TERN Ecosystem Data Services and Analytics

TERN Research Data Repository

Simplify your research data collection with the help of the research data repository managed by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Our collection of ecosystem data includes ecoacustics, bio acoustics, lead area index information and much more.

The TERN research data collection provides analysis-ready environment data that facilitates a wide range of ecological research projects undertaken by established and emerging scientists from Australia and around the world. The resources which we provide support scientific investigation in a wide array of environment and climate research fields along with decision-making initiatives.

Explore Our Ecosystem Data Portals

Open access ecosystem data collections via the TERN Data Discovery Portal and sub-portals:

Access all TERN Environment Data

Discover datasets published by TERN’s observing platforms and collaborators. Search geographically, then browse, query and extract the data via the TERN Data Discovery Portal.

Search EcoPlots data

Search, integrate and access Australia’s plot-based ecology survey data.

Download ausplotsR

Extract, prepare, visualise and analyse TERN Ecosystem Surveillance monitoring data in R.

Search EcoImages

Search and download Leaf Area Index (LAI), Phenocam and Photopoint images.

Explore our data services

Tools that support the discovery, anaylsis and re-use of data:

Visualise the data

We’ve teamed up with ANU to provide 50 landscape and ecosystem datasets presented graphically.

Access CoESRA Virtual Desktop

A virtual desktop environment that enables users to create, execute and share environmental data simulations.

Submit data with SHaRED

Our user friendly tool to upload your data securely to our environment database so you can contribute to Australia’s ecological research.

Other data portals, tools and services

The Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia provides relevant, consistent, comprehensive, nation-wide data in an easily-accessible format. It provides detailed digital maps of the country’s soil and landscape attributes at a finer resolution than ever before in Australia.

The annual Australia’s Environment products summarise a large amount of observations on the trajectory of our natural resources and ecosystems. Use the data explorer to view and download maps, accounts or charts by region and land use type. The website also has national summary reports and report cards for different types of administrative and geographical regions.

TERN’s ausplotsR is an R Studio package for extracting, preparing, visualising and analysing TERN’s Ecosystem Surveillance monitoring data. Users can use the package to directly access plot-based data on vegetation and soils across Australia, with simple function calls to extract the data and merge them into species occurrence matrices for analysis or to calculate things like basal area and fractional cover.

The Australian Cosmic-Ray Neutron Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (CosmOz) delivers soil moisture data for 16 sites over an area of about 30 hectares to depths in the soil of between 10 to 50 cm. In 2020, the CosmOz soil moisture network, which is led by CSIRO, is set to be expanded to 23 sites.

The TERN Mangrove Data Portal provides a diverse range of historical and contemporary remotely-sensed datasets on extent and change of mangrove ecosystems across Australia. It includes multi-scale field measurements of mangrove floristics, structure and biomass, a diverse range of airborne imagery collected since the 1950s, and multispectral and hyperspectral imagery captured by drones, aircraft and satellites.

The TERN Wetlands and Riparian Zones Data Portal provides access to relevant national to local remotely-sensed datasets and also facilitates the collation and collection of on-ground data that support validation.

ecocloud provides easy access to large volumes of curated ecosystem science data and tools, a computing platform and resources and tools for innovative research. ecocloud gives you 10GB of persistent storage to keep your code/notebooks so they are ready to go when you start up a server (R or Python environment). It uses the JupyterLabs interface, which includes connections to GitHub, Google Drive and Dropbox.

Analysis Ready Ecosystem Data

Our research data collection makes it easier for scientists and researchers to investigate and answer their questions by providing them with open data, research and management tools, infrastructure, and site-based research tools.

The TERN data portal provides open access ecosystem data. Our tools support data discovery, analysis, and re-use. The services which we provide facilitate research, education, and management. We maintain a network of monitoring site and sensor data streams for long-term research as part of our research data repository.

trophic dynamics, food web cohesion data, ecology graph data, ecology network data, download ecology network data

Data repository to preserve and provide access to agricultural and environmental data produced during research projects undertaken at the University of Guelph including datasets on topics such as crop yield, soil moisture, weather and agroforestry. A special emphasis is placed on research funded by Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) and MRA.

