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Atlas Florae Europaeae mapping European vascular plants with 50 x 50 km grid Pertti Uotila & Raino Lampinen Botanical Museum, Finnish Museum of Natural History University of Helsinki P. O. Box 7 FIN-00014 University of Helsinki Pertti.Uotila@helsinki.fi Raino.Lampinen@helsinki.fi

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RATIONALE OF THE ATLAS FLORAE EUROPAEAE (AFE) Project began in 1965 to complete the territory level distribution data of Flora Europaea, the first volume of which was published in 1964. AFE produces grid maps of the distribution of European vascular plants (grid cells mostly 50 x 50 km). So far 3270 maps in 12 printed volumes (1972 - 1999), covering c. 20% of all European vascular plants. Collaborators throughout Europe; secretariat editing the data in Helsinki. Data from all European countries collected on paper and maps produced manually in vols. 1 - 12. Currently data collected manually and digitally (special software for data recording distributed to the collaborators); data inserted into a database in Helsinki; maps now produced digitally. Data from scanned printed maps recently extracted by custom software into an Oracle database.

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DATA ENTRY WITH THE AFE DATA EDITOR

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The European range of Alyssum alyssoides. Old grid system.

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The European distribution of Fragaria vesca, using the new grid system. Projection: Lambert conformal conic, central meridian 24 E, standard parallels 42 and 56 N.

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WHY A GRID? Simple concept, relatively easy map production (limited number of localities); in contrast to point data the large grid cell size partly hides the uneven knowledge. When the project started grid mapping had by then become common in floristic mapping, and the Atlas of the British Flora (1962; 10 x 10 km maps) was a fresh model; computers and databases were not available all work was done on paper. UTM projection and the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) were chosen as they covered the whole of Europe, and maps showing the MGRS grid were available for the whole continent. 1: 1 000 000 maps showing the grid cells boundaries were distributed to each country. The AFE grid was adopted by other several faunistic European mapping projects but all of these did this in a different way! The grid system was recently changed in order to unify the mapping of plants and animals (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals,...), and in order to decrease the great number of deviations from the general grid pattern in AFE. The old AFE data has been converted into the new grid system.

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Transverse Mercator projection (Gauss-Krger type) 60 longitudinal zones, each 6 degree wide Longitude of Origin: Central meridian (CM) of each projection zone (3, 9, 15,..., 171, 177, E and W) Latitude of Origin: 0 (the Equator). Unit: meter False Northing: 0 meters at the Equator for the Northern Hemisphere; 10,000,000 meters at the Equator for the Southern Hemisphere. False Easting: 500,000 meters at the CM of each zone. Scale Factor at the Central Meridian: 0.9996. Latitude Limits of System: From 80S to 84N. Limits of Projection Zones: The zones are bounded by meridians, the longitudes of which are multiples of 6 east and west of the prime meridian. UNIVERSAL TRANSVERSE MERCATOR (UTM) ZONES

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THE MILITARY GRID REFERENCE SYSTEM (MGRS) Beginning at 80 south and proceeding northward, twenty bands are lettered C through X, omitting I and O. These bands are all 8 wide except for band X which is 12 wide (between 72-84 N). There are special UTM zones between 0 degrees and 36 degrees longitude above 72 degrees latitude and a special zone 32 between 56 degrees and 64 degrees north latitude.

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MGRS 100 x 100 km SQUARE IDENTIFICATION The grid cell names of AFE are derived from the MGRS 100 x 100 km squares. For instance, square 35VMH is split into 35VMH1, 35VMH2, 35VMH3 and 35VMH4 1 for NW, 2 for SW, 3 for NE and 4 for SE quadrant.

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MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS - OLD AFE GRID 4419 grid cells with land in Europe (latest version); does not cover marine areas. Cell size: mostly 50 x 50 km, with special adjustments at the UTM zone boundaries. Cell boundaries: 50 km UTM-lines and MGRS zone boundaries. Treatment of partial cells at the UTM zone boundaries: 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 km rule. Lots of deviations from the general pattern (coastal grid cells with little land joined to neighbouring cells; long peninsulas, certain isolated islands, some mountains and Istanbul given their own grid cells). Several minor (coastal areas) or (Greece, Svalbard) major changes in the old grid system throughout the years (1968, 1972, 1977 and 1993 different basemap versions). Cell names based on quadrants of the MGRS 100 x 100 km squares. Geodetic datum: not specified?

