The land use and land cover data from MapBiomas, between 1985 and 2021 (Collection 7), is now part of the speciesLink, a collaborative network that aggregates information on Brazilian biodiversity. The aim of the network is to foster research, education and the formulation of policies to promote the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The information is public.

MapBiomas data shows the loss of natural areas and their transformation into anthropogenic areas (relating to changes caused by humans in the environment), in all of Brazil's biomes. But how to measure the impact on biodiversity? This was the challenge facing the Center for Reference in Environmental Information (CRIA) when it integrated MapBiomas data into the network speciesLink. 

In the speciesLink a filter has been implemented for the use o MapBiomas' data (image below)This feature allows the user to guide the search for records according to the land cover and land use in the place where the specimen was collected (between 1985 and 2021). This functionality makes it possible, for example, to identify specimens collected in natural areas that have been anthropized, indicating habitat loss, or to make inferences about the occurrence of a species in a particular land use and land cover class. 

The results achieved also included the participation of ICMBio teams in the Biodiversity Working Group, the National Institute of Science and Technology - Virtual Herbarium of Flora and Fungi (INCT-HVFF) and its network of herbaria, Google Cloud Platform in providing technical support and credits for the use of the platform and financial support from the Institute for Climate and Society (iCS), a philanthropic organization that supports projects and institutions dedicated to tackling climate change in Brazil.

Search example

The maps below show the location and number of botanical species collected between 1985 and 2021 in the Amazon biome, with (A) showing all the records where the collection was made in natural areas and (B) a portion of the records from (A) where the natural area at the time of collection is an anthropogenic area in 2021.


A                                                                                           B

In this example, search (A) retrieved 308,540 records of 15,518 different species and search (B) 32,705 records of 5,677 different species. It can be concluded that 10.6% of the records and 36.5% of the species were potentially affected by the loss of natural area.

SpeciesLink Network speciesLink

SpeciesLink Network speciesLink (https://specieslink.net) has more than 16 million records of flora, fauna and microbiota species with more than 5 million associated images. Around 10.5 million records are from collections/observations made in Brazil. 

Data is shared by 170 institutions, 35 of which are from abroad, which together integrate 553 data sets. 65% of the records are from material collected in Brazil, but data from all South American countries is also integrated. For more information visit Dashboard  (https://specieslink.net/dashboard).