Information on where species occur is an important component of conservation and management decisions, but knowledge of distributions is often coarse or incomplete. Species distribution models provide a tool for mapping habitat and can produce credible, defensible, and repeatable information with which to inform decisions. However, these models are sensitive to data inputs and methodological choices, making it important to assess the reliability and utility of model predictions. We provide a rubric that model developers can use to communicate a model's attributes and its appropriate uses. We emphasize the importance of tailoring model development and delivery to the species of interest and the intended use and the advantages of iterative modeling and validation. We highlight how species distribution models have been used to design surveys for new populations, inform spatial prioritization decisions for management actions, and support regulatory decision-making and compliance, tying these examples back to our model assessment rubric.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Missouri Botanical Garden Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. ABSTRACT A large collaborative effort has yiel(led a comprehensive study of the phylogeny and a new suhfanilial classification of the grass family (Poaceae/Graminieae). The stu(ly was (con(luc(ted on an integratedl andl representative set of 62 grasses (0.6% of the species and ca. 8% of the genera) plus four outgroup taxa using six molecular sequence (lata sets ({ndhFl, rbcL, rpoC2, phyB, ITS2, and (;BSSI or waxy), chloroplast restriction site (lata, and( morphological idata. A parsimony analysis using 2143 informative characters (the comblined analysis) resulted in a single most parsimonious tree of 8752 steps with an RI of 0.556 and bootstrap support of > 90% for more than half of the internal no(les. Significant relationships that appear consistently in all analyses of all (lata sets and are strongly supported by the combined analysis include the following: Joinvilleaceae are sister to a monophyletic Poaceae; the earliest (liverging lineages of the Poaceae are Anomochlooideae, Pharoideae, and Puelioideae, respectively; and( all remaining grasses form a clade. Multiple monophyletic clades were recovere(, including Bambusoideae s. str., Ehrhartoideae, Pooideae s.l., Aristidoideae, l)anthonioideae, Chloridoideae s. str., Chloridoideae s.l., Panicoideae, Parianeae, Olyreae s. str., Oryzeae, Stipeae, Meliceae, Lygeum + Nardus, and Molinia + Phragmites. 'The PACCAI) Clade is monophyletic, containing Aristidoideae, Danthonioideae, Arundinoideae s. str., Chloridoideae s.l., Centothecoideae, Panicoideae, Eriachne, Micraira, and Gynerium. Based on the phylogeny, a classification of 11 previously published subfamilies (Anomochlooideae, Pharoideae, Puelioideae, Bambusoideae, Ehrhartoideae, Pooideae, Aristidoideae, Arundinoideae, Chloridoideae, Centothecoideae, and Panicoideae) and 1 new subfamily (Danthonioideae) is proposed. Several changes in the circumscription of traditionally recognized subfamilies are included. Previous phylogenetic work and classifications are reviewed in relation to this classification and circumscription, and major characteristics of each subfamily are discussed and described. The matrix, trees, and updated data matrix are available at (http://www.virtualherbarium.org/grass/gpwg/ default.htm). I Work presented here was supported in part by NSF grants DEB-9806584 and DEB-9806877 to LGC, DEB-9727000 to JID, DEB-9419748 and DEB-9815392 to EAK, and BIR-9508467 to SYM. Miwa Kojima prepared the line illustrations of leaf anatomy and spikelets. We thank T. Cope, J. Everett, S. The economic and ecological significance of the gras...

With a view toward creating a national Early Detection and Rapid Response Program (EDRR) program, the United States National Invasive Species Council Management Plan for 2016-2018 calls for a series of assessments of federal EDRR capacities, including the evaluation of ''relevant federal information systems to provide the data and other information necessary for risk analyses/horizon scanning, rapid specimen identification, and rapid response planning.'' This paper is a response to that directive. We provide an overview of information management needs for enacting EDRR and discuss challenges to meeting these needs. We then review the history of relevant US policy directives for advancing invasive species information systems and provide an overview of federal invasive species information system capacities, including current gaps and inconsistencies. We conclude with a summary of key principles and needs for establishing a national invasive species information framework. Our findings are consistent with earlier studies and, thus, emphasize the need to act on long-recognized needs. As a supplement to this paper, we have cataloged federal invasive species databases and information tools identified through this work.

The synonyms of biological species names are shown to be an important component in comprehensive searches of electronic scientific literature databases but they are not well leveraged within the major literature databases examined. For accepted or valid species names in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) which have synonyms in the system, and which are found in citations within PLoS, PMC, PubMed or Scopus, both the percentage of species for which citations will not be found if synonyms are not used, and the percentage increase in number of citations found by including synonyms are very often substantial. However, there is no correlation between the number of synonyms per species and the magnitude of the effect. Further, the number of citations found does not generally increase proportionally to the number of synonyms available. Users looking for literature on specific species across all of the resources investigated here are often missing large numbers of citations if they are not manually augmenting their searches with synonyms. Of course, missing citations can have serious consequences by effectively hiding critical information. Literature searches should include synonym relationships and a new web service in ITIS, with examples of how to apply it to this issue, was developed as a result of this study, and is here announced, to aide in this.

Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (BISON -bison.usgs.gov) is the US Node application for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the most comprehensive source of species occurrence data for the United States of America. It currently contains more than 460 million records and provides significant augmentation and integration of US occurrence data in terrestrial, marine and freshwater systems. Publicly released in 2013, BISON has generated a large community of stakeholders and they have passed on a lot of questions over the years through email (bison@usgs.gov), presentations and other means. In this presentation, some of the most common questions will be addressed in detail. For example: why all BISON data isn't in GBIF; how is BISON different from GBIF; what is the relationship between BISON and other US providers to GBIF; and what is the exact role of the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS -w ww.itis.gov) in BISON.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC0 Public Domain Dedication.