Thank you for building this wonderful resource. It offers an inspiring glimpse of what the web should be. Since you ask about other factors to map: what about fire? I don't know how much adaptive pressure seasonal fires have placed on geophytes, but others can doubtless advise. Maybe seasonal fire-avoidance is a good reason to be a geophyte in the first place. Does any of this have significance to cultivation of geophytes? Germination? Pamela Harlow (in med-wannabe Seattle) -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Michael Mace Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 11:58 AM To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [pbs] What is a Mediterranean climate? Thanks for all the feedback on the Mediterranean climate maps! I really appreciate all the ideas and suggestions. Several of you had trouble reading the maps. This was my fault -- a Windows-specific font slipped in there and I didn't notice. I have now changed the font and turned on font embedding, so the maps should be readable by everyone who can read PDF files. Unfortunately, the files are also a bit bigger now, but unless you are on dialup access the download time shouldn't be too bad (a few seconds at most). If you continue to have trouble reading the maps, please clear your browser's cache and then try again. If you still have trouble after that, please contact me privately and we'll figure out what's wrong. By the way, thanks to Mary Sue for getting the larger files posted. I couldn't do it myself. Some thoughts on your feedback (both on the list and some private notes I received)... >>The color scheme could be better. I agree. I ended up with a funky color scheme because I had to go back and add more zones halfway through the project. In version 2, I will change the colors so they are more of a continuum. That'll make it easier to get an overall sense of the maps with just a glance. That may take a couple of weeks, depending on how much free time I have. Roger, I am really intrigued by the hue-saturation-lightness comment you made. If you have copies of that botanist's charts, I'd love to see them so I can get a sense of what's possible. The challenge in doing these maps is that in practical terms there are about 16-18 colors you can overlay on top of a grayscale map and still have them be different enough that you can easily tell the difference. Even now, the light blue and light green in my map are difficult to tell apart. So there is a limit on how much info we can put into one map. >>Let's add in some of the other regions that have a lot of bulbs but aren't counted as Mediterranean -- for example, areas that have dry summers but very cold winters. I agree this needs to be done. I started down that road, but it got to be too much work for me at this time. There are several bulb-rich climates that we really ought to eventually map: --Mediterranean-climate areas --"Steppe" climates (those are the ones that are dry in summer but freeze solid every winter; home of a lot of tulips and other beauties). Central Asia, central Turkey, Great Basin in US... --Winter-drought areas (Mexico, parts of eastern South Africa) If anyone wants to run with making maps of those other areas, please go for it. Contact me and I'd be glad to help. >>Other Mediterranean-like areas to look at: Hawaii, Argentina, Somalia, Victoria state in Australia... Will do in version 2. Any more nominees? >>Additional information to add to the maps: Volume of winter rainfall Soil type Drainage Indicator plants Soil moisture/transpiration Year to year variability in climate Maximum summer temperature All-time winter low temperature I agree with all of those. Average monthly soil moisture would be the ideal measure, in my opinion, because it would tell us how much water was available to the local plants. But I don't think that information is being collected worldwide in the number of places we'd need. If it is, it doesn't appear to be on the web. Let me know if you find it! Even with just winter temperature and summer rain I'm already running up against the limits of what we can show on a single map (there just aren't enough primary colors, darn it!). I'm very open to ideas on how to include more information on the maps -- please let me know. The ideal thing would be an electronic system that lets you overlay different climatic factors by clicking on them. THAT would be intensely cool, but I'm not competent to write it. I think the best approach is just to make more maps. We'll have a climate section on the wiki, so the more maps the better. I have my hands full for now just fixing what I've already done, but if anyone else wants to make other maps, please go for it. I would be happy to share the tools I used to make the maps, and the actual map files. Just drop me a note. >>Do a climate wiki page. I agree. >>Would you really call Australia's climate mild? I should stop using value-associated terms like "mild;" they do not mean the same things to everyone. All I was trying to say was that much of California has deeper, longer droughts in summer and more frost in winter when compared to the Mediterranean-climate parts of Australia and South Africa. The frost thing we all knew; the drought thing is new to me and I'm still trying to digest what it means to a gardener. For example, if Australia gets some summer rain but also intense heat, how does that affect the native plants? Does the heat just evaporate the water right out of the ground so it's as if the rain never happened? >>Broaden the discussion to include the Medit-plants list Will do, after we get version 2 up. Thanks again, everybody! Mike San Jose, CA