Dataset Search

Dataset Search at a Glance

Searching datasets

Dataset Search page returns a list of datasets that match your criteria. If you are interested in finding species, Species Search would be more useful for you.

With Dataset Search, you can search datasets by:

• data provider,
• species of interest,
• region of interest, and
• time range.

Below are typical criteria you find Dataset Search useful for:

• I'm looking for "PIROP" data that is cited in a paper.
• I know Bahamas Marine Mammal Research provides their data to OBIS-SEAMAP. Can I download their data?
• I'm looking for surveys conducted in my study area.
• What datasets are available that have humpback whale sightings in my study area?
• I'm looking for all marine mammal surveys conducted in 1990s.
• I'm looking for satellite telemetry data for sea turtles.

Tutorials

Features & Functions

Face	Feature	Description
(Default)	Identify	This function is available when no tool button is selected. If another button is selected, deselecting it enables "Identify." Click on the cell you want to get the information for. The popup window will come out, showing #observations in the cell. Be patient as it may take the results several seconds to show.
	Species of interest	Enter a part of scientific/common name of your species into the text box. A list of candidate species shows up. If you find your species in the list, select it or you can keep typing. Once done, click [Update] to refresh the map. The map shows the observations of that species.
	Zoom in	To zoom in, you need to define a rectangle on the map where you want to zoom in. First click on the map to locate one of the two diagonal vertices of the rectangle. Release the mouse button and move the mouse to the other diagonal point. The red guiding line appears. Then click again to fix the rectangle.
	Draw region of interest	A region of interest (ROI) takes a rectangular shape. First click on the map to locate one of the two diagonal vertices of the rectangle. Release the mouse button and move the mouse to the other diagonal point. The red guiding line appears. Then click again to fix the rectangle. The map is updated automatically, extracting observations in the ROI drawn.
	Remove ROI	To remove the region of interest (ROI), click the button and click on the ROI you want to remove. The map is updated automatically.
	Transparency	Slide the bar to left (more opaque) or right (more transparent) to adjust the transparency of the region of interest.
	Hide/show map	Click buttons to hide/show the map. Hiding map makes the dataset list area taller so you can see more datasets at once.
	Show/hide graph area	Click the button (pale yellow background) to show and hide the graph area. The graph area may close automatically depending on your criteria.
Platform Taxon group Provider	Search options	You can specify additional dataset search options. Expand Platform and Taxon group categories. Platform: Survey platform type. A "Shore" type includes seal haulout counts, seabird colony data, sea turtle nesting data. A "Tag" type refers to satellite telemetry data. Taxon group: As OBIS-SEAMAP focuses on marine mammals, seabirds and sea tutles, the OBIS-SEAMAP data are grouped into these three taxa. When you check one of them, you are searching datasets that have at least one observations for species in that taxa (along with for other taxa). You can choose multiple taxa. Provider: List of provider is automatically updated when you specify a species of interest or draw a region of interest, filtering out those who do not contribute datasets for a specified species/region. Choosing one of the providers narrows the list of datasets to those from the selected provider. Order by: The initial list of datasets is ordered by "Date added" so that you can see the newest datasets first. Once you begin your search, the list is, by default, ordered by "Provider." You can change this order between "Date added" and "Provider."

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