Introduction

About NaturaList

​NaturaList is a flexible biodiversity data platform for publishing, exploring, and analysing biological datasets. It supports both formal scientific and indigenous/folk taxonomies, handles everything from simple species lists to fully annotated occurrence catalogues, and comes with powerful filtering, search, interactive taxonomic tree and other data visualisation and exploration tools.

​NaturaList doesn't come with a pre-defined structure you would have to fit your project into. Your taxonomy, your data fields, and the way they are displayed are all defined in a single spreadsheet - making it easy to set up, update, or extend your dataset without any IT expertise or complex software code customization. Individual occurrence records like specimens or observations can be attached to taxa, turning the app into a lightweight collection management tool where species-level and occurrence-level data coexist and can be explored independently.

Beyond browsing the taxonomic tree, NaturaList lets you and your users explore data through several analytical lenses: a proportional bubble chart of taxonomic composition, a trait matrix for comparing attributes across taxa, a regional distribution choropleth map. Filter arrays can function as a multi-access key and dedicated interactive single-access identification keys engine is available, both narrowing the dataset in real time as choices are made.

​NaturaList is a Progressive Web App - it works in any browser and can be installed on any device (phone, tablet, laptop) appearing as a native app to work fully offline, making it as useful in a remote field site as at a desk.

Want to see it in action?

Open the live demo and browse the examples which showcase different uses and features of NaturaList.

Project authors

Researchers, curators, educators, and anyone building and publishing a biodiversity dataset with NaturaList. The Author Guide is your primary resource. If you want to publish your own data, this is the place for you.

Translations

​NaturaList has been created since the begining with international community on mind. You can create projects in any one or several languages. The user interface of the app currently exists in English and French. Get in touch if you want to help translate the application into your language.

Developer contact

​NaturaList is created and maintained by Dominik M. Ramík. For questions, suggestions, or collaboration, reach out by email to dominik.ramik@seznam.cz or through the contacts page. If you have published a project built with NaturaList, get in touch - I am happy to feature it on the homepage.

Project history

​NaturaList was originally developed in the island country of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, for the Checklist of the vascular flora of Vanuatu as part of the Plants mo Pipol blong Vanuatu (Plants and People of Vanuatu) research project - a collaboration among the New York Botanical Garden, the Vanuatu National Herbarium, the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta and the many of our local and international partners. It was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, USA.

The platform has since grown through ongoing interaction with researchers and projects that have adopted it for their own datasets.