- NMNH Home ›
- Research & Collections ›
- Botany ›
- Collections ›
- Georeferencing
Georeferencing Plants of the Guiana Shield: US Types
Introduction
The project "Georeferencing Plants of the Guiana Shield: US Types" displays in Google Earth and Google Maps the geographical location of the plant types housed in the US National Herbarium. These specimens were originally collected on the Guiana Shield often by the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program (BDG) of the Smithsonian Institution.
All species on earth (that we know of) have an official name. In general, that name consists of a genus, a specific epithet, and the name of the person(s) who described it; all together these are called a species name. Usually each species name is tied to a specimen that is housed in a collection that is stored in a Herbarium in a Museum, Garden or University. These specimens are called types. Naming of plants is governed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
This site currently includes the Type collections of plants collected on the Guiana Shield (in Guyana, Suriname, or French Guiana) and housed at the US National Herbarium (ca. 1400 specimens). Placemarks for the Venezuelan part of the Guiana Shield will be ready soon (ca. 1900 specimens); the state of Bolivar is expected to be available in June.
To view detailed information and images for the plant type specimens, display the specimens with coordinates on Google Maps, and download their Google Earth files follow the link to the "Search for US Type Specimens" in the left column on this page.
Google Earth must to be installed on your computer to open the kml files. You can download 
Google Earth here. If you are new to Google Earth you can find some tips on the Google Earth section.
We thank the following members of the Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution-NMNH, for their contributions to the georeferencing and databasing required for this project:
Alexander, S. N., Data Manager for the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield (BDG) Program.
Feuillet, C., Research Associate.
Hansel, M., Contractor (former) and Volunteer.
Kelloff, C. L., Assistant Director for the BDG Program.
Tuccinardi, C., Data Manager, Department of Botany.
Contact Us
Send us your comments or questions.
Program Staff
Program Director Vicki Funk is a Senior Scientist and Curator in the Smithsonian's Department of Botany; she has been director of the BDG program since 1988. She is a specialist on the Compositae (Sunflower family), focusing particularly on the evolution and biogeography of plants of South American highlands. Here she is standing by Kaieteur Falls. You may view her Curriculum Vitae here. Follow this link for other Funky Stuff!
Assistant Director Carol Kelloff oversees money matters, interactions with the Centre for the Study of Biological Diversity in Guyana, plant sorting and distribution operations, and travel arrangements for Smithsonian researchers and collaborators. Her research focuses on the plants of Kaieteur National Park in Guyana, and on ferns in Guyana and the Eastern United States. Here she is collecting aquatic flowering plants in the family Podostemaceae, just above the brink of Kaieteur Falls.
Sara Alexander is the Data Manager and Webmaster for BDG. She received her BS from the College of William and Mary in biology, and is currently working towards a Master's in Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University.
Eduardo Garcia Milagros is a biologist from Almacelles (Spain). He is a part-time contractor working with the BDG specimen database, focusing on verifying the locality information of the collections and checking and updating latitude and longitude coordinates to be uploaded in Google Earth.
Sources
The project "Georeferencing Plants of the Guiana Shield: US Types" displays the geographical location where the Types were collected using KML files (KML is a file format used to display geographic data in an Earth browser such as Google Earth).
To obtain the LAT/LONG coordinates we have used different sources depending on the information available on the label for each collection.
Source of Coordinates.
Gazetteers.
We have used the coordinates found in the Gazetteers (listed below) as a starting point to identify the localities given in the Type labels. The Gazeetters by the Defense Mapping Agency were:
- Gazetteer of Guyana, May 1993
- Gazetteer of French Guiana, February 1993
- Gazetteer of Suriname, January 1993
- Gazetteer of Venezuela, April 1993
In these gazetteers the latitude/longitude coordinates are listed only in degree and minutes (DM) rather than degree, minutes, and seconds (DMS). This can result in apparent plotting discrepancies of up to about a kilometer—at the equator one minute is equivalent to 1.9 km.
