The iPlant Collaborative: Empowering a New Plant Biology

GIS and Mapping Resources « Writing for Nature I love maps. Maps tell convoluted stories in a seemingly simple, clean interface that belies the effort and planning that goes into constructing an understandable map. The one below is one I drew after working for several months in this particular portion of Ecuador, but it is only one of the many, many ways the area could be represented. Sketch Map of the region around Pucara in Intag, Ecuador During graduate school I was the TA for several courses where map making was one of the essential skills being taught, both old school with a compass and your stride length, and with the newer GIS methods. A good map, to me, is a work of art, it is something that you want to look at because it is interesting and beautiful on its own visual merits. This page has a partial list of some good mapping and GIS resources. The Weather and Climate page also has some GIS links. Keep in mind that within the US each state has a publicly accessible GIS clearing house, as do more and more cities. Hey What’s That?

HYPOTrace — Phytomorph The seedling hypocotyl (juvenile stem) is controlled by many endogenous and environmental factors important to plant growth and development. Therefore, its length and shape is measured in many different experimental scenarios, e.g. studies of photoreceptor function and hormonal signaling. HYPOTrace was developed in response to the need for a more automated and accurate method that could replace commonplace manual methods of making measurements from electronic images. The HYPOTrace software is available for download and demonstrated in a video tutorial. Wang L, Assadi AH, Spalding EP (2008) Tracing branched curvilinear structures with a novel adaptive local PCA algorithm. Wang L, Uilecan IV, Assadi AH, Kozmik CA, Spalding EP (2009) HYPOTrace: image analysis software for measuring hypocotyl growth and shape demonstrated on Arabidopsis seedlings undergoing photomorphogenesis.