Research

Mapping Biodiversity in Central America

Software

The GIS software used during the project was PC ARC/INFO and subsequently, ArcView 2.1, 3.0 with the Spatial Analyst Add-in. These tools were generously donated by ESRI. Our databases were kept in FileMaker Pro 4.0 . Other specialized software for genetic data analysis and multivariate analysis were also used.

AVENUE scripts developed for the Analyses

In order to use ArcView to summarize the biodiversity of this region reflected in these museum records, a number of AVENUE scripts were written. These scripts should prove useful to anyone interested in similar work and will be made available on the ESRI Users' Scripts web site in August, 1999.

They are described below:

Script Name	Description
Cautious ID	This script is a modified 'Identify' Tool.. Since sometimes many individual fish were collected from the same location, using the Identify tool would produce a scrolling list that could not be stopped until complete. This tool reports the number of samples at that point and shows the user the first 5. It then asks if you would like to see the next 5, giving the option to stop at any time.
Species/Region Counter	This script asks for a polygon coverage (the regions/provinces) and a point theme (the collections points). It then counts the number of unique species within each region. This count is added as a separate field to the polygon theme, allowing one to color code or chart the counts across regions.
Species Abundance	This script once again works with a polygon and a point theme. It produces a list of species and the number of regions in which each is found. Looking at those found in a single polygon gives one a count of endemics.
Area:Species curve	Measures the number of species recorded with increasing sampling effort. Stores the results in a table that can then be plotted in ArcView or any other program to produce species:effort curves (see example in this paper)
Ranger	Produced shapefiles that represent species ranges.
Assign category	Works with a polygon and point theme. Asks the user to select a field from the polygon theme and automatically adds a field to the point theme table filling it in with the polygon's field value based on location. Useful to assign biogeographic region category to species records.