Dataset links to the Digital Collections of Colorado, DSpace Repository. From the homepage, you can search the 1240 datasets hosted there, or browse using a list of filters on the right. DSpace is a digital service that collects, preserves, and distributes digital material. Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: GeoData catalog record. File Name: Web Page, url: https://geodata.nal.usda.gov/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/ShortgrassSteppe_eaa_2015_March_19_1220

Despite a growing recognition of the importance of data to the economy and to science, investment in repositories to manage and disseminate that data in easily accessible and understandable ways is scarce. Keeping repository services active and up-to-date for a long time period is difficult due to this funding situation. As a result, repositories must continually provide proof of their value, their Return on Investment (ROI) to their sponsors; yet doing so has always been difficult, problematic and not always successful. In this work, an analysis of approaches for assessing the ROI of several scientific data repositories has identified various techniques that repositories use to report on the impact and value of their data products and services. A survey of selected repositories rated the set of metrics identified and rated each by its importance as well as the ease with which the metric could be measured. The discussion is broken down into considerations for calculating costs, perceived value of repositories and suggested metrics that would allow a repository to calculate an ROI. The authors, representatives of environmental data repositories, concluded that easily obtainable data use metrics, such as data downloads, etc., have limited value while more informative analyses would require additional resources.

Billions of dollars are being spent on restoration of Gulf of Mexico ecosystems with the intent to bolster the environment and revitalize coastal communities and economies. While it is clear that many restoration funders and practitioners aim to create environmental and human benefits, most projects do not report on social and economic outcomes. The few exceptions use inconsistent metrics that complicate comparing project successes or rolling up Gulf-wide impacts. Without a consistent approach for identifying and measuring restoration impacts on communities and the economy, funders and practitioners run the risk of using funds inefficiently or failing to meet goals for community resilience and economic recovery. The GEMS project aimed to help overcome these challenges by (1) developing ecosystem service logic models that enable the selection of restoration projects likely to achieve target economic and social goals and (2) identifying a set of core metrics that enable consistent measurement of social and economic outcomes from Gulf restoration. The metrics and models serve as a starting point and should be tailored to each project. ... [Read More]

The dataset contains a current inventory of vascular plant species and their attributes present in the flora of Britain and Ireland. The species list is based on the most recent key to the flora of Britain and Ireland, with taxon names linked to unique Kew taxon identifiers and the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, and includes both native and non-native species. Attribute data stem from a variety of sources to give an overview of the current state of the vascular flora. Attributes include functional traits, distribution and ecologically relevant data (e.g. genome size, chromosome numbers, spatial distribution, growth form, hybridization metrics and native/non-native status). The data include previously unpublished genome size measurements, chromosome counts and CSR life strategy assessments. The database aims to provide an up-to-date starting point for flora-wide analyses.

Cumulative number of data packages in the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity until 2007-06-21This data set records the cumulative number of data packages in the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB) data repository through 2007-06-21. A data package represents a set of data files and metadata files that together make a coherent, citable unit for some particular scientific activity. Each data package in the KNB is described by a scientific metadata document and can be composed of one or more data files that contain various segments of the data in question.cumdatasets-20070622.csv

