C. Using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Maps
1. Mapping data
The other very fortunate thing is the general referencing of the data. All data and information are general referenced by necessity. So we can really put the dot on the specimen precisely in a Geographical Information System (GIS) map. We control these as a way in which we can check for geographic anomalies. When the specimens come like this, we select all useful information, send it back to the specialist who gave us the information and say, "listen, you have something wrong here. Check it or otherwise we won't accept this information in our data bank." We have found several submarine humming birds for example, or alpine turtles. Those things just go back to the people who produce this information. We don't accept them.
So having the information on the label of specimens, you can go from there to understand population and especially the species' distribution very, very well. Also, so that we can integrate this information as an ecosystem.
These are the examples of the degree of repetition that we're having from different areas. The majority I've told you come from part of Europe and the rest from Canada, but, most come from the U.S. institutions which hold the largest collection of animals and plants in rural Mexico. At this point, this is a very old slide. We have over 6 million pieces of data now for that part of that data bank.
 A very good example of that is the bird bank from Mexico that is the most complete you can find anywhere at this moment in the world. Eighty-six percent of this was produced by representing whatever data there was on the labels, not directly from the specimen. There's no way to get this information. Outside of the U.S. institutions, the second most important source is Mexico and from other localities.
2. Integrating data
This is how it looks. These are all the localities that have been collected. Obviously many of these superimpose on each other. That allows you several things. First, to have a good view of how the data around the country is collected. You can detect gaps here that are important and might be, given other circumstances. It's important to have people working in that area. Then, you invite people to work for example, in either Arizona or over certain regions. You want to fill this gap because nobody has done it. Also it helps to have a really close idea of the records for different states and things of a different nature.
That information on the distribution of species is super imposed by the GIS Systems which puts together geology, soil topography, climate, land use and allows us to produce, for the first time, the suggestion of what must be the area for bird conservation in Mexico. So, you can really represent the most important areas, and identify those species that are endangered or those which are endemic to regions. So, this is one of the products of the combination of the database and the GIS System.
3. "Beta diversity"
One of the things that we have to deal with is that Mexico has not only a very high biological richness, but also a very high turnover of species from one area to the next, due to its enormous ecological variability. This variability is known as "beta diversity", and imposes the need for selection of a large number of sites for conservation, since one single site will not represent, nearly enough, the many differences that a single vegetation type presents in their area of distribution. This is to say, for example, that the conifer forests of the Sierra Madre Occidental cannot be represented by only one conservation site due to the large variability presented in the area where those forests are distributed.
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