European Alien Species Information Network - Species Explorer
This is a brief user's guide to the EASIN Species Search and Mapping new tools. From the EASIN internet site, Menu/Services/Species Search and Mapping, the User accesses the introductory page:
[Introductory Page]
A Submenu appears showing four items:
[Submenu]
The User can start with ‘Species Search’ to search for species or open the map directly from ‘Species Mapper’ and use the map controls to select and map species.
This page has three collapsible sections (“Select filters”, “Taxonomy”, “Pathways”) to select searching criteria.
The User can select any combination of the following criteria:
Figure 1 displays the first (from top) section.
[Figure 1: species search criteria]
Please note that this section includes three options slider buttons on the left and two options slider buttons on the right. The User can set the buttons on the left to NO|OFF|YES while the two on the right can be set to OFF|ON.
In both cases, by leaving the filters to OFF, the search function would skip the corresponding values, while with ON (or YES) or NO the search function collects only species according to the selected options.
The species scientific names, synonyms and common names can be used to search for species in the ‘Search name’ field. By typing at least three characters a drop-down list appears containing species compatible with the typed term. A species (one) can be selected from the drop-down list, or the User can search and select species containing just the typed part.
The above Figure 1 shows the following scenario:
The searching criteria are aggregated by logical ‘AND’ operators, so if the User selects the above example filters, the criteria would search for species which are Alien, (and also) of EU concern, (and also) not-partly native, (and also) whose name includes the term ‘callo’.
A hierarchical tree view is displayed in this section. The tree view is populated by aggregating the taxonomies from the species in EASIN Catalogue. The User can select any number of taxa or single taxon, and full taxa nodes. The taxonomy tree is populated while the User expands the nodes.
Figure 2 displays this section (and the previous section is collapsed).
[Figure 2: taxonomy criteria]
The selected taxa would be aggregated to the rest of the criteria by following the logic explained in the first section. In Figure 2 the whole Nematoda node is selected.
In this section the User can select specific CBD Pathways (CBD 2014. UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/18/9/Add.1) categorization by using the tree view in Figure 3.
The selected pathways will be aggregated to the rest of the criteria by following the logic explained in the first section. In Figure 3 the “Release in nature” CBD Pathway is selected.
[Figure 3: Pathways criteria]
After clicking on the Search Species button, the search function will search for species combining the selected criteria from the three sections explained above.
Figure 4 shows the search results, in this case all the Marine species from the Catalogue were selected for search, and all the species in the first results page are selected to be mapped.
[Figure 4: search results and species selection]
From the Species Search results, every single species name, or the plus [+] icon close to it, is clickable to expand the species factsheet. Figure 5 shows an expanded factsheet area .
[Figure 5: species factsheet]
From the Species Search results the User has the option to select specific species and click on [Map Selected Species] to map those species or simply choose [Map Found Species] to map all the species from the search results. In the following Figures, all marine species where searched and mapped.
[Figure 6: marine species, country layer]
[Figure 7: layer type selection]
[Figure 8: marine species, MSFD layer level]
On the left hand the User can interact with the map by four control buttons:
By clicking the [Magnifier] button the user opens a modal (pop-up) panel control which shows an interface like the search page. Please refer to the Search page above section for details.
Click on the [Funnel] button to display map filters panel and use the toggle buttons to turn your options ON or OFF, green means ON, yellow means OFF.
[Figure 9: map filters]
If ON is selected, the native range option makes a double layer visible for single species only. In Figure 10 the map displays the native and alien range layers for Abramis brama. This functionality is available only when mapping one specific species.
[Figure 10: alien and native range]
The User can specify the species occurrences by time range clicking the [double clock] control button on the map, which opens the time slider control panel as shown in the Figure 10.
[Figure 11: selecting the year range]
The user can export the map in the form of a PDF document containing the map (the current visualized map at the moment of the click) and a summary with map data. Figure 12 shows the PDF preview after clicking on the [Printer button].
[Figure 12: PDF export preview]
The map layers can be downloaded in both GeoJSON and WKT formats. Please note that the coordinate reference system in the GeoJSON is WGS:84, the only officially supported by the GeoJSON standard. The WKT files are generated using the EPSG:3035 (ETRS 89) coordinate reference system used in the online map.
To download the layer, the user must click on the [download button] and select the wanted format from the opening panel. Figure 13 shows the download options.
[Figure 13: layer download options]
After having mapped the selected species, by clicking on the map a small pop-up opens to show the total number of species mapped in the clicked area. By clicking the species number, a second dialog opens to show the list of original occurrences and the related data partners. If the URL of the original occurrence is provided, its description is also a link to it. Please refer to the following Figure 14 and 15.
[Figure 14: species count at layer element; Spain was clicked]
[Figure 15: mapped species list in Spain]