator

Project Language

English

Project Start Date

01-Feb-1999

Key Inputs

Records from scientific literature, museum collections, atlases and observations

Key Infrastructure

On-line database

Key Technologies

Unknown

Key Processes

Data collection from sources is period

Geographic Scope

National - United States of America

Taxonomic Scope

Class - Amphibia

Comments

Record Status

Information about this project is Complete.
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