Biodiversity & Interspecies Data

This collection of data streams moves beyond purely physical measurements to sense the presence, diversity, and relationality of other living beings. From the microscopic to the arboreal, these indicators represent the complex web of life that constitutes the biosphere and shapes the organism's more-than-human context.

soilHealth — SUBTERRANEAN SOIL MOISTURE

What it does: Requests hourly soil moisture across four layers (0–27 cm). It then averages the non-zero values, converts them to a percentage, and maps this to the particle scale. The system will retry once if the initial data is unavailable.

How location is fetched: The first attempt uses getLandBiasedCoordinates(). If this fails or returns no data, a second attempt is made by picking coordinates from a curated list of fertile hotspots to ensure a meaningful value is found.

Curated list of hotspots:

• Indo-Gangetic Plain, India (lat: 25.5, lon: 82.5): One of the most fertile and densely populated agricultural regions on Earth, fed by the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra river systems.
• Sahel Region, West Africa (lat: 14.0, lon: 1.0): Represents a crucial transitional ecozone between the Sahara and the Sudanian savanna, where soil moisture is a critical indicator of ecological stability and agricultural viability.
• Amazon Basin, Brazil (lat: -3.4, lon: -62.2): The heart of the world's largest rainforest, chosen for its immense biogeochemical importance and unique soil compositions (like terra preta).
• U.S. Midwest / Corn Belt (lat: 40.0, lon: -93.0): A globally significant agricultural powerhouse known for its deep, fertile Mollisol soils, representing a landscape of intensive modern agriculture.
• Loess Plateau, China (lat: 36.0, lon: 109.0): A unique geological formation of fine, wind-blown silt deposits, representing a landscape with a deep history of co-evolution between human agriculture and a specific soil type.
• Andes Highlands, Peru (lat: -13.5, lon: -72.1): Represents high-altitude agricultural systems, including ancient terraced farms, where soil health is crucial for cultivating unique crops like potatoes and quinoa.
• Patagonia, Argentina (lat: -44.0, lon: -68.5): A semi-arid steppe environment where soil moisture is a limiting factor for life, representing a more fragile and sparse ecosystem.
• Fiji (lat: -18.1, lon: 178.4): Represents a tropical volcanic island ecosystem, where soil fertility is derived from volcanic ash and is vital for both agriculture and lush forest ecosystems.
• Nile Delta, Egypt (lat: 30.0, lon: 31.2): A classic example of a river delta civilization, where millennia of accumulated silt deposits have created an incredibly fertile but geographically contained agricultural zone.
• Mediterranean Basin, Mallorca (lat: 39.5, lon: 3.0): Represents the characteristic terra rossa (red soil) of Mediterranean climates, shaped by a history of agriculture including olives, grapes, and grains.
• Highveld, South Africa (lat: -26.2, lon: 28.0): A high-altitude grassland plateau, representing a savanna biome where soil health is critical for both agriculture and the native grassland ecosystem.

Source of the data: Open-Meteo Forecast API — hourly=soil_moisture_*

API or JSON: API

Description: Soil moisture acts as a proxy for subterranean vitality as a living archive of microbial, fungal, and root-based interactions. This measure recognizes soil as an active partner in ecological cycles. It extends its sensing apparatus beneath the surface, engaging with the biogeochemical infrastructures that sustain multispecies life.

ocean — PERCENTAGE PROTECTED MARINE AREA

What it does: This static value represents the percentage of a country's territorial waters that are designated as marine protected areas (MPAs). A random country's value is pulled from the local JSON file at each data refresh cycle.

How location is fetched: A country at random from a pre-compiled list in the local JSON file is selected. This list is curated through the data bundling process, which queries a diverse set of major global nations from the World Bank. Only countries that return a valid, non-null value for this specific indicator are included, ensuring every data point is reliable and grounded in the source.

Source of the data: World Bank (ER.MRN.PTMR.ZS), compiled into the local all-static-data.json file.