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The MGRS 50 km lines

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TREATMENT OF PARTIAL CELLS AT THE UTM ZONE BOUNDARY IN THE OLD AFE GRID RED: Southern edge more than 40 km => independent cell PURPLE: Southern edge 30 - 40 km => The edge outwards of the zone extended to the next full 10-km UTM easting. GREY: Southern edge 20 30 km long => The quadrant merged with a similar partial cell on the other side of the MGRS zone boundary. PALE BLUE: Southern edge 10 20 km long => The partial cell joined to the adjacent standard one. In cases where this would result in squares wider than 60 km, the width of the adjacent standard square is adjusted by narrowing its western or eastern edge to the next full 10-km UTM easting. YELLOW: Southern edge The partial cell joined to the adjacent cell without reducing its width by 10 kilometres.

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AFE old grid, general pattern

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MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS - NEW AFE (CGRS) GRID 4748 grid cells with land in Europe; covers marine areas (the grid calculated for 35629 cells in the MGRS zones 24 to 44 (from 42W to 84E) in the northern hemisphere (from the equator to northing of 9.350.000 metres). Can be extended. Cell size: mostly 50 x 50 km, with adjustments at the UTM zone boundaries. Cell boundaries: 50 km UTM-lines and MGRS zone boundaries. Extends over terrestrial and marine areas following a certain pattern, without any deviations for coasts, islands, peninsulas, mountains, towns etc. Special solutions in the North Sea and at the boundary of MGRS bands W and X. Treatment of partial cells at the UTM zone boundaries: 1/3 - 2/3 rule. Cell names based on quadrants of the MGRS 100 x 100 km squares. Geodetic datum: WGS84.

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THE PATTERN OF TREATING THE PARTIAL CELLS IN THE NEW GRID PALE BLUE: If the width at the S edge of the partial cell is joined to the adjacent cell in the same UTM zone YELLOW: If the width is between 16.7 and 33.3 km => merged with a similar partial cell on the other side of the UTM zone boundary GREEN, RED: If the width is > 33.3 km => treated as an independent cell

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THE NEW GRID THE W/X DEVIATIONS The northernmost grid cells of the MGRS zones 32, 34 and 36 (S margin at 7.950.000 metres north) are cut in the north so that they end at the 8.000.000 m line of the zones 31, 33, 35 or 37. This concerns four cells in each of these three zones. The southernmost cells in band X are thus 50 km "high".

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THE NEW GRID - THE NORTH SEA Between 3 and 6 degrees E the cells in band 32 extend south to 6.200.000 m and north to 7.100.000 m lines of zone 32. Thus four cells in 31U are shrink in the north by that line (31UEB1, 31UEB3, 31UFB1, 31UFB3), and the southernmost grid cells of 32 belong to band U. Three cells of band 31W (31WEM2, 31WEM4, 31WFM2) are continued down to the 7.100.000 m line of zone 32. The northernmost 32V cells (32VKR1, 32VKR3, 32VLR1, 32VLR2) are 50 km "high".

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CONVERSION BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW AFE GRIDS

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AN EXAMPLE OF CELL BOUNDARY CHANGES Red lines show the new grid cell boundaries, green shading the areas where the boundary has changed.

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DOES THIS GRID MEET THE NEEDS OF AFE? Data from national co-ordinate systems (typically grid records from 10 x 10 km or 1 x 1 km squares) has to be transformed into the AFE grid system: Excel sheet with conversion functions (within WGS84) distributed to the national collaborators some of the national collaborators request for free software for being able to transform their co-ordinate data into the WGS84 datum Conversion tables between the 10 x 10 km squares of the national grid systems (Britain, Germany), place name lists (e.g. municipalities of Finland), detailed map printouts grid in digital format (MapInfo, MapInfo export format, ASCII) sent to some collaborators (not yet publicly available; requests for the grid and free basemap data very frequent) Problems in converting the old data into the new grid a compromise for being able to compare the AFE data with the faunistic data Cell size varies considerably (in the new grid system even more than in the old one) Fixed resolution; mostly no detailed background data available in Helsinki

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LINKING THE AFE AND OTHER SPATIAL DATA PRINTED MAPS TO DATABASE Using the AFE data with other data has become possible only after the distribution data from printed maps was extracted into a digital database. FAUNISTIC DISTRIBUTION ATLASES Old grid data combined with the faunistic atlas data in several papers (using the Worldmap software of Chris Humphries, Paul Williams and Miguel Araujo; NHM, London). In the future, the data collected in or converted to the new grid system can be directly combined with the faunistic atlas datasets (after their conversion; done at least for the mammal data). LINKING WITH OTHER KIND DATA, FOR INSTANCE: Euro+Med PlantBase (www.euromed.org.uk); an on-line database and information system for the vascular plants of Europe and the Mediterranean region. Modelling the potential ranges of the plants in (Brian Huntley, Durham; Pam Berry, Oxford). Dahl, Eilif 1998: The phytogeography of Northern Europe. Old grid; climatological and elevation data. Data used in several ecological research projects.