Ecogeographic Surveys

Ecogeographic data comprise ecological, geographic and taxonomic data and the data sets are often large and complex. Data can be obtained from the literature and/or from the compilation of passport data from herbarium specimens and germplasm accessions.

An ecogeographic study uses considerable resources to carry out and may take several years to complete. In ecogeographic studies, it is common to gather data by sampling directly the target species or population. The analysis of the ecogeographic data collected is usually very detailed.

Example: Ecogeographic study by Ehrman & Cocks (1990) for the annual legumes of Syria.

From the very detailed ecogeographic data gathered over several years by the authors and by extensive analyses of climatic and soil characteristics that influenced the distribution of the annual legume species, they found that species diversity and seed production were related to annual rainfall and that populations in the drier areas faced a greater threat of genetic erosion. Following the analysis, they proposed a detailed list of conservation priorities.

An ecogeographic survey tends to rely on data recorded by other plant collectors rather than obtaining new data. It may, for instance, be limited to collating data from herbarium specimens and and genebank accessions and performing a literature search.