API or JSON: JSON

Description: This variable indexes the percentage of nationally protected marine territory, staging a juridico-ecological measure of sanctuary and care within oceanic space. This data reframes sovereignty and stewardship beyond terrestrial property regimes, signaling where political will and ecological precaution translate into legal space for non-human marine flourishing.

pollen — AGGREGATE AIRBORNE POLLEN LOAD

What it does: The code requests hourly pollen indices for a set of taxa (alder, birch, grass, mugwort, olive, ragweed) from Open-Meteo. It sums the values for the current hour and maps the total to the particle scale.

How location is fetched: The first attempt uses getLandBiasedCoordinates(). On retry, it selects a location from a curated list of seasonal hotspots based on the current month to align with its high season. This ensures a meaningful signal is likely to be found year-round.

Curated list of hotspots:

Northern Hemisphere (March-August):

• Austin, Texas, USA (lat: 30.3, lon: -97.7): Notorious for its intense winter/spring pollen seasons, especially from Ashe juniper ("cedar fever") and oak.
• Charlotte, North Carolina, USA (lat: 35.2, lon: -80.8): Consistently ranked as a top US "allergy capital" due to high concentrations of tree pollen (oak, pine) and grass pollen.
• Atlanta, Georgia, USA (lat: 33.7, lon: -84.4): Famous for its dramatic spring pollen season, where thick yellow dust from pine and oak trees covers the city.
• Chicago, Illinois, USA (lat: 41.9, lon: -87.6): Represents a major northern city with significant tree pollen in the spring and a strong ragweed season in the late summer.
• New York City, New York, USA (lat: 40.7, lon: -74.0): An urban hotspot where high concentrations of tree pollen (birch, oak, maple) become trapped between buildings.

Southern Hemisphere (September-February):

• Sydney, Australia (lat: -33.9, lon: 151.2): Known for high grass pollen counts during its spring and summer, a major trigger for hay fever and asthma.
• Melbourne, Australia (lat: -37.8, lon: 144.9): Famous for "thunderstorm asthma" events, where high grass pollen counts combine with specific weather conditions to create severe respiratory risks.
• Buenos Aires, Argentina (lat: -34.6, lon: -58.4): A major South American city with significant pollen from plane trees, grasses, and other vegetation.
• Auckland, New Zealand (lat: -36.8, lon: 174.8): Experiences high pollen counts from pine trees (a major commercial species) as well as native and introduced grasses.
• São Paulo, Brazil (lat: -23.5, lon: -46.6): A megacity whose pollen load is influenced by a mix of tropical and subtropical vegetation, including grasses and flowering trees.

Source of the data: Open-Meteo Air-Quality API

API or JSON: API

Description: Pollen counts track reproductive signals across plant species, revealing seasonal pulses of ecological exchange. This data was embedded to signal lifecycles into the generative fabric and transform allergens into a visual register of floral abundance and dispersal.

pollinators — LOCAL POLLINATOR DIVERSITY

What it does: Queries the iNaturalist API for recent observations of key pollinator taxa (bees, butterflies, moths, etc.) within a 5km radius of a point. To ensure a true biodiversity metric, it counts the number of unique species observed, not just the total number of observations.

How location is fetched: The first attempt uses getLandBiasedCoordinates(). On retry, it queries a location from a curated list of known pollinator hotspots.

Curated list of hotspots:

Tropical & Subtropical Biodiversity Hotspots:

• Monteverde, Costa Rica (lat: 9.7, lon: -83.9): A neotropical cloud forest, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, famous for its thousands of insect species, hummingbirds, and orchid bees.
• Taman Negara, Malaysia (lat: 3.5, lon: 101.2): One of the world's oldest rainforests, home to a mega-diversity of bees (giant, carpenter, stingless) and butterflies.
• Xishuangbanna, China (lat: 25.0, lon: 102.7): A tropical region in Yunnan province known for its high richness of butterfly and stingless bee species.

Mediterranean & Temperate Wildflower Hotspots:

• Tuscany, Italy (lat: 43.8, lon: 10.6): A classic Mediterranean agricultural landscape where wild bees and hoverflies are essential for pollinating the meadows, lavender, and thyme that define the region.
• Constantine Plains, Algeria (lat: 36.9, lon: 4.7): Represents a North African ecosystem with strong seasonal pulses of wildflowers that support diverse populations of wild bees and syrphid flies.
• South Downs, UK (lat: 51.2, lon: 0.4): A unique chalk grassland habitat in England that is a hotspot for rare and specialist bumblebees and butterflies adapted to the calcareous soil.

