A global catalog of digital assets for monitoring biodiversity, 1965 - 2024

The current landscape of biodiversity assessments predominantly requires time-intensive and costly field surveys that rarely match the pace of monitoring needs for conservation. Automated biodiversity monitoring could increase the speed and accuracy at which information on species and ecosystems is gathered, yet the extent of existing monitoring with these “digital assets” is not well characterized or leveraged. Here, we present a catalog of existing digital assets for monitoring living organisms globally, documenting what they monitor and other key attributes of the data to facilitate use of existing assets. To be included as a digital asset, potential monitoring data must meet several criteria: appropriate scope, instrumentation, repeatability, adequate spatial coverage, and accessibility. Only assets that monitor living organisms are included, though data on humans are not included. This data catalog could help accelerate conservation efforts by making relevant biodiversity data more accessible.