Edaphobase collects occurrence data of soil organisms and their communities as well as data on the environmental parameters of their habitat, methodologies, and/or data collectors and owners. All data is harmonized and collated together to allow common data re-use in overarching queries or analyses.
Edaphobase therefore requires a minimal data set that can, i.e., help describe a taxon’s geographic distribution. This includes:
- Taxon name,
- site of occurrence (incl. geo-coordinates) and
- sampling date
(à“what”, “where”, “when”?). Minimum requirements are presence/absence data.
A recommended data set can contribute to more detailed analyses, i.e., of taxa’s habitat preferences or niche space, biodiversity analyses of a specific area or habitat type, etc. This includes the minimum data set above +
- data on habitat type or land-use,
- soil parameters
- sampling methodologies
(à also “how”, “under what environmental conditions” and “by whom”?). Recommended is abundance (count or density) data.
The following pages describe which data Edaphobase can currently collect and how: