Landcare Research’s core purpose is to drive innovation in the management of terrestrial biodiversity and land resources. The conduct science across land resources, defining land biota, managing biodiversity, invasive weeds and pests, measuring biodiversity change and supporting trade. The Landcare data page has a bunch of links to New Zealand-based datasets relating to land and ecological resources.

Some of the cool datasets include:

• The National Land Resource centre - a collaborative partnership among a number of Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) including Landcare Research, AgResearch, Scion, Plant & Food Research, GNS Science and ESR aiming to provide the evidence and capability from which to enhance and unlock the ’land economy’ in NZ. You can search through a range of datasets related to land resources (including Antartic topography data, DoC geospatial data, ecological systems - including valuation!) spatially and semantically.

• NZ Soils Portal - provides you with access to information on New Zealand’s soils held by Landcare Research. From this site you can access data from the National Soils Database, Fundamental Soils Layers, Digital Soil Surveys and the new S-map database. There’s also a digital soil map at S-mapOnline, and you can also download the data (shapefiles & metadata) here. There is also a wealth of explanatory information about current and historical soil naming schemes used in New Zealand.

• NZ National Vegetation Survey Databank - contains records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 21,000 permanent plots. These data can be explored online as well as requested for download. NVS provides a unique record, spanning more than 50 years, of indigenous and exotic plants in New Zealand’s terrestrial ecosystems, from Northland to Stewart Island and the Kermadec and Chatham islands. A broad range of habitats are covered, with special emphasis on indigenous forests and grasslands. The physical archive includes plot sheets, maps, and photographs from many years of vegetation surveys. Purpose-built software for entering, validating and summarising data is available.

• Ko te Aitanga Pepeke o Aotearoa - New Zealand Land Invertebrates - provides access to information on land invertebrate taxa, primarily insects, other arthropods, and nematodes that occur in New Zealand. The information is derived from the New Zealand Arthropod Collection Names and Specimens databases. The New Zealand Arthropod Collection Names database lists c. 34,000 names, including several synonyms and incorrectly applied names. The database indicates which of the names are preferred for use at the New Zealand Arthropod Collection (NZAC) and the National Nematode Collection of New Zealand (NNCNZ). Current data emphasize groups of insects, mites, other arthropods, and nematodes for which taxonomic expertise is available at or in association with these collections.