A new interactive map predicts the density and extent of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks, which exist in symbiosis with land plants. The estimate is based on soil samples and data from previous studies, fed through machine learning models. The extent of the networks comes to something like 110 quadrillion kilometres of hyphae (equivalent to roughly half the distance to most globular clusters). More here; via Wired ( News+).
A study of the diet of chinook salmon in the Salish Sea has enabled researchers to create a map of the availability of their forage species. The Tyee:
Instead of scientists trawling to try to catch small and agile forage fish themselves, they’ve partnered with local anglers like Hackinen who are catching the salmon that are eating the small fish.
The Salish Sea is the inland sea between Vancouver Island, mainland British Columbia and Washington state. Its forage fish include Pacific herring, Pacific sand lance, northern anchovy, lantern fish and tiny shrimp and crustaceans.
To support the study, known as the Adult Salmon Diet Program, local anglers recorded data about their daily chinook and coho catches before sending scientists the fish’s guts.
Using fish guts to make a map.
Randall Munroe, author of the xkcd web comic, posts a surprising amount of map-related content, which I invariably end up linking to here. With some exceptions, they fall into one of two categories, each of which has a recent example.
The first category is a hand-drawn infographic map showing, in earnest, some interesting or surprising information. See, for example, this map showing the most observed animal or plant in each U.S. state:
Other maps of this ilk include drainage basins, lesser-known towns sharing a famous place name, least informative Google Trends maps, and maps of the 2016, 2018 (challengers) and 2020 elections.
The second category is where Randall chooses the path of violence, with maps clearly designed by Black Hat Guy to hurt our brains. These include a series of maps that mangle U.S. state borders (1, 2, 3). But the most insidious are his Bad Maps Projections series, the most recent of which projects continents onto their own globes:
Thing is, this one isn’t as brain-curdling, because similar globes—globes that depict a portion of the world on an entire sphere—exist in the real world.
The Icelandic Institute of Natural History has mapped every known appearance of polar bears in Iceland: “Polar bears are not native to Iceland, although they do occasionally turn up in Iceland and are thus classified as vagrants. Information exists on just over 600 polar bears recorded as having arrived in Iceland from the beginning of human settlement on the island to the present day. This is a somewhat imprecise figure, since polar bears have undoubtedly come ashore without their presence going noticed, while bear sightings and encounters were not always documented in the past. The last polar bear observation was at Höfðaströnd in Jökulfirðir in September 2024.”
Reimagining Rural Cartographies is a series from independent rural news outlet Barn Raiser that “features written and photo essays that create or examine nontraditional and living maps of the Midwest. How does the path a cougar took to roam into the heart of Chicago help us understand how urban, suburban and rural landscapes are changing? What really happens in the forest at the center of a recent Landback movement? How does the USPS serve as a rural lifeline, connecting neighbors and faraway places, despite service cuts?” Three articles so far.
The U.N. has launched an online Atlas of Ungulate Migration. “Driven by tracking data on ungulate migrations, the Atlas of Ungulate Migration serves as a repository for up-to-date migration maps that can inform conservation planning, infrastructure development and policy making. The maps detail high, medium and low-use migration corridors for a diversity of species, ranging from the iconic Serengeti wildebeest and African elephant, to the saiga of the Central Asian steppe. Most importantly, the maps illustrate where critical migration routes intersect with linear barriers like roads or railways. This atlas represents the best available science for extant migrations, with downloadable maps each accompanied by a factsheet describing the migration in detail, the data analysis, and its specific threats. The atlas is living, and continually updated.” News release.
Audubon’s Bird Migration Explorer is the mother of all bird migration maps, with information on the seasonal ranges and migration routes of some 458 bird species in North America.
Previously: Animated Map of Bird Migration.
Last month the Washington Post published a feature on the impact of Interstate 80 on wildlife migrations in Wyoming, and how climate change would affect animals’ ability to move to new habitat as their usual stomping grounds are made unsuitable by global warming. The print version (above) and online version have related maps—one static, one dynamic—that illustrate wildlife paths and how they are stymied by the highway, as well as places where overpasses and tunnels might help. [Lauren Tierney]
Writing for Smithsonian.com, Greg Millar looks at the maps of pioneering naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.
