Data

This is a previous release of the EcoAssets Australian Species Occurrences Aggregated Dataset. Version 1.1 of this dataset is accessible through the CSIRO Data Portal: https://doi.org/10.25919/xpy6-t550.

Aggregated Australian species occurrence data from 1900 to the present using a suite of facets of most importance for environmental assessments. Occurrence records were aggregated and organised by the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA, https://ala.org.au/) and include survey and monitoring data collected and managed by the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS, https://imos.org.au/) and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN, https://tern.org.au/).

Data from these infrastructures and other sources have been organised here as a national public-access dataset.

This dataset was created by the following pipeline:

1. All species occurrence data aggregated by the ALA as of 2022-04-14 were imported into AWS (bucket name: occ_parquet20220414) and filtered to include only:
   1. Records from 1900 onwards
   2. Presence records only (exclude absence records
   3. Spatial coordinates present
   4. Taxon identified to at least species level
   5. Location falls within an IBRA or IMCRA region
2. These filtered occurrence data were processed to include the following elements. This dataset includes the full set of fields considered most significant for deriving pivoted summary information on Australian species, ecoregions, forest areas, protected areas, conservation status and introduction status. It is based on all data shared through the ALA infrastructure and contains sensitive levels of detail on the recorded localities for some threatened species. Including all such data is important for assessing and monitoring biodiversity values, but these sensitive data mean that this version cannot be shared as an open-access public dataset. Contact the EcoAssets team for more information or to suggest additional summary datasets that could be derived from this version and made accessible through this site.
   1. Accepted taxon ID
   2. Accepted species name
   3. Classification (higher ranks)
   4. Year of occurrence
   5. Coordinates of occurrence
   6. Basis of record (specimen, human observation, etc.)
   7. State or Territory
   8. IBRA7 terrestrial region
   9. IMCRA 4.0 mesoscale marine bioregion
   10. Status of location in CAPAD 2020 (not protected area, protected area, indigenous protected area)
   11. Status of location in Forests of Australia (2013)
   12. Status of location in Forests of Australia (2018)
   13. Status of species on EPBC Act List of Threatened Species (mapped to accepted ALA species using GALAH R library)
   14. Status of species on Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species – Australia (GRIIS) version 1.6 (mapped to accepted ALA species using GALAH R library)
3. The processed occurrence data were then grouped to produce counts records detected for each distinct combination of eleven primary facets. The resulting dataset is no longer considered sensitive and is shared here. The elements in this dataset are as follows:
   1. Year of occurrence
   2. Basis of record (specimen, human observation, etc.)
   3. State or Territory
   4. IBRA7 terrestrial region
   5. IMCRA 4.0 mesoscale marine bioregion
   6. Status of location in Forests of Australia (2018)
   7. Status of location in Forests of Australia (2013)
   8. Status of location in CAPAD 2020 (not protected, PA – protected area, IPA – indigenous protected area)
   9. Status of species on EPBC Act List of Threatened Species (mapped to accepted ALA species using GALAH R library)
   10. Status of species on Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species – Australia (GRIIS) version 1.6 (mapped to accepted ALA species using GALAH R library)
   11. ALA species identifier
   12. Scientific name for species
   13. Count of occurrence records matching the values for elements 1 to 11

This dataset serves as a standardised snapshot of Australian biodiversity occurrence data from which many indicator datasets can more readily be derived (see Has Derivation entries below).

Grouping records from this dataset supports comparisons between the number of occurrence records for different regions and/or time periods and/or categories of species and occurrence data. Grouped counts of this kind may serve as useful indications of variation and change across the dimensions compared. Note however that such counts may not accurately reflect real differences in biodiversity. It is important to consider confounding factors (particularly variations in recording effort over time). Grouping all records by a single facet (e.g. IBRA region) may help to expose such factors.

These data are versioned at 12-month intervals. Previous versions will be linked below under Previous Version. The latest version can always be accessed at https://ecoassets.org.au/data/aggregated-data-australian-species-occurrences/.

Source datasets are referenced below under Derived From.

Notes

• In future versions, the mapping of the EPBC and GRIIS lists to the ALA species classification will be implemented within the ALA. For this iteration, these mappings were added to each data record using the ALA R package GALAH (https://atlasoflivingaustralia.github.io/galah/).
• GRIIS 1.6 includes a number of vertebrate species listed because some individuals have been translocated or (re-)introduced beyond their remaining ranges for conservation purposes. It is unhelpful for the current analysis to treat these as introduced species. These species were removed from the version of the GRIIS list used in this analysis. In future versions of GRIIS, these species will be documented as native species that have been translocated/reintroduced.

