[APWG] [PCA] Any Ecological Megatransect, is extremely valuable?

[Philip Thomas (www.HEAR.org)]

http://www.discoverlife.org/ might be a place that such transect info 
could be archived.  Contact John Pickering 
(http://www.discoverlife.org/who/Pickering,_John.html) if you're 
interested in pursuing this.

Aloha,
pt at hear.org


Craig Dremann wrote:
> Dear Wayne and All,
> 
> Thanks for your email.  
> 
> NEVER, EVER consider that any ecological transect, especially a
> Megatransect that can be retraced to particular geographic points, is
> ever worthless--actually it's worth its weight in 24K gold, because it
> may be the only record that exists for that area, at that time.
> 
> For example, last year I drove 10,000 miles to map over 1,900 miles of
> the California desert's roadsides, for the occurrance of a new weed, the
> Sahara mustard, Brassica tournefortii, that is rapidly taking over the
> roadsides of the arid West---you can see some examples of those
> mile-by-mile transects marked with a "+" sign, linked to 
> http://www.ecoseeds.com/mustards.contents.html
> 
> In the 2005 California Desert Megatransect I was looking for that exotic
> mustard, plus noting where there were good examples of the pristine
> native ecosystem, at every post mile on the highways.  
> 
> Where there were no post miles along the roads, like along the Old US
> Route 66, I used odometer miles, and also linked the data to highway
> junctions, towns, etc.  
> 
> In the 1997 Great Basin/Rockies Megatransect I was looking for native
> grasses, exotic grasses, and the general ecological conditions that I
> encountered at every odometer mile-point, and the data is also linked
> with Post Miles on the highways, highway junctions, towns, etc.
> 
> For the various North American Roadside Megatransect
> ecological-conditions data, that investigators around the country might
> be able to accumulate, wouldn't it be nice to have a central place to
> eventually store all this great roadside information?  
> 
> If you search at http://www.google.com for "megatransect" you will see
> that National Geographic has sponsored at least three Ecological
> Megatransects in Africa---so why should our fine and beautiful continent
> of North America be left out of the fun?
> 
> Sincerely,  Craig Dremann, Redwood City, CA (650) 325-7333
> 
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> 

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Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project (HEAR) - http://www.hear.org
P.O. Box 1272
Puunene (Maui), Hawaii  96784  USA

Philip A. Thomas - pt at hear.org

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