Symbiota is an open-source software for managing and mobilizing biodiversity data. Over the span of 20 years, Symbiota has developed into a distributed network of theme-based research portals incorporating data from over 1,900 biodiversity collections of preserved plants, animals, fossils, fungi, and more. The 56 existing Symbiota portals publish over 46 million images and +90 million occurrences.

Symbiota is specifically designed toward efficient, collaborative digitization and an open data exploration and publishing tool.

Researchers, educators, explorers, and more

Anyone can explore and use biodiversity data stored in Symbiota-based portals. Symbiota portals include tools for:

• species inventories
• interactive identification keys
• integrated specimen and field images
• taxonomic information
• species distribution maps
• taxonomic descriptions
• public datasets

Collectors, collection managers, and curators

Content can be actively managed in Symbiota portals. Features include:

• data entry from label images
• data harvesting from specimen duplicates
• batch georeferencing (even across collections)
• data validation and cleaning
• generating progress reports
• loan management
• data publishing to GBIF and iDigBio

Read More

An overview of Symbiota’s functions and impact was published by Gries, Gilbert & Franz. 2014. Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e1114.

Contact Us

For general questions about Symbiota or for Symbiota issues, open a discussion on our new Discussions page or contact our Help Desk email: help@symbiota.org

Code

Explore our open source GitHub repository for the latest code developments.

Engage

Ask questions, suggest new features, or participate in conversations on our new Discussions page.

Get Help

Visit the Symbiota Docs website for a growing archive of help files, tutorials, and more.