Citation

Please cite these data as follows:

EcoAssets (2022), Aggregated Data: Australian Species Occurrences (1.0.2022-04-14) [Data set], EcoAssets partnership (Atlas of Living Australia, Integrated Marine Observing System, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian Research Data Commons), DOI: https://doi.org/10.26197/ala.1a721c5f-577b-4e90-b00d-27e9e7cbc3f6

Atlas of Living Australia species occurrence data, export to AWS on 14 April 2022 (bucket name: occ_parquet20220414). This dataset includes sensitive data on the distribution of species and is not public. See occ_parquet_20220414 sources for a list of data sources included in this export. Contact the ALA for further information.

Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (2012): Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA), Version 7 (Regions). Link: http://www.environment.gov.au/fed/catalog/search/resource/details.page?uuid=%7B4A2321F0-DD57-454E-BE34-6FD4BDE64703%7D

Australian Government Department of the Environment (2002): Integrated Marine and Coastal Regionalisation of Australia (IMCRA) v4.0 – Provincial Bioregions. Link: http://catalogue-aodn.prod.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/search?uuid=30DA5FD4-AE08-405B-9F55-7E1833C230A4

Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (2021): Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2020 – Terrestrial. Link: http://www.environment.gov.au/fed/catalog/search/resource/details.page?uuid=%7B4448CACD-9DA8-43D1-A48F-48149FD5FCFD%7D

Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (2021): Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2020 – Marine. Link: http://www.environment.gov.au/fed/catalog/search/resource/details.page?uuid=%7BAF4EE98E-7F09-4172-B95E-067AB8FA10FC%7D

Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (2015): Forests of Australia (2013). Link: https://www.awe.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/forest-data-maps-and-tools/spatial-data/superseded-datasets

Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (2019): Forests of Australia (2018). Link: https://www.awe.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/forest-data-maps-and-tools/spatial-data/forest-cover

Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (2022): Species Profile and Threats Database (including EPBC threatened species statuses). Link: https://www.environment.gov.au/sprat-public/action/report

Randall J, McDonald J, Wong L J, Pagad S (2021): Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species – Australia. v1.6. Invasive Species Specialist Group ISSG. Dataset/Checklist. https://cloud.gbif.org/griis/resource?r=griis-australia&v=1.6

EcoAssets (2022), Summary Data: Protection Status for Australian Terrestrial Species Occurrences (1.0.2022-04-14) [Data set], EcoAssets partnership (Atlas of Living Australia, Integrated Marine Observing System, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian Research Data Commons), DOI: https://doi.org/10.26197/ala.445c74bb-89f2-415e-9e5b-0e38e9c7ee1e

EcoAssets (2022), Summary Data: Protection Status for Australian Marine Species Occurrences (1.0.2022-04-14) [Data set], EcoAssets partnership (Atlas of Living Australia, Integrated Marine Observing System, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian Research Data Commons), DOI: https://doi.org/10.26197/ala.dea8a818-6c3c-4b41-9b24-358d3fec0e64

EcoAssets (2022), Summary Data: Threatened Species Occurrences by Marine Ecoregion (1.0.2022-04-14) [Data set], EcoAssets partnership (Atlas of Living Australia, Integrated Marine Observing System, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian Research Data Commons), DOI: https://doi.org/10.26197/ala.2f745938-a1f9-408c-942f-7d246860d313

EcoAssets (2022), Summary Data: Threatened Species Occurrences by Terrestrial Ecoregion (1.0.2022-04-14) [Data set], EcoAssets partnership (Atlas of Living Australia, Integrated Marine Observing System, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian Research Data Commons), DOI: https://doi.org/10.26197/ala.160f789e-ee11-45c0-93c3-5c87318d78c0

EcoAssets (2022), Summary Data: Introduced Species Occurrences by Marine Ecoregion (1.0.2022-04-14) [Data set], EcoAssets partnership (Atlas of Living Australia, Integrated Marine Observing System, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian Research Data Commons), DOI: https://doi.org/10.26197/ala.91179dd6-d56e-404f-97a7-ea6382307a17

EcoAssets (2022), Summary Data: Introduced Species Occurrences by Terrestrial Ecoregion (1.0.2022-04-14) [Data set], EcoAssets partnership (Atlas of Living Australia, Integrated Marine Observing System, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian Research Data Commons), DOI: https://doi.org/10.26197/ala.206e6580-ac7c-42c3-aaca-79256897bd57

EcoAssets (2022), Aggregated Data: Australian Species Occurrences (1.0.2022-04-14) [Data set], EcoAssets partnership (Atlas of Living Australia, Integrated Marine Observing System, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian Research Data Commons), DOI: https://doi.org/10.26197/ala.1a721c5f-577b-4e90-b00d-27e9e7cbc3f6

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