The site was developed with the weeds’ community front of mind and as they continue to make updates throughout 2020, the project team are seeking your feedback on the site through an online feedback form which can be found on the right side of the site. 

The site currently houses information on 398 weeds management profiles, a useful identification tool, an extensive resource library and so much more. The management profiles are currently undergoing a review which is hoped to be finished in late 2020/early 2021. 

This new digital resource was developed through funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment. The project was led by the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions, and the ALA provided training and support as well as technical advice in the use of the profile management tool. 

Visit the Weeds Australia beta site today and see what you think!

Sustainable land and natural resource management relies on many things, but at the core of it, timely accurate data at the right resolution is essential for benchmarking as well as monitoring status and change.  Such data helps to improve productivity and yield, better manage and enhance biodiversity and natural assets, and adapt to changing climates and land use pressures.

Thanks to rapidly evolving technology and publicly accessible ‘big data’ capabilities, it’s now easier to make environmental management decisions informed by large volumes of information.

With open access to millions of digital records at your fingertips, Australia’s national biodiversity database, the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) has a range of online tools and services that support environmental management and allow biodiversity and environmental information to be analysed in new ways.

A common question asked by Landcarers is, “What should I be planting on my property to minimise changing climate impacts and maximise the long-term success of my plantings?”  The ALA is being used to help answer questions like this, along with questions such as, “I want to grow a particular crop, where are the best places to do this, both today and under future climate scenarios?”.  The potential questions are endless, but some useful case studies have been put together at Spatial Portal Case Studies.

The ALA’s ‘explore your area’ feature allows you to enter a location and very quickly find and access records of species found in that area.  Alternatively, you might already know the species you want to plant, but want to see if it is appropriate to plant in your location.  The ALA allows you to search for species via maps as well as by query and filtering, access occurrence data and get information about the species found. You can even import your own data temporarily and use ALA’s powerful tools to visualise and analyse it, together with all of the other ALA data.

With over 67 million digital occurrence records at your fingertips to-date, the ALA has troves of information about Australia’s living things including species and their environments.  It can be used in multiple ways for the experienced conservation planner, researcher or ecologist; farmers, teachers, gardening enthusiasts, and the general public.

Find out more by visiting http://www.ala.org.au.

This article was originally published in Landcare in Focus. Read the original article.

There are currently more than 60 million occurrence records in the ALA, based on specimens, field observations and surveys. Through the Spatial Portal the ALA also provides powerful mapping and analysis tools, allowing users to explore the information in new ways. For example, users can pull in species occurrence records and clean these based on a number of different factors, such as location uncertainty. Once cleaned, users can also conduct some preliminary data investigation such as histograms and scatter plots to better understand their data before using it in models.

BCCVL connects the biodiversity and climate change research community to Australia’s national computation infrastructure by integrating a suite of tools in a coherent online environment. The goal of the BCCVL is to integrate these tools and data sets with high-performance computers and major data storage facilities.

Currently the BCCVL offers its users live access to the raw ALA occurrence records. However, to clean this data users would have to download it, manually clean it, and then re-upload it into the BCCVL. At the end of our collaborative project, users will be able to find, investigate and clean ALA occurrence records using the tools in the ALA and then, at the click of a button, push this data set directly to the BCCVL ready to be used in models. Data can also come in the other way (i.e. from BCCVL) and then cleaned, refined or augmented in the ALA and returned to BCCVL. This integration promotes good data practices and will encourage more robust model outputs. It also allows the two NCRIS facilities to focus on their core strengths: BCCVL on modelling, and ALA on data aggregation, exploration and visualisation.

The collaboration between BCCVL and ALA is ongoing. The BCCVL is supported by the National eResearch Tools and Resources Project (NeCTAR), an initiative of the Australian Government being conducted as part of the Super Science Initiative and financed from the Education Investment Fund, Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education. The University of Melbourne is the lead agent for the delivery of the NeCTAR project and Griffith University is the sub-contractor. The ALA is funded by the Australian Government National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and hosted by CSIRO.

For more information on BCCVL-ALA collaboration, visit ‘Fit for purpose’ data with the ALA.

The Atlas of Living Australia is proud to be sponsoring the event and will be officially launching the new Phylolink tool. The Atlas will also be hosting a workshop and Dr Joe Miller (adjunct to the CSIRO National Research Collections Australia) will also be presenting his research on the evolution and phylogentics of the Australian plant genus Acacia (which utilised the Phylolink tool).

phylolink.ala.org.au

Phylolink allows users to explore biodiversity data from a phylogenetic (tree of life) perspective. Phylolink is a free, online, customisable research tool that gives users the ability to intersect a phylogenetic tree with species occurrence records, environmental data, and species character information for spatial mapping of traits, environmental profile plots, phylogenetic diversity calculations and more.

Phylolink is the result of collaboration between the Atlas of Living Australia and scientists at CSIRO, the Australian National University and the National Science Foundation (USA). Phylolink builds upon PhyloJIVE, which was developed by CSIRO, the Taxonomy Research and Information Network (TRIN), and the Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research (CANBR).

