The following inquiry was received via the website. I hope that members in Australia, and perhaps in California, can write directly to Gerry Ho at the address below to help with his research. People who have viewed this species in the wild may also have some information for him. Thanks! Jane McGary, Membership, PBS -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: PBS website contact:///Current/ distribution of Watsonia meriana var. bulbillifera Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2018 03:32:58 +0100 (BST) From: Apache <apache@http://www.ibiblio.org/> Reply-To: Gerry Ho <w.ho@latrobe.edu.au> To: janemcgary@earthlink.net This is a message from the PBS website for janemcgary. Dear Jane, I am a postgraduate student at La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia, and my research project involves the modelling of species distribution of Watsonia meriana var. meriana, and its variety, W. meriana var. bulbillifera. One of my research goals is to show that W. meriana var. bulbillifera is likely to undergo ecological niche conservation, following its introduction to Australia, compared to its sexually-reproducing congener. This is based on my hypothesis that the asexually reproducing bulbil form would not have generated sufficient genetic diversity to spread into novel environments. My models have shown contradictory results. The bulbil form undergoes significantly greater niche expansion, compared to W. meriana var. meriana. However, I posit that this may be due to the very small number of usable records for W. meriana var. bulbillifera (6), from GBIF (and indirectly from the SANBI database), versus the higher number of records in Australia (174). The small number of South African records is unlikely to capture the environments this variety can occupy. I would be most grateful if you could direct me to any person or party who may have more current distribution localities for W. meriana var. bulbillifera. From your website, this variety seems to be spreading rapidly, but is probably not collected, and therefore not assimilated into the GBIF database. I am working with 5km resolution grids, so I do not need very accurate (GPS) records. Even records with nearest towns to sighted location would suffice. Thank you and best wishes, Gerry Ho La Trobe University, VIC Australia -- Pacific Bulb Society web site email: website@pacificbulbsociety.org _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…