How to manage the Species List
Your Species List powers the species dropdown options available to Species Observation Work Items. Users can add Species Observations from the web or mobile apps — giving you a better picture of what you're protecting in the field.
This article covers how to build a starting species list, prepare it for import, bring it into Landscape, and keep it up to date over time.
Jump to...
Gathering your initial list
This task is performed OUTSIDE of Landscape.
Your species list can come from anywhere. Common sources include:
- An existing spreadsheet your organization already maintains — baseline documentation, past bioblitz results, or a monitoring checklist.
- Community science platforms such as iNaturalist or eBird, which let you export observation data for your region (see the example walkthrough at the end of this section).
- State or regional resources like natural heritage program lists, USDA PLANTS, or field guides for your area.
Whatever the source, aim for a manageable list of the species your staff and volunteers are likely to encounter and record — not an exhaustive catalog. You can always add to the list later, so it's fine to start with the groups you care about most and leave out groups you won't be tracking.
If your source data is a list of observations rather than species — as exports from community science platforms usually are — the same species will likely appear many times. We strongly recommend de-duplicating the list to avoid confusion. Search the internet for "How to find and remove duplicates in [Excel/Google Sheets/etc.] if you need instructions.
Example: Building a starting list from iNaturalist
If you don't have a species list yet, iNaturalist is a great free source of community-collected data for your region. You'll need a free iNaturalist account to export data.
- In iNaturalist, head to Explore to open the Observations page.
- Zoom the map into an area in your region that has plenty of observations from iNaturalist users — a popular wildlife sanctuary or preserve is a good bet, since it will have a good representation of the species in your area.
- Use the Draw Rectangular Boundary tool to draw a box around your area. All observations inside the boundary will be listed.
- Check the observation count. You don't want too many — keep it under roughly 30,000 to keep the data set manageable. Around 5,000 works well.
- Click the Filters button and select only the categories you care about cataloging, leaving out groups like fungi or protozoa if you won't be tracking them. Apply any other filters you'd like as well.
- Click Download (bottom right of the Filters panel). On the export page you can adjust your filters one more time, then click Create Export. You can select receive an email with your data if you don't feel like waiting around.
- Open the export in your spreadsheet program. The only columns you need are common name, taxon, taxon ID, and scientific name — select every other column, right-click, and choose Delete. (In Excel, converting the sheet to a table first with Ctrl+T makes this easier.)
- De-duplicate the list (Data > Remove Duplicates), then map the columns into the import template as described in Part 2: common name → Common Name, scientific name → Scientific Name, taxon → Type, and taxon ID → External ID.
Because iNaturalist's taxon IDs are unique and stable, using them as External IDs makes it easy to blend in exports from other locations later — Landscape will update species it already has and add the ones it doesn't.
Importing the list
Prerequisites:
You must be an Administrator to access Settings.
Instructions:
- Navigate to Settings > Species List.
Your account may have come with an existing species list — often just a leftover sample list. If it isn't tied to any Species Observations, select everything in it and click Delete. If you're not sure, use Data Viewer to find a list of any and all Species Observations.
- Click Import Species > Download Template. This downloads the CSV template you will use for uploading your species list.
- Open the template alongside your source list and copy your data into the matching columns:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Common Name | The species' common name |
| Scientific Name | The species' scientific name |
| Type | The broad group the species belongs to (birds, plants, mammals, etc.) |
| Categories | Optional; add your own groupings if they're useful to you, like ‘Endangered’ or ‘Non-native Invasive’. Separate each entry with a semicolon. |
| Internal ID | Leave this blank. It's a 24-digit alphanumeric code assigned by Landscape that is used behind the scenes for connecting and querying data. Never edit this value. |
| External ID | Optional but recommended; see Updating the list. If your source data includes a unique identifier for each species (like iNaturalist's taxon ID), use it here. |
Pro Tip: Include a species named ‘Unidentified.’ This will allow people to make observations in the field even if they aren't sure of the species. They can look them up and assign them later.
- Save the template.
- On the Species List page, click Import Species and upload your completed template.
Updating the list
Once you have established an initial species list in Landscape, there are two ways to update it: adding new species one at a time, or importing another CSV list.
Prerequisites:
You must be an Administrator to access Settings.
Instructions:
Add a single new species
- Navigate to Settings > Species List.
- Click the + (plus) icon to add a single species.
- A new line will appear at the top of the list. Fill in the field values as necessary.
Import an updated or supplementary list
READ FIRST: Landscape uses the External ID as a lookup value when importing. If you are updating your list via Import and the CSV contains a row where the External ID matches a species already in your account, Landscape updates that existing species with the new row's values rather than creating a duplicate. For example, if Landscape finds a species in your account with External ID 49598 and your import sheet contains a row with that same ID, the existing species' values are updated from that row.
This is also why every External ID in your import sheet must be unique — Landscape treats it as the lookup value, and if it finds a match, it updates everything else based on it. If your source data comes with stable, unique identifiers (like iNaturalist taxon IDs), carrying them into the External ID column makes it easy to combine and refresh lists from different sources over time.
- Navigate to Settings > Species List.
- Click Import Species and select your import file.