NaturaList is a flexible biodiversity data platform for publishing, exploring, and analysing biological datasets; free and open source. It handles everything from simple species lists to fully annotated occurrence catalogues, supports both formal scientific and indigenous / folk taxonomies, and comes with powerful filtering, search, and a suite of data visualisation and exploration tools.
It doesn’t come with a pre-defined structure you would have to fit your project into. You have the freedom to define your taxonomy, your data fields, and the way they are displayed - all from a single spreadsheet - making it easy to set up, update, or extend your dataset without any IT expertise or complex software customisation.
Documentation, demo & download
Individual occurrence records - specimens, observations, survey records - can be attached to taxa, turning the app into a lightweight collection management tool where species-level and occurrence-level data coexist and can be explored independently. The kind of data you attach to each taxon is completely user-defined: simple text, numbers, maps in various formats, images, sound recordings, links, or entire encyclopaedia-like pages with rich content.
The app offers powerful filtering and search capacities. Filters are simple to use and are built in a way that encourages data exploration and simplifies analysis. Beyond browsing the taxonomic tree, NaturaList lets you and your users explore data through several analytical lenses: a proportional bubble chart of taxonomic composition, a trait matrix for comparing attributes across taxa, and a regional distribution choropleth map. Filter arrays can function as a multi-access identification key, and a dedicated interactive single-access identification key engine is also available - both narrowing the dataset in real time as choices are made.
The user interface is translated into several languages and your data may be supplied in one or several languages to create multilingual projects.
Who is it for?
NaturaList is designed to be useful to a wide range of audiences. Project authors - taxonomists, field biologists, collection curators, conservation organisations, educators, and community groups - use it to publish and maintain structured biodiversity data without complex database infrastructure. End users - from specialist researchers and field naturalists to students, policymakers, and indigenous community members - use it to browse, filter, identify, and analyse the published data.
How it works
Everything flows from a single spreadsheet: taxon hierarchy, descriptions, image references, map data, identification keys, bibliography, language variants, filter behaviour, and visual appearance. You upload the spreadsheet through the app’s management screen; the app compiles it into a compact data file and publishes it instantly. No database server, no admin panel, no proprietary tooling.
NaturaList is a Progressive Web App - it works in a browser and can be installed on any device (phone, tablet, laptop) to work fully offline, making it as useful at a remote field site as at a desk.
Get NaturaList
Visit naturalist.netlify.app for a download, a live demo, and the full documentation covering everything from first deployment to advanced data configuration.
The source code and releases are available on GitHub: github.com/dominik-ramik/naturalist
For questions, help with implementation, or feature suggestions, feel free to get in touch .
Project history
NaturaList has been originally developed for the Checklist of the vascular flora of Vanuatu under the Plants mo Pipol blong Vanuatu (Plants and People of Vanuatu) research project , a collaboration among the New York Botanical Garden , the Vanuatu National Herbarium , and the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta . It has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, USA.