The current and future consequences of anthropogenic impacts such as climate change and habitat loss on ecosystems will be better understood and therefore addressed if diverse ecological data from multiple environmental contexts are more effectively shared. Re-use requires that data are readily available to the scientific scrutiny of the research community. A number of repositories to store shared data have emerged in different ecological domains and developments are underway to define common data and metadata standards. Nevertheless, the goal is far from being achieved and many challenges still need to be addressed. The definition of best practices for data sharing and re-use can benefit from the experience accumulated by pilot collaborative projects. The Euromammals bottom-up initiative has pioneered collaborative science in spatial animal ecology since 2007. It involves more than 150 institutes to address scientific, management and conservation questions regarding terrestrial mammal species in Europe using data stored in a shared database. In this manuscript we present some key lessons that we have learnt from the process of making shared data and knowledge accessible to researchers and we stress the importance of data management for data quality assurance. We suggest putting in place a pro-active data review before data are made available in shared repositories via robust technical support and users’ training in data management and standards. We recommend pursuing the definition of common data collection protocols, data and metadata standards, and shared vocabularies with direct involvement of the community to boost their implementation. We stress the importance of knowledge sharing, in addition to data sharing. We show the crucial relevance of collaborative networking with pro-active involvement of data providers in all stages of the scientific process. Our main message is that for data-sharing collaborative efforts to obtain substantial and durable scientific returns, the goals should not only consist in the creation of e-infrastructures and software tools but primarily in the establishment of a network and community trust. This requires moderate investment, but over long-term horizons.

TERN (funded by NCRIS and EIF) has been developing coherent community-wide management structures for several of the required key data streams, so the relevant data are no longer unmanaged. eMAST builds on this infrastructure, by generating products that integrate the different streams of data e.g. water use and other ecosystem functions. The eMAST ANUClimate climate surfaces will be the first, continental 0.01 degree (nominal 1km) resolution climate surfaces generated using the Hutchinson et al. (ANU) methodology. Combined with the ancillary bioclimatic, ecosystem variables and indices derived from these data, this will be the first complete collection of its kind made publically available as a single resource. This collection of datasets, is a resource for the ecosystem science community and enhances the capacity for research. For example the development of an advanced benchmarking system for terrestrial ecosystem models (i.e. PALS). In addition, the data will be made accessible through the SPEDDEXES web-interface at the NCI, making the data sets conveniently available to a wide audience/community. The datasets generated within the scope of eMAST focus on Australia ecosystems, but are expected to encourage global as well as national interests, because of the universal data formats use. The project is thus expected to facilitate ecosystem modellers to perform comparative analyses of model performance; build new connections between Australian and overseas researchers, and between different research communities in Australia; and accelerate the development, testing and optimization of terrestrial ecosystem models. Working towards the next generation of robust, process based ecosystem models; we are synthesizing observations of plant biophysical and physiological traits, developing gridded surfaces of these traits, and working with TERN MultiScale Plot Network to improve national coverage of trait measurements. Working in collaboration with international collaborators from NEON and NCAR; eMAST are demonstrating and developing Australia capacity for making models utilise these information rich collections. More information about this collection can be found at http://www.emast.org.au

Mood, sleep, and activity survey answers recorded by the Beiwe mobile app. Each participant who provided has two files, one containing daily questions and the other containing momentary questions (up to five times a day at 9am, 12, 3, 6, and 9pm). Daily questions include a morning 9am survey of sleep quality and duration of the previous night, and an evening 9pm survey of the overall mood and energy level of the day. Momentary questions include location, with whom, doing what, and interacting in what way, in addition to mood and energy level questions. Please refer to the EMA questions code book for question text and options.

Museum specimens have long served as foundational data sources for ecological, evolutionary, and environmental research. Continued reimagining of museum collections is now also generating new types of data associated with, but beyond physical specimens, a concept known as "extended specimens". Field notes penned by generations of naturalists contain first-hand ecological observations associated with museum collections and comprise a form of extended specimens with the potential to provide novel ecological data spanning broad geographic and temporal scales. Despite their data-yielding potential, however, field notes remain underutilized in research due to their heterogeneous, unstandardized, and qualitative nature. We introduce an approach for transforming descriptive ecological notes into quantitative data suitable for statistical analysis. Tests with simulated and real-world published data show that field notes and our transformation approach retain reliable quantitative ecological information under a range of sample sizes and evolutionary scenarios. Unlocking the wealth of data contained within field records could facilitate investigations into the ecology of clades whose diversity, distribution, or other demographic features present challenges to traditional ecological studies, improve our understanding of long-term environmental and evolutionary change, and enhance predictions of future change.