What’s often omitted, however, in discussions of Humboldt’s scientific legacy is the role that his pioneering maps and scientific illustrations played in shaping his thinking. By creating visualizations of data that had previously been bound up in tables, Humboldt revealed connections that had eluded others, says historian Susan Schulten of the University of Denver. “He’s really a visual thinker,” she says.
According to Schulten, Humboldt was one of the first scientists to use maps to generate and test scientific hypotheses. One example was his use of what he called “isotherm” lines to indicate regions of the globe with the same average temperature. These lines are ubiquitous on weather maps today, and they seem so obvious we take them for granted. But when Humboldt published a map using them in 1817, it caused scientists to rethink the widely held assumption that the average temperature of a region depends primarily on its latitude. The isotherm lines on Humboldt’s map had ups and downs that deviated from lines of latitude. This prompted him and others to look for explanations, and eventually led to an understanding of how ocean currents, mountain ranges, and other features of geography contribute to local climates.
For more on Humboldt generally, Andrea Wulf’s biography, The Invention of Nature, is a marvellous read.
Canadian Geographic maps the decline of Canada’s caribou populations. “All of Canada’s caribou subspecies have increasingly been in the news as the animal’s national population, which once numbered in the millions, has declined drastically and quickly to little more than a million today. Experts are concerned some populations may not survive the threats they’re facing. One herd, British Columbia’s South Selkirk, had just three females left in April 2018.” [r/MapPorn]
It began with an osprey named Julie, who in 2015 migrated from the Detroit River in Michigan all the way to Maracaibo, Venezuela, stopping at wetlands and wildlife refuges along the way. Julie wore a GPS tracker. John Nelson took Julie’s data and created a series of maps of her journey that represent a brilliant use of negative space: aerial and satellite imagery is shown only along the paths she took; everything else is blanked out. It’s a linear map of a bird’s entire world. The Story Map goes into more detail; the accompanying text is frankly beautifully written. John explains how he made the maps here.
Out last month, the expensive, 600-page Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography (Routledge). Edited by Alexander J. Kent (who co-wrote The Red Atlas) and Peter Vujakovic, the book “draws on the wealth of new scholarship and practice in this emerging field, from the latest conceptual developments in mapping and advances in map-making technology to reflections on the role of maps in society. It brings together 43 engaging chapters on a diverse range of topics, including the history of cartography, map use and user issues, cartographic design, remote sensing, volunteered geographic information (VGI), and map art.” [The History of Cartography Project]
New academic books on maps and cartography published over the past couple of months include:
National Geographic interviews Malachy Tallack, the author of The Un-Discovered Islands, and The Guardian shares seven maps from James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti’s Where the Animals Go.
Related: Map Books of 2017.
The Global Assessment of Reptile Distributions project aims to map the distribution of every species of amphisbaenian, crocodilian, lizard, snake, tuatara and turtle, with the goal of identifying biodiversity hotspots and priorities for conservation efforts. Reptile biodiversity does not, it appears, align with other vertebrate biodiversity; this is one point raised by a recent article GARD researchers published in Nature Ecology and Evolution that includes maps of reptile distribution by type (i.e. snakes, lizards, turtles) and maps that compare reptile diversity to other tetrapods (amphibians, birds and mammals). Geographical magazine has coverage of the GARD project in their December 2017 issue.
There are many circumstances where the amount of data vastly exceeds the ability to process and analyze it—and computers can only do so much. Enter crowdsourcing. Steve Coast points to Digital Globe’s Tomnod project, which basically crowdsources satellite image analysis. In the case of the current project to map the presence of Weddell seals on the Antarctic Peninsula and the ice floes of the Weddell Sea, users are given an image tile and asked to indicate whether there are seals in the image. It’s harder than it looks, but it’s the kind of routine task that most people can do—many hands, light work and all that—and it helps researchers focus their attention where it needs focusing. (A similar campaign for the Ross Sea took place in 2016.)
Another ongoing campaign asks users to identify flooded and damaged infrastructure and trash heaps in post-Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico.
Audobon Alaska’s Ecological Atlas of the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas maps the environment, biota and wildlife in the three seas surrounding the Bering Strait, as well as the human activity that puts them at risk. The cartography is by Daniel Huffman and not by coincidence excellent. It’s available for download as PDF files, either chapter-by-chapter or a whopping 125-megabyte single download; a print copy costs $125 with shipping and handling. [NACIS]
