I’m trying to work on a termite species data map using UFTC and probably GBIF too. Right now I have the UFTC data on a Google spreadsheet here. A site for termite mapping already exists at mapadetermitas.org, but it’s not in English and I’d like to make a map organized by US state (for now I’m focusing on US data) much like that of antmaps.org. Essentially, rather than plotting thousands of points (although I might want that as an option too), I want to make a cohesive list of species found in each state to aid in identification, with visual aid. Does anyone know which programs or sites would be best for this? Would it be possible to make a map with a bunch of points scattered around, and then the ability to click on a state to get a written list of species (based on the contained points)?
I’ve just started to learn and use SimpleMappr (www.simplemappr.net). I’ve used it to create draft distribution maps from a few hundred observations (from iNat) of moths for several species based on latilong coordinates (easily downloaded from iNat). Here’s my recent journal entry on this experiment:
https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/73525-testing-simplemappr
I’m no expert in its use, but so far, I appreciate some of the flexibility in displays that it has. I don’t know that it has the hotlink capabilities that you envision.
there are lots of ways to summarize and visualize this data. personally, i like the way BONAP gives you a bunch of species-level maps all together for a particular genus (ex. http://bonap.net/NAPA/TaxonMaps/Genus/County/Ambrosia). which tool you use depends on your audience and your skill level.
if you’re just making stuff for yourself, it’s probably easiest for most people to do this in a program like QGIS. if you want to get to state level and you don’t already have that associated with your coordinates, you can do a spatial join between your point data and a set of state polygons. from there, you could summarize that data as just a distinct species list per state and/or you could make a choropleth that shows species count by state. you can search the web for how to do most of this. this other thread (https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/self-made-distribution-maps-in-qgis/33891) might also be helpful, as it covers a few things that sound similar to what you’re trying to do.
if you want to make this for a larger audience, then it’s probably best to have some sort of web-based presentation of the data. i think any way you approach this, you’re going to have do some amount of coding to achieve what you’re describing. so i guess how you go about it just depends on how comfortable you are with different coding languages, etc.
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