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Primate taxonomy and distribution follow A. Rylands' database of Neotropical Primates.
Because the goal of the project is to produce a tool to aid on-the-ground conservation, the maps show ranges of terrestrial species only. Conservation of marine mammals is dependent on management policies, so the geographic ranges of pelagic species is a less critical conservation issue. Also, pelagic ranges are poorly and unevenly known throughout the hemisphere, making a balanced coverage of these ranges difficult.
SPECIES NOT INCLUDED:
We did not map several species for various reasons. They are:
Canis rufis (Red Wolf) - This species exists in the wild only as reintroduced individuals and its taxonomic status is unclear.
Mus musculus (House Mouse) - This introduced species is ubiquitous around human habitation.
Lama glama (Llama) - This species exists only in domesticated populations.
Lama pacos (Alpaca) - This species exists only in domesticated populations.
Nelomys unicolor (An Atlantic Tree Rat) - The geographic origin of the type specimens of this species is unclear and no extant populations are known.
All products produced on any media, including but not limited to publications, databases, theses, websites, and oral presentations should acknowledge the data contributors:
"Data provided by NatureServe in collaboration with Bruce Patterson, Wes Sechrest, Marcelo Tognelli, Gerardo Ceballos, The Nature Conservancy - Migratory Bird Program, Conservation International - CABS, World Wildlife Fund - US, and Environment Canada - WILDSPACE."
All scientific research that makes extensive use of the maps should offer co-authorship to Wes Sechrest or the compiler listed for the individual maps.
The proper citation for these data is:
"Patterson, B. D., G. Ceballos, W. Sechrest, M. F. Tognelli, T. Brooks, L. Luna, P. Ortega, I. Salazar, and B. E. Young. 2003. Digital Distribution Maps of the Mammals of the Western Hemisphere, version 2.0. NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia, USA."
Please contact Bruce Young (bruce_young@natureserve.org) if you are interested in using this database or any of the data contained therein in a commercial product.
Whenever data are available, the maps show ranges where species formerly occurred but are now extirpated. Note that many species have undergone range contractions, either historically or in recent years, that are not accurately recorded. We also included recently extinct species if data were available.
INTRODUCED SPECIES:
To the extent that existing data allowed us, we mapped current distributions of species that have been introduced and established in the project area. Distributions of all mammals and especially introduced species are constantly changing, so data users should be aware that these maps reflect the situation at the time the data source was produced, not necessarily today's distribution.
MAP PRODUCTION
To produce the maps we used existing digital maps that were available to us (see Data Contributors) and digitized maps for all remaining species and portions of ranges. We digitized by first scanning published maps and then tracing on-screen over the georeferenced scans. Some maps were digitized by eye from published maps in books and other compilations. After initial digitization, B. D. Patterson reviewed printed versions of the South American maps and we incorporated these corrections to the digital maps.
We coded all polygons and points by whether the species is still present or extinct in the location, and by the species' origin (native, introduced). The key to the codes, all technical information about the maps, and a list of references cited in the database are contained in the accompanying metadata file.
DATA CONTRIBUTORS AND SOURCES
The source for most North American maps is Hall (1981) and Wilson and Ruff (1999).
We digitized distributions of Caribbean mammals based largely on information in the Woods and Sergile (2001) volume.
A major source for Mexican ranges was Ceballos and Oliva (2003).
Central American mammal distributions generally follow Reid (1997).
Information for South American ranges is drawn from Emmons and Feer (1997), the Eisenberg and Redford series (Eisenberg & Redford, 1989; Eisenberg & Redford, 1999; Redford & Eisenberg, 1992), Anderson (1997), Koopman (1982), Alberico et al. (2000), as well as hundreds of journal articles and other sources.
First major revision of the original 2003 database. Taxonomy and distributions of numerous species from throughout the hemisphere updated based on the recent literature. Ranges of threatened US species updated based largely on the NatureServe database of occurrences of populations of these species.
POLYGON files are named: gggg_ssss_pl.xxx where gggg are the first 4 letters of the genus name, ssss are the first 4 letters of the specific name, and xxx are the extensions (e.g., shp, dbf) that ArcView attaches to shapefiles.
POINT files are named: gggg_ssss_pt.xxx.
If a genus or species name has fewer than 4 letters, the entire name is used (e.g., the point file for Ara severa would be ara_seve_pt.xxx).
If >1 species in the same family has the same first four letters of both the genus and species names, then the numbers 1, 2, etc. are added after the "ssss". Where possible, the "1" is assigned to the species that comes earliest in alphabetical order). For example, polygon files for the rodent Perognathus flavescens would be named pero_flav1_pl.xxx and Perognathus flavus would be named pero_flav2_pl.xxx.
DBF files accompanying each polygon contain taxonomic information, distribution status, sources and other details about the maps.
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