This dataset contains supplementary information for a manuscript describing the ESS-DIVE (Environmental Systems Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem) data repository's community data and metadata reporting formats. The purpose of creating the ESS-DIVE reporting formats was to provide guidelines for formatting some of the diverse data types that can be found in the ESS-DIVE repository. The 6 teams of community partners who developed the reporting formats included scientists and engineers from across the Department of Energy National Lab network. Additionally, during the development process, 247 individuals representing 128 institutions provided input on the formats. The primary files in this dataset are 10 data and metadata crosswalk for ESS-DIVE’s reporting formats (all files ending in _crosswalk.csv). The crosswalks compare elements used in each of the reporting formats to other related standards and data resources (e.g., repositories, datasets, data systems). This dataset also contains additional files recommended by ESS-DIVE’s file-level metadata reporting format. Each data file has an associated dictionary (files ending in _dd.csv) which provide a brief description of each standard or data resource consulted in the data reporting format development process. The flmd.csv file describes each file contained within the dataset.

1. Efforts to monitor and conserve populations and ecosystems in human-dominated landscapes can benefit from an empirical social-ecological systems approach.
2. Here we illustrate how latent variable structural equation modelling of regional time series data can effectively describe interconnected drivers of population fluctuations in dynamic landscapes and can help to reveal previously unknown system drivers.
3. Using a declining farmland-dependent bird species (Ammodramus savannarum) in the eastern United States (1994-2015) as a case study, our analysis reveals how farm management decisions drive population fluctuations (R2 = 20%), while management is in turn highly influenced by climate (R2 = 23-51%), but not by regional conservation spending.
4. Synthesis and applications. Structural equation modelling revealed potential social-ecological pathways for halting regional population declines in a grassland bird, the Grasshopper Sparrow. Lower population growth rates followed years of higher hay yields (~4 percentage points per metric ton increase in hay yield) and later harvests (~2 percentage points per 10-day delay in harvest). Thus, one pathway for stabilising regional populations could involve compensating farmers for reducing hay harvests, potentially requiring a six-fold increase in current annual agri-environmental conservation spending.

Methods This data set was gathered from various sources published by federal agencies and in the public domain (U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Geological Survey, United States Bureau of Labor Statistics). Two variables (SPEND and deltaSPEND) contain data on conservation spending from the EWG Conservation Database (Source: Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org. Reproduced with permission).

Variables were then converted into other units or processed / derived in various ways (e.g., adjusted for inflation, relativized by area). The specific data sources and processing methods used are described in detail in the Methods and Supporting Information (Appendices S2 and S3) of the accompanying manuscript (Allen, Lockwood, & Burger, 2020).

Allen, M. C.; Lockwood, J.; Burger, J. (2020). Finding clarity in ecological outcomes using empirical integrated social-ecological systems: a case study of agriculture-dependent grassland birds. Journal of Applied Ecology. (Manuscript number: JAPPL-2020-00322)

This dataset is designed to accompany the paper submitted to Data Science Journal: O'Brien et al, "Earth Science Data Repositories: Implementing the CARE Principles". This dataset shows examples of activities that data repositories are likely to undertake as they implement the CARE principles. These examples were constructed as part of a discussion about the challenges faced by data repositories when acquiring, curating, and disseminating data and other information about Indigenous Peoples, communities, and lands. For clarity, individual repository activities were very specific. However, in practice, repository activities are not carried out singly, but are more likely to be performed in groups or in sequence. This dataset shows examples of how activities are likely to be combined in response to certain triggers. See related dataset O'Brien, M., R. Duerr, R. Taitingfong, A. Martinez, L. Vera, L. Jennings, R. Downs, E. Antognoli, T. ten Brink, N. Halmai, S.R. Carroll, D. David-Chavez, M. Hudson, and P. Buttigieg. 2024. Alignment between CARE Principles and Data Repository Activities. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/23e699ad00f74a178031904129e78e93 (Accessed 2024-03-13), and the paper for more information about development of the activities and their categorization, raw data of relationships between specific activities and a discussion of the implementation of CARE Principles by data repositories.

