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Search results can be refined at a couple of different points in the process of searching for the biodiversity information you’re looking for. This article focuses on tailoring your results after you’ve performed your initial search. If you’d like help performing an initial search see our search by species article for searches centered around the name of a species, or the search by location article for searches focused on finding groups of species in specific geographic areas. 



Facets 


Search results can be filtered by many different record attributes, these are known as facets.


There are many different facets within each filter at the ALA, see the table below for a comprehensive list of filters and facets. 


Category 

Facet 

Extra information

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taxon

Scientific name 

Default selected 

Scientific name (unprocessed)

This will allow you to search by the name that the record was submitted with 

Subspecies 

 

Species

 

Genus

 

Family

Default selected 

Order

 

Class

 

Phylum

 

Kingdom

 

Identified to rank

 

Name match metric

 

Lifeform

Default selected 

Common name (processed)

Default selected 

Species subgroups 

 

Species interaction 

 

 

 

Identification

Identified by

 

Raw identification qualifier 

 

Taxon identification issue 

 

Specimen type

Isotype, Holotype etc 

Original name usage 

 

 

 

 

Occurrence

Collector 

 

Sex

 

Life stage

 

Establishment means

 

State conservation 

See our Working with Conservation and Sensitive Species Information article

State conservation (unprocessed)

 

Country conservation 

 

 

 

 

Event

Dataset/Survey name

 

Parent Event ID 

 

Field Number

 

Event ID

 

Month

Default selected 

Year

 

Date precision 

 

Year(by decade)

Default selected

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Location

Country 

 

State or Territory

Default selected

Elevation

 

Min elevation

 

Local Government Areas 

 

IBRA 7 regions

Interim Biogeographic Regionalisations for Australia 

IBRA 7 Subregions 

 

IMCRA Meso-scale Bioregions

 

IMCRA Regions 

Integrated Marine and Coastal Regionalisation of Australia 

National Dynamic Land Cover

 

Vegetation types-native

 

Vegetation types-present

 

Species habitats 

 

Coordinate uncertainty (in metres) 

 

Spatial validity 

 

Location ID

 

States including coastal waters

 

 

 

Record

Record type

Default selected (Human observation, preserved specimen, etc)

Multimedia 

Default selected

Presence/Absence 

Default selected

Content types 

Default selected

 

 

 

Assertions

Sensitive 

See our Working with Conservation and Sensitive Species Information article

Record issues 

 

Outlier for layer 

 

Outlier layer count

 

Has user assertions 

 

Assertions by user

 

Associated records

 

 

 

Attribution

License 

 

User ID

 

Collection 

 

Institution 

Default selected

Data provider 

 

Data resource 

Default selected 

 

Within each filter there will be facets that you can filter by. Some of these will be reasonably universal for all searches, for example, “State or Territory”. However, others will be greatly dependent on your search, for example, scientific name. 



Customising your results 


Let’s run through a case study example, you’ll then be able to apply this to find the specific data you need. Here we’ll show you how to filter by conservation status. 


We are going to do a search at the genus level rather than at the species level so we can refine it using filters. This will also work well with any search, including a location-based search such as Explore your area.

  1. From the ALA homepage, type Eucalyptus into the search bar 
  2. Select Eucalytpus L’Hér, and then view records. You now have all Eucalyptus records for all of Australia.
  3. We are now going to select the “Customise filters” button in the top left-hand corner of the page so that we can adjust the “Narrow your results” options. Because we want to filter by conservation status – this isn’t selected as a default option.
     


screenshot of search results page showing the customise filters button (top left) and narrow search results filters




1. In the customize filters pop-up, in the occurrence section select State conservation and Country conservation (See table 1 for all the filters). These filters will now appear on the left-hand side of the page:



screenshot indicating the choose more button under state conservation category




2. Now select the choose more option in the state-based conservation filter and select Critically Endangered followed by “INCLUDE selected items” You could select multiple facets here, or exclude certain facets:



screenshot showing the 'critically endangered'  category selected




3. You’re now left with 36 records, if you were to select the choose more option in the Scientific name filter you’d see the only 2 species remaining are Eucalyptus recurva and Eucalyptus imlayensis



screenshot of remaining species showing  



This was quite a strict filtering process, leaving us with very few records, not all the filters and facets will remove this many records but it’s helpful to understand how heavily you can filter the data.

If you started with an explore your area search, this process might have left you with a list of all (in any) critically endangered species in your chosen area. This could be a useful dataset to work with!