[SOS-PCA] Protocol Changes, Website Update & Photos

[Plant Conservation]

Hi everyone,

This is just a little note to let you know that there have been a few
changes to the Protocol and updates on the website.

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Protocol:
- Removed the advice about shipping things early on in the week to Kew
because they were getting a lot of stuff on Fridays (their lightest
volunteer staffing day apparently!) instead of spread throughout the week.

- Updated the office codes (Thanks to Nita Rauch with the Seed
Extractory!).  If you spot other mistakes or office codes that need to be
added, please let me know.  The office code list can be viewed at
http://www.nps.gov/plants/sos/protocol/appendix6.htm

- Updated the list of herbaria to which extra voucher specimens should be
sent (Thanks to Kew for putting this together).  The list is at
http://www.nps.gov/plants/sos/protocol/appendix5.htm.  I know the
formatting is a little confusing and I'm trying to come up with something
better, but for now if you have trouble with it please feel free to e-mail
and ask if you're unsure.  If you have suggestions for better formatting,
drop me a note as well.


Species Lists

- We've found a source for an updated copy of the TNC Map!  This can be
printed out in a much more readable resolution and you can even manipulate
it to print into a giant wall size if it helps (e-mail me if you want to
do this but are having trouble doing it or if your collecting team wants a
poster sized copy I should be able to make one for you at your request).
The file is on the TNC website and if you click on the graphic, you can
get an Adobe Acrobat file of the thing that prints out nicely:
http://gis.tnc.org/data/MapbookWebsite/map_page.php?map_id=103 There are
some slight changes to some of the ecoregions, but most of it remains the
same.

- When I upload an update to the website next week, our clickable
ecoregion map (http://www.nps.gov/plants/sos/species/index.htm) will be
updated to look like the new one mentioned above.

- The collectors lists have been updated, as well as the ecoregion lists.
We did go through the whole list of plants using http://plants.usda.gov to
remove the introduced species.  This includes the species which were
listed as native & introduced to avoid collecting populations or parts of
populations that are introduced.  I think some of those introduced plants
are still in the ecoregional lists (this will be corrected next week), but
have definitely been removed from the collector lists.  I'll try to send
out a followup message to let you know what species were removed in case
that's helpful or you're just curious.

- We are in the process of moving the tracking lists to a BG-BASE system.
What does this mean for you?  You'll be able to look up specific
ecoregions, specific plants (at any level from family to genus to
species), look up collectors lists, and combine those various searches.
It will also mean that updates on the web will happen a lot more often!
Eventually using this sytem, we will also be able to put the dataforms
that you so carefully fill out and send to us (via mail or e-mail) into a
searchable viewable database (we'll just be doing the more useful data
fields).


Photos

- I'm in the process of working on submitting the photos received from the
BLM teams for 2003 to the PLANTS Database Gallery, so hopefully you'll see
your plant photos in the plant profiles soon.  I'll be doing the same
thing for any future photo submissions from BLM teams at the end of the
season (they require that I submit at least 100 images at a time), so be
sure to send me your high resolution digital photos via CD (use FedEx so
it doesn't get irradiated & destroyed) or e-mail to my BLM address
(olivia_kwong at blm.gov).

- If collecting teams outside of the BLM are interested in submitting
their photos to PLANTS, I can help you with the process or you can do it
yourself.  They outline the process at
http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/gallery_page.cgi?earl=photo_submit.html

- When I have time, the SOS website will be redesigned a bit to
incorporate some of the great photos that you've shared with us.

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If you happen to have any things you want to highlight from last year's
collecting, please let me know so I can use it for a 2003
summary/highlights page.

I think that's about it for now, hopefully this is a helpful update.
Please encourage other Seeds of Success involved people to subscribe to
this list (http://www.nps.gov/plants/sos/maillist.htm) and feel free to
post questions or to discuss issues in this forum.

Olivia
SER/PCA
http://www.nps.gov/plants/