Specimen Label Information.
- Coordinates in the label. Some collections have Latitude and Longitude coordinates on their labels. (some of these coordinates are given as an area approximation, but in others cases, like the most recent collections are given as a precise position).
- Distance information. In some cases the locality information includes some distance information. (i.e.: French Guiana, 1 km north of mouth of Rio Iaue.)
- Additional locality information. (i.e.: Western extremity of Kanuku Mountains, in drainage of Takutu River).
- Elevation. Some collections have elevation information.
- Two different places. Some labels have two different localities names, (i.e. Membarú-Kurupung trail). We put the collection approximately half way between them.
Maps.
We have used a variety of maps available through BDG.
Google Earth 3D Viewer resolution.
Google Earth 3D Viewer resolution images allow us to more precise Georeferencing. For example, if the Gazetteer coordinates of a creek or a populated place don't match (due to the fact that they are in DM) with it in the Google Earth 3D Viewer, we have corrected them in the 3D Viewer.
Knowledge of the area.
BDG and CSBD staff and other scientists who have worked in the Shield area have provided valuable information on difficult to find locations.
About Google Earth
Google Earth must to be installed on your computer to open the kml files. You can download Google Earth here.
Google Earth Tips.
- Once you have obtained your results on the "Search" section, if you click on the GE link, a dialog box will appear.
- Open the file in Google Earth. The file will appear on Temporary Places.
With a double click on the icon in the Places Panel, Google Earth will zoom into the collection locality.- A click on the placemark icon in the 3D viewer, will open the specimen information balloon.
About the Program
 "Map of the Guiana Shield")
The Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield (BDG, formerly Biological Diversity of the Guianas) is a field-oriented program of the Department Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, that has been operating since 1983. The goal of the BDG is to study, document and preserve the biological diversity of the Guiana Shield region. Originally the program was confined to botany; it has since expanded to include faunal studies with entomologists and zoologists regularly participating in expeditions.
The Guiana Shield region of South America is little known and extremely rich biologically. Unlike other areas of South America, over 70% of the natural habitat remains pristine. Since these areas are now threatened by increased resource extraction, it is important that we gain an understanding of the flora and fauna so that decisions can be made on critical areas that have high priority for conservation.
View from Mt. Ayanganna
Because of the urgency of sampling specimens from critical areas, the BDG has at times maintained a resident collector based in Georgetown, Guyana to organize expeditions and assist in the field work of scientists. Each year four to six interdisciplinary multinational expeditions explore remote areas. Each field trip includes at least one counterpart from the host country and usually involves highly skilled Amerindian assistants. Material collected on these expeditions is distributed all over the world for identification and research. In addition to collecting, the BDG Program is active in training local scientists and assisting them in setting up and/or maintaining collections in their respective countries.
Information from all of our collections is maintained in a database that can be used for education and conservation as well as research. In 2007 we published a complete checklist of the vascular plants of the Guiana Shield. The BDG has also produced a list of all known plants of Kaieteur Falls National Park (Guyana) for use by those visiting the Park or seeking to conserve the park area.
Other projects include the first comprehensive checklists of all vascular plants and bryophytes of the Guianas; a vegetation map of Guyana; checklists of the reptiles and amphibians, the birds, and the mammals; and taxonomic treatments of the grasses, euphorbs, legumes and mosses.
In the future the BDG hopes to further expand its field work and investigations of historical collections to the entire Guiana Shield area, which includes southern Venezuela and a small part of northern Brazil and southern Colombia. This comprises an essentially discrete floristic and faunistic province, and therefore the data collected can be more readily used for evolutionary studies.
We believe that the Smithsonian's Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program fulfills the goals of the Institution in that it gathers new information and distributes it to those who use it to produce flora and faunal studies of a relatively unknown area, participates in training of local scientists and provides data for the identification and preservation of biologically diverse areas.
[ TOP ]