Agricultural & Orchard Zones:

• Central Valley, California, USA (lat: 38.4, lon: -121.5): The site of the world's largest managed pollination event, where billions of honeybees are transported annually to pollinate almond orchards.
• Drôme, France (lat: 44.5, lon: 4.9): Famous for its vast lavender fields, which support a high abundance of both managed honeybees and diverse wild pollinators.
• Bali Rice Terraces, Indonesia (lat: -8.1, lon: 115.2): Represents an ancient agro-ecosystem where pollinators thrive in the wetland and forest edges bordering the rice paddies.

Northern/Boreal Edges & Island Endemics:

• Finnish Archipelago (lat: 60.4, lon: 25.0): A unique Baltic Sea environment that hosts specialized populations of hoverflies and solitary bees adapted to the short northern summers.
• Andean Yungas, Peru (lat: -13.2, lon: -72.5): High-altitude cloud forests on the eastern slopes of the Andes, home to unique species like orchid bees.
• Malé Atoll, Maldives (lat: 4.2, lon: 73.5): Represents a fragile island ecosystem where moths and native bees are critical for pollinating the limited terrestrial flora.

Known Decline / At-Risk Zones:

• Dutch Farmland, Netherlands (lat: 52.5, lon: 4.8): A region where intensive agriculture has led to well-documented, severe declines in wild bee and bumblebee populations, representing a hotspot of ecological stress.
• Worcester County, MA, USA (lat: 42.3, lon: -71.1): The site of historical studies that have documented significant drops in native wild bee populations over the last century.
• Melbourne Plains, Australia (lat: -37.8, lon: 144.9): An urban area where habitat loss and "thunderstorm asthma" events (linked to pollen) highlight the pressures on local pollinator ecosystems.

Source of the data: iNaturalist API

API or JSON: API

Description: Pollinator biodiversity reflects the health of trophic networks and the resilience of flowering ecosystems. This dataset enacts a multispecies politics that foregrounds mutualism, capturing the ecological work that underpins food webs and cultural landscapes alike.

animals — ANIMAL OCCURRENCES DENSITY (GBIF)

What it does: Queries the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) for up to 50 occurrences of any species in the Animalia kingdom within a square-degree bounding box (approx. 111x111 km at the equator). The number of results found is used as a proxy for regional biodiversity density.

How location is fetched: The first attempt uses getLandBiasedCoordinates(). If this returns zero results, a second attempt is made using a location from a curated list of global biodiversity hotspots to ensure a signal is found. The list is based on scientifically recognized global biodiversity hotspots, chosen to represent a vast range of the planet's most critical and species-rich ecosystems.

Curated list of hotspots:

Marine Hotspots:

• Coral Triangle (Raja Ampat), Indonesia (lat: -0.2, lon: 130.5): The global epicenter of marine biodiversity. This area has the highest diversity of coral reef fish, corals, and marine life on Earth, making it a top priority for marine conservation.
• Christmas Island, Australia (lat: -12.0, lon: 96.8): An isolated tropical island in the Indian Ocean, famous for its annual red crab migration and unique marine life, including whale sharks, that gather in its deep offshore waters.
• Hawaiian Islands, USA (lat: 21.3, lon: -157.8): The most isolated island archipelago on Earth, leading to extreme rates of endemism: species of fish, birds, insects, and snails found nowhere else.
• Great Barrier Reef, Australia (lat: -18.3, lon: 147.0): The world's largest coral reef system, a UNESCO World Heritage site composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands, representing a massive reservoir of marine biodiversity.

