Hi Flog!
One of the biggest task we do here at the echinacea project is what we call demap. Demap is our shorthand for “demography map” and is also certainly in no way a testament to our ongoing support of Bill Swerski’s Superfans and how they may pronounce “the map.”
In demap, our goal is to take all of the field records from remnant populations of echinacea that we spend many weeks collecting and make them look all nice and pretty. If you ever doubt just how long that this data takes to collect, do a search of our “daily updates” category and count the percent of days that include the word “demo” or “surv.”
Where the true magic happens with demo, as with many things with the Echinacea Project, occurs in R. There, we are able to take all the location records and all the flowering data for every plant for every year, and create a big, beautiful map.
A small, but still beautiful map. The big one is a little to crowded and confusing 😥
Why mention demap now in the middle of February? While we finished collecting the data back in October, just yesterday we finished making sure it was all accurate. It may have taken a while, but it’s always worth it for high quality data!
Have a great weekend!
Michael
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