The Australasian Systematic Botany Society (ASBS) is an incorporated association of over 300 people with professional or amateur interest in botany. The object of the Society is to promote the study of plant systematics. You can learn more about the ASBS on their website.

Previously, when new visitors to the Atlas of Living Australia website were asked to create a new login to access our tools or ‘report a sighting’, some might have been quick to click the red cross in the corner and mumble “ergh, never mind” when asked to fill in another long details form.

Great news! It is now much easier for new and existing members to interact with our website: users can now create a login using a Twitter, Facebook, or Google account. Existing Atlas of Living Australia members will also be able to link their ALA account to a preferred social media account (with the same registered email address) for a quicker and easier logon experience.

This added option is all part of our current mission to revitalise the Atlas of Living Australia website in 2015 and encourage new users to get involved with the Atlas.

If you are having trouble with your ALA login, please email support@ala.org.au

With access to over 18 existing plant pest collections from around Australia, the APPD provides information on over one million pest voucher specimens making it possible to quickly retrieve details of insects, nematodes, fungi, bacteria and viruses that affect plants of economic and ecological significance. This information is essential in assessing the risks of potentially harmful, exotic organisms; developing emergency plant pest management; as well as supporting important biosecurity research activities.

For more information on the APPD, please contact: Plant Health Australia

This week the Atlas released a redesigned version of our Report a Sighting page, which allows users to report on sightings of species and upload their images to the Atlas. The map functionality has been simplified and we’ve added a new tool called “location-based species suggestion tool” which provides thumbnail images of species that are known to occur in the user’s location. The page has also been optimised for use on mobile phones and tablets.

The Atlas has some exciting new identification tools in development that are soon to be released. We are also working on the capability to join the Atlas through your existing Social Media profiles such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the ALA website upgrades, please send to support@ala.org.au

The Atlas of Living Australia website has been operating since 2010 and provides free, online access to a vast repository of information about Australia’s biodiversity. It supports research, environmental monitoring, conservation planning, biosecurity activities, education, citizen science, and the digitisation of millions of existing physical records around the country. The Atlas has over 54 million records on approximately 110,566 Australian species (as at May 2015 and growing rapidly), these records can be investigated through individual species profiles containing photos and collections data, and by using the mapping and analysis tools developed by the Atlas.

The Atlas of Living Australia would like to discover more about how the Atlas assists users to gain further information on Australian species and how the Atlas can improve for the future. An online survey has been developed to gain further insight into how you use the Atlas and an opportunity for you to provide the Atlas with some important feedback. No matter how much or how little you use the Atlas of Living Australia, we would like to hear from you – as an added incentive, you could win a fantastic Atlas of Living Australia prize pack, including your very own cap, t-shirt, and coffee mug!

The information gathered from this survey will be critical to ensuring we can provide the highest level of information and tools to support our users, national research, our partners, and the future of Australia’s biodiversity.

To complete the survey click here. The survey will close on June 1st 2015.

The Atlas receives support from the Australian Government through the National Research Infrastructure for Australia (NCRIS).

At the core of PhyloLink is the ability to intersect a phylogenetic tree with species occurrence records, environmental data and character information, resulting in the ability to generate flexible and customisable visualisations, profiles and metrics for biodiversity. The tools are intended for both novices and experts alike, and aims to make phylogenetic approaches to data exploration and visualisation accessible to a broad range of audiences.

A phylogeny (or a tree of life) is essentially a theory about how organisms are related to one another through evolutionary time. Phylogenies are based on the assumption that more closely related species will be more similar to one another, and they are commonly built using genetic sequences or physical characters. They are often visually represented as trees: the tips of the ever branching tree representing species, and the branches representing ‘evolutionary distance’ (e.g. length of time) from the ancestors from which they evolved.

The tool builds on PhyloJIVE and was developed as a collaborative project.

For a quick Youtube tutorial on how to use Phylolink click here.

Explore Phylolink at http://phylolink.ala.org.au/

A phylogeny (or a tree of life) is essentially a theory about how organisms are related to one another through evolutionary time. Phylogenies are based on the assumption that more closely related species will be more similar to one another, and they are commonly built using genetic sequences or physical characters. They are often visually represented as trees: the tips of the ever branching tree representing species, and the branches representing ‘evolutionary distance’ (e.g. length of time) from the ancestors from which they evolved.

The new ALA-PhyloJIVE tools intersect species occurrence data with environmental layers and phylogenetic trees, enabling a variety of new perspectives on biodiversity. For example, you will be able to investigate the environmental envelopes occupied by the species of any chosen clade (a group of related organisms sharing a common ancestral node). You can also measure and compare biodiversity for any given area/s in ways that account for both the number of species occurring there, and their evolutionary distinctness from one another, using phylogenetic diversity. The tools will also allow you to map the spatial distribution of characters (e.g. waxy leaves) across the landscape.

Watch this space for notification of the availability of these phylogenetic tools. Your feedback on the tools will be welcome.

For more information, please contact support@ala.org.au.

UPDATE: explore Phylolink here: http://phylolink.ala.org.au/