I have just had a request from a researcher looking at alien and invasive plants.
They have natural range maps for pine species which could be added as range maps or atlasses (what is the difference?)
They want to extract the data of these species outside of their natural range - whether planted or going wild.
The question is simply: would it be possible to filter and download observations that occur outside of the area of natural range maps/atlasses? Or are such filters only possible on place names?
The range map is a polygon, while atlases are essentially a visualization of checklists at the country, state, and county levels. Some parts of the tree (like mammals) have gotten range maps from outside sources; most plants don’t have maps (see conversation above).
Here’s a mammal with both a range map (the pink polygon) and an atlas (the green political boundaries).
Depending on whether your target plants have good atlases and already have out of atlas observations, you may be able to get somewhere with those. If your species already has out of atlas observations, you can follow the link on the atlas page to view out of atlas observations – this just constructs a query for not in all the atlas places.
For example, this is the first plant I saw in the list of atlases with out of atlas observations. Clicking on View sends you to an Observations query that only has the out of atlas observations – they can be downloaded in the normal fashion by clicking Filters -> Download.
If you want to use range maps instead of atlases, I would imagine you can upload those polygons as new place boundaries and then search not in that place for out of range map observations.
As far as I understand it, @tonyrebelo’s researcher friend (or someone with curator rights and willing to assist) could add range maps for these species of interest. I’m assuming the maps are accurate and follow iNat’s guidance. Those range maps would then display precise known boundaries in relevant iNat map views but wouldn’t by themselves provide the ability to query based on in/out of range. Here’s a tutorial on adding ranges.
In addition (or separately) someone with curator rights could create an atlas for each of these species. That would allow a search to reveal observations outside of the atlas area, but would be less precise because an atlas is a combination of whole countries / states / provinces / counties / etc. Here’s a guide to creating Atlases.
Another consideration here is “natural range” vs. “introduced range”. I believe iNat ranges do allow for the concept of native and non-native ranges. This is how @bouteloua explains the native/non-native treatment by atlases (from the guide linked above):
Displaying establishment means and observed/unobserved on atlas presence places
On taxon maps throughout the site, establishment means (native/non-native) is indicated by a dotted line and color indicates whether there are research-grade observations associated with a listed taxon (green) or not (orange). Currently, atlas maps are not displaying whether there are observations associated with atlas presence places or not. They are showing establishment means as follows: if any relevant listed taxa have native (or endemic) establishment means the atlas presence place displays as green, if all relevant listed taxa are introduced they display as red. There is currently not good atlas UI for setting establishment means.
Calflora now offers two range maps for all 10,000+ plant species that grow wild in CA: one based on watershed and one based on climate model. To find a range map for a specific species, search for that species at www.calflora.org then click on Plant Range to the right of the map. Here for example is the range for Verbena lasiostachys (Common verbena): https://www.calflora.org/entry/dgrid.html?crn=8233. Here’s more about Plant Ranges on Calflora: https://conta.cc/3sqgpiY
