Open Collections

Spatial distributions of seaweed, Sargassum muticum, before and after cleaning historic Herbarium data

UBC Herbarium

Motivation for Work With over half a million botanical specimens within its collections, the UBC Herbarium is the second largest collection of herbarium data in Canada. However, a large amount of historic data has not been cleaned nor updated to meet current standards and practices, weakening the reliability of the herbarium database for related research purposes and policy decisions by introducing inaccurate data or incomprehensive data to the analyses. In collaboration with the UBC Herbarium, we would like to systematically examine the impact cleaning historic herbarium geospatial data has on scientific analysis, using the invasive marine algae species Sargassum muticum as a case study. Research Questions 1. What is the implication and significance of cleaning herbarium species distribution data? 2. How has cleaning historic geographic data for S. muticum on the North American west coast impacted the species distribution? Data Used UBC Herbarium geospatial and species data for Sargassum muticum (uncleaned and cleaned) Types of Analysis Geospatial analysis of S. muticum distributions in the North American Pacific northwest both before and after herbarium data was cleaned for accuracy and completeness. Main Findings • 276 of 276 data points had corresponding geospatial coordinates after cleaning compared to 163 of 276 points (precleaning). Representing a significantly increase the number of usable data points for analysis. • Precision of all geospatial data points and their uncertainties were vastly improved (going from the tens of kilometers to meters in several cases). This allows clearer knowledge on the distribution of the species. • After cleaning, there were significant shifts in a number of geospatial data points, representing new previously unknown distributions of S. muticum. • Overall, there was a significant impact on S. muticum data after cleaning the historic herbarium data, impacting the resulting scientific analysis and known distributions of the algae species. • Relying on uncleaned historic herbarium data of scientific analysis and governmental policy the making has the strong potential to lead to erroneous conclusions based on inaccurate data. • It should be a priority for historic herbarium data to be reviewed and cleaned, such that it meets current standards before use in any analysis to ensure meaningful accurate conclusions can be drawn from said datasets.

Text

University of British Columbia. ENVR 400

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0378445

Science, Faculty of; Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/