   Data in this table are organized into groups delineated by a triggering event in the
  first column. For example, the first group consists of 9 rows; while the second group has 7
  rows. The first row of each group contains the event that triggers the set of actions
  described in the last 4 columns of the spreadsheet. Within each group, the associated rows
  in each column are given in numerical not temporal order, since activities will likely vary
  widely from repository to repository.

   For example, the first group of rows is about what likely needs to happen if a
  repository discovers that it holds Indigenous data (O6). Clearly, it will need to develop
  processes to identify communities to engage (R6) as well as processes for contacting those
  communities (R7) (if it doesn't already have them). It will also probably need to review and
  possibly update its data management policies to ensure that they are justifiable (R2). Based
  on these actions, it is likely that the repository's outreach group needs to prepare for
  working with more communities (O3) including ensuring that the repository's governance
  protocols are up-to-date and publicized (O5) and that the repository practices are
  transparent (O4). If initial contacts go well, it is likely that the repository will need
  ongoing engagement with the community or communities (S1). This may include adding
  representation to the repository's advisory board (O2); clarifying data usage with the
  communities (O9), facilitating relationships between data providers and communities (O1);
  working with the community to identify educational opportunities (O10); and sharing data
  with them (O8). It may also become necessary to liaise with whomever is maintaining the
  vocabularies in use at the repository (O7).

The purpose of the national research data repository HARDMIN (Hellenic Academic Research Data Management Initiative) is to collect all research data generated by Greek researchers and academics. The repository aims to address the critical need for the secure storage and publication of research data from the Greek scientific community, to increase transparency in research, to enable reuse by interested researchers worldwide, to accelerate the digital transformation of the research field in our country, and to adopt competitive practices in research proposals and scientific communication. All researchers from Greek Universities are connected to the repository with their credentials and can easily upload their research data. Special teams of editors, either within an academic unit (e.g., laboratory head) or at an institutional level (e.g., Library staff), can make your data public, which will have permanent identifiers, the ability to link to your unique ORCiD identifier, and coupling with your published work, e.g., with a scientific journal article. For special cases, access can be controlled and provided upon request. HARDMIN has been developed with the open-source software CKAN and, together with HELIX, constitutes the national digital scientific infrastructure (eInfrastructure) software for providing catalog and repository services for scientific data, part of the infrastructure network for Open Science. The repository will have the ability to connect to existing repositories and retrieve the corresponding data from already existing collections. The repository is accessible at https://hardmin.heal-link.gr, and interested researchers can contact their local Library for more details. Currently, the repository is operating on a pilot basis to resolve technical details. Translated from Greek Original Text: Σκοπός της λειτουργίας του εθνικού αποθετηρίου ερευνητικών δεδομένων HARDMIN (Hellenic Academic Research Data Management Initiative)είναι η συγκέντρωση του συνόλου των ερευνητικών δεδομένων που δημιουργούνται από Έλληνες ερευνητές και ακαδημαϊκούς. Το αποθετήριο έρχεται να καλύψει την καίρια ανάγκη ασφαλούς φύλαξης και δημοσίευσης ερευνητικών δεδομένων της ελληνικής επιστημονικής κοινότητας για την αύξηση της διαφάνειας στην έρευνα, τη δυνατότητα επαναχρησιμοποίησης από τους ενδιαφερόμενους ερευνητές ανά τον κόσμο, της επιτάχυνσής του ψηφιακού μετασχηματισμού του ερευνητικού πεδίου στη χώρα μας και την υιοθέτηση ανταγωνιστικών πρακτικών στον στίβο των ερευνητικών προτάσεων και της επιστημονικής επικοινώνησης. Στο αποθετήριο συνδέονται όλοι οι ερευνητές των ελληνικών Πανεπιστημίων με τα διαπιστευτήριά τους και μπορούν να αναρτήσουν με ευκολία τα ερευνητικά τους δεδομένα. Ειδικές ομάδες συντακτών, είτε εντός μιας ακαδημαϊκής μονάδας (π.χ. υπεύθυνος εργαστηρίου), είτε σε ι δρυματικό επίπεδο (π.χ. προσωπικό Βιβλιοθήκης), μπορούν να καταστήσουν δημόσια τα δεδομένα σας, τα οποία θα διαθέτουν μόνιμα αναγνωριστικά, δυνατότητες διασύνδεσης με το μοναδικό σας αναγνωριστικό ORCiD και σύζευξης με το δημοσιευμένο σας έργο, π.χ. με ένα άρθρο επιστημονικού περιοδικού. Για ειδικές περιπτώσεις, η πρόσβαση μπορεί να είναι ελεγχόμενη και να παρέχεται κατόπιν αιτήματος. Το HARDMIN έχει αναπτυχθεί με το ανοικτό λογισμικό CKAN και αποτελεί, μαζί με το HELIX την εθνική ψηφιακή επιστημονική υποδομή (eInfrastructure) λογισμικού για την παροχή υπηρεσιών καταλόγου και αποθετηρίου επιστημονικών δεδομένων, μέρος του πλέγματος υποδομών για την Ανοικτή Επιστήμη. Το αποθετήριο θα διαθέτει τη δυνατότητα σύνδεσης με τα υφιστάμενα αποθετήρια και άντλησης των αντίστοιχων δεδομένων από ήδη υπάρχουσες συλλογές. Το αποθετήριο είναι προσβάσιμο από τη διεύθυνση https://hardmin.heal-link.gr, ενώ οι ενδιαφερόμενοι ερευνητές μπορούν να επικοινωνούν με την οικεία Βιβλιοθήκη τους για περισσότερες λεπτομέρειες. Αυτή τη στιγμή, το αποθετήριο λειτουργεί πιλοτικά για τη διευθέτηση τεχνικών λεπτομερειών.

