Managing multiple data sources was key to providing an accurate picture of how much of  the United States’s and World agricultural production relies on pollinators insects.  I worked with Cartography Editor Lisa Ritter to join agricultural data with the Geographic’s US and World base shapefiles.  Inspection of the joins was crucial to ensure data was accurately matched based on feature spelling and other factors.  This was repeated with updated tables before press time.  This map spread was published in the March 2011 print edition of National Geographic.