Welcome to EcoPlots - TERN’s data portal containing searchable plot-level information from various ecological surveys. Data sources include TERN Surveillance, TERN Ecosystem Processes, and Queensland Biodiversity and Ecology Information System (QBEIS).
This getting started guide will help you to access the EcoPlots data portal and give you an overview of the its functionality.
To access the EcoPlots data search portal, load the TERN homepage and navigate to the Data menu, then click on EcoPlots. From this page you can also find further information about EcoPlots data sources and Sign in to your TERN account.
Alternative you can load https://ecoplots.tern.org.au/ directly in the URL bar at the top of your browser window.
On loading the search page, some rows of data will already be visible even when no filters have been activated by a user.
Available filters
On the left of the screen there is a list of filters that will allow you to define what data that you wish to find. There are eight different filters that can be used to alone or in combination with others filters during your data discovery search. Each heading with an icon can be expanded to show different options related to that filter. The Clear All Filters button will return you to the default search state displaying rows of the available site visit data.
Region Types and Regions
Geographic areas where data is available.Data Sources, Datasets, Project, Sites and Visits
Restricts output according to data origins.Procedures
Specify the methods of sampling used.Features Types
Subject of sample, estimate, or calculation.Parameters
Data derived from raw site observations (ie. field species names, growth form, etc) and calculations.Species name
Limit results to a particular taxonomic classification; is not case sensitive.Date Range
Restrict to data collected during a specific time period.Custom Search
Default search uses OR (results must match at least one of the search terms entered). For multiple search terms, it may be beneficial to use AND.
Search is not case sensitive.
More information on definitions for each class is available in the TERN LinkedData Attributes page. The TERN Information Models page contains information regarding the ontological and data vocabularies used.
Tabbed results
Different tabs within the search results panel allow the investigation of search results according to the “feature type” that was assigned at the time of sampling.
This example is the result of a “species name” search requesting genus level data for Melaleucas. Results include feature type data recorded for individual plants sampled, individual branch observation data, details about specimens collected, and data about the characteristics of dead wood sampled that has been identified from this genus.
You can navigate between the different tabs to view of the different subsets of the data that has been output from by the search. It is important to note that multiple tabs generated by your search may be indicative of multiple data files being generated when the data is downloaded.
The green box with the white chevron allows you make the results panel wider by collapsing the filters panel. The grey bar has information about how much data is available within the limits of the filters that you have chosen. Rows denotes how many data entries there are. Page Size allows you to control how many results are viewable per page, and the arrows allow you to navigate between pages with the page number displayed in the center.
The next pages in this section give an overview of how to search for data and download data.
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