This resource is created for the dataset of the paper "Toward Open and Reproducible Environmental Modeling by Integrating Online Data Repositories, Computational Environments, and Model Application Programming Interfaces"

This resource includes; - 1 Model Program Resources - 7 Model Instance Resources - 2 Composite Resources

Data and code used for our study entitled "Signal Crayfish deteriorates littoral habitats, repository." The metadata file explains the whole structure of this repository and how to obtain the results shown in the paper. For more information contact Dr. Facundo Scordo (scordo@agro.uba.ar), Dr. Scott F. Girdner ( Dr. Sudeep Chandra (sudeep@unr.edu )

This study was performed to determine how different soil moistures, soil sources, and agricultural practices affected the gross CH4 fluxes (i.e., rates of methanogenesis) of soils. We extracted intact soil cores from two agricultural sites in the USA in row crop plots under conventional, no-till, and organic management. We then took them to the lab, manipulated their moisture levels, incubated them at room temperature for 22 weeks, and measured gas fluxes at weeks 6 and 21. We developed and utilized a new form of CH4 isotope pool dilution (IPD) to estimate gross CH4 production and consumption fluxes. This new method can measure IPD in a bag headspace that loses volume over time due to sampling. We fit the IPD model to the data and extracted gross CH4 production (P) and consumption (K) constants. These along with calculated fluxes and covariates measured (e.g., moisture, inorganic N) are reported in the main data table.

1. Accelerometers in animal-attached tags have proven to be powerful tools in behavioural ecology, being used to determine behaviour and provide proxies for movement-based energy expenditure. Researchers are collecting and archiving data across systems, seasons and device types. However, in order to use data repositories to draw ecological inference, we need to establish the error introduced according to sensor type and position on the study animal and establish protocols for error assessment and minimization.

2. Using laboratory trials, we examine the absolute accuracy of tri-axial accelerometers and determine how inaccuracies impact measurements of dynamic body acceleration (DBA) in human participants, with DBA as the main acceleration-based proxy for energy expenditure. We then examine how tag type and placement affect the acceleration signal in birds, using (i) pigeons Columba livia flying in a wind tunnel, with tags mounted simultaneously in two positions, and (ii) back- and tai...