Who is NaturaList for?
A NaturaList project is created by a project author - a researcher, curator, institution, or community group that assembles data in a spreadsheet and publishes it as an interactive app. Anyone who then opens that app to browse, filter, and explore the data is an end user. The two roles are distinct: authors shape what the project contains and how it behaves; users work with the result.
Project authors
NaturaList is designed for anyone who needs to publish, share, or maintain structured biodiversity data - from single-author projects to institutional databases. It can be a simple and effective means to accompany a published paper with continuously updated data.
Researchers and individual experts
Taxonomists, systematists, field biologists, and independent researchers or citizen scientists producing regional checklists, annotated faunas, floras, or biodiversity inventories at any institutional scale - from university departments and herbaria to single-author projects. The spreadsheet-based workflow keeps data in an open, portable format, and the living-document model allows continuous updates rather than discrete new publications.
Conservation organisations and environmental consultancies
NGOs, government environment departments, protected area managers, and survey firms who need to deliver species data in an interactive, browsable format - to non-specialist stakeholders or alongside a written report - without complex database infrastructure. Offline capability is particularly relevant for organisations operating in areas with unreliable connectivity.
Natural history collections and museums
Curators and collection managers publishing occurrence catalogues, type occurrence indices, or annotated inventories. The occurrence mode makes NaturaList a lightweight alternative to full collection management systems for institutions with limited IT resources, while keeping data in a fully open format without proprietary database lock-in.
Education institutions and community groups
Teachers, nature centres, and botanical gardens making local biodiversity data explorable for students or the public. Indigenous and community groups documenting folk taxonomies, traditional ecological knowledge, or vernacular names benefit equally: NaturaList imposes no predefined taxonomic hierarchy and supports multilingual content, so it can accommodate classification systems that do not follow Linnaean conventions in any language the author chooses.
Next steps for authors
- See Use Cases for the full range of project types NaturaList supports.
- Ready to begin? Start with the Author Guide.
End users
NaturaList projects are designed to be useful to a wide range of audiences - from specialist researchers to students and the general public.
Specialist biologists and taxonomists
Researchers checking conservation status or distribution within a taxonomic group of interest, cross-referencing voucher occurrences, or exploring trait patterns across taxa.
Field naturalists, surveyors, and conservation practitioners
People in the field who need an offline-capable, mobile-friendly reference to identify species, verify names, or answer practical status and distribution questions quickly.
Students and the general public
From school groups to graduate students preparing for fieldwork; birdwatchers, amateur botanists, and nature photographers exploring local biodiversity. Identification keys, the trait matrix, and visual analysis tools make NaturaList a genuine learning resource as much as a reference.
Government and policy audiences
Environment ministry staff, planners, and EIA reviewers needing accessible summaries of species diversity, distribution, and status without specialist expertise.
Indigenous and local community members
People engaging with documentation of their own traditional knowledge and vernacular species names, especially where the dataset has been designed to be linguistically and culturally appropriate.