I was requested to make a tutorial of how to update distribution maps in prep for the many bird taxonomy changes that were published a few days ago. I will be walking you through this process using QGIS.
Step 1: Locate the Species You are Curating
I am going to be using the Masked Flowerpiercer (Diglossa cyanea) split as my example. Start by clicking the “Edit Taxon” button under the “Taxonomy” tab.
Step 2: Click “Edit Taxon Range” at the bottom of the page
Step 3: Download kml file before the taxon file. All you need to do is click the link to download.
Step 4: Download and Open QGIS
Download available here: Spatial without Compromise · QGIS
Note: Google maps may not be automatically installed with QGIS installation. To add Google maps, do the following steps:
- Click “Plugins” in your menu
- Click “Manage and Install Plugins”
- Search and install “NextGIS QuickMapServices” and this will allow Google Maps to be used.
- Open up a new project and add your base map (I like Google Terrain)
Step 5: Add your shapefiles and kml
- 1a: Click on “New Shapefile Layer” in the marked red box.
- 1b: Name the file “Edit”
- 1c: Select “Polygon” under the “Geometry Type” dropdown and click “OK”.
- 2a. Click on “Data Source Manager”
- 2b. Open the kml you downloaded from iNaturalist
Step 6: Buffer the kml distribution
The split won’t work until you buffer the original kml. You can do that by following these steps:
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6a: Click on “Vector”
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6b: Go to “Geoprocessing Tools” in the dropdown; should be the first option
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6c: Click “Buffer”; should be the first option right of the dropdown
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6d: Ensure the input is the kml; should be denoted as a number as seen in the photo
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6e: “Distance” is automatically inputted as “10.00000”, make sure that you remove the 1 and make it 0, or the result will show a heavily inflated map.
Step 7: Start creating the maps
- 1: Click on “Edit”. That lets the system know you are editing that file.
- 2: Click on the “Toggle Editing” which is a yellow pencil to the right of the two red pencils
- 3a: Start clicking around the map and completely envelope the distribution to want to clip off. In the photo, I clicked completely around the distribution of the Whistling Masked-Flowerpiercer. The polygon will be a translucent red with dotted lines. When you double-click, you now have a polygon the same color as your “Edit” layer!
- 3b: Click “Vector” and then “Geoprocessing Tools”
- 4: Click “Intersection”
Step 8: Completing the Intersection
- Make the input layer “Edit”
- Make the output layer “Buffer”
- Click “Run”
- Congrats! You just created the Whistling Masked-Flowerpiercer map!
Step 9: Use difference to clip out remaining species
Step 10: Run difference function
- Make “Buffered” your input layer
- Make “Intersection” (or the Whistling Masked-Flowerpiercer) as your output layer
- Click “Run”
- Congrats! You just made the Warbling Masked-Flowerpiercer distribution map!
Step 11: Export the New Maps
- Right-click “Difference” and select “Export”, and lastly “Save Features As…”
- Name your file; I am calling the “Difference” layer “Diglossa_cyanea”
- Click “OK”
- The file is now saved to the “Documents” folder in your File Explorer.
- Repeat for other distribution.
Step 12: Add the Maps to iNaturalist
- Going back to the original Masked Flowerpiercer page and click “Replace”
- Click “Select File”
- Go under “Documents” folder
- Find “Diglossa_cyanea”; click and upload
- Make sure to click “This is not an IUCN Red List range map because the map is unsuitable”. You want to select this because you edited it due to a species split.
- Save!
- Repeat for other species
Step 13: Conduct the Split as you normally would and look back at your work!