Tropical Forest Hotspots:

• Central Borneo (lat: 0.5, lon: 114.0): Represents the heart of one of the world's oldest rainforests, habitat of iconic and endangered species like orangutans, pygmy elephants, and Sumatran rhinos.
• Amazon Basin, Brazil (lat: -3.4, lon: -62.2): The world's largest tropical rainforest, unmatched in its scale and species richness. It plays a vital role in global climate regulation and is home to millions of species.
• New Guinea Highlands (lat: -6.0, lon: 143.0): The mountainous spine of New Guinea contains high-altitude tropical forests with exceptional levels of endemism, particularly famous for its incredible diversity of birds-of-paradise.
• Manu National Park, Andes/Amazon, Peru (lat: -12.3, lon: -71.6): A site of legendary biodiversity, spanning from high-altitude Andean cloud forests to lowland Amazonian rainforest. This altitudinal gradient creates an extraordinary number of distinct habitats in a small area.
• Taman Negara, Malaysia (lat: 3.4, lon: 101.7): One of the oldest deciduous rainforests on Earth (over 130 million years old), allowing for a long, uninterrupted history of evolution and speciation.
• Western Ghats, India (lat: 10.4, lon: 75.7): A mountain range running parallel to India's western coast that creates a unique monsoon-driven ecosystem. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site recognized for its extremely high levels of biodiversity and endemism.
• Bali Barat National Park, Indonesia (lat: -8.8, lon: 115.2): Represents the unique Wallacea transition zone, where the fauna of Asia and Australasia meet, resulting in a distinct and diverse mix of species.

Endemic Island Hotspots:

• Madagascar (lat: -18.7, lon: 47.5): A classic example of island biogeography, having been isolated for 88 million years. Over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth, including all native lemur species.
• Cape Floristic Region, South Africa (lat: -34.0, lon: 18.4): The smallest of the world's six floral kingdoms, but the richest per unit of area. It is a global hotspot of plant diversity, particularly the "fynbos" biome, which also supports unique animal life.
• Galápagos Islands, Ecuador (lat: -0.7, lon: -90.3): A volcanic archipelago whose isolation was fundamental to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Famous for its unique wildlife, such as marine iguanas and giant tortoises.

Wetlands and Savanna Hotspots:

• Sundarbans, Bangladesh/India (lat: 21.9, lon: 89.1): The world's largest contiguous mangrove forest, a critical habitat for the Bengal tiger and a vital natural barrier against coastal storm surges.
• Pantanal, Brazil (lat: -16.5, lon: -56.0): The world's largest tropical wetland, a seasonally flooded plain that supports an immense concentration of wildlife, including one of the highest densities of jaguars.
• Okavango Delta, Botswana (lat: -19.5, lon: 23.5): A unique inland delta where the Okavango River flows into the Kalahari Desert, creating a lush, life-giving oasis that supports a massive diversity of African wildlife.
• Kenya Savanna (lat: 1.0, lon: 35.0): Represents the archetypal East African savanna ecosystem, famous for its vast herds of grazing mammals and the iconic Great Migration.

Temperate and Alpine Hotspots:

• Dolomites, Italy (lat: 45.3, lon: 12.3): A UNESCO World Heritage mountain range in the Alps, representing a unique alpine ecosystem with flora and fauna adapted to high-altitude limestone environments.
• Redwood National Park, USA (lat: 40.8, lon: -124.2): A temperate rainforest ecosystem defined by the presence of the tallest trees on Earth, creating a unique habitat for a variety of forest-dwelling species.

Source of the data: GBIF API

API or JSON: API

Description: Animal occurrence data indexes the living presence of nonhuman beings. It signifies a biogeography that indexes cohabitation, habitat integrity, and the distributional consequences of human activity.

microorganisms — MICROORGANISM OCCURRENCE DENSITY (GBIF)

What it does: For each query, the organism randomly selects one microbial kingdom (from Bacteria, Archaea, Protozoa, Chromista, or Viruses) and queries the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) for up to 50 occurrences within a square-degree bounding box. The number of results is used as a proxy for regional microbial biodiversity.

How location is fetched: The first attempt uses getLandBiasedCoordinates(). On retry, it queries a random location from the master biodiversityHotspots list (see the animals stream for the full, detailed list and reasoning).

Source of the data: GBIF Occurrence API

API or JSON: API

Description: Microbial life is the substrate of planetary metabolism. Surfacing microbial presence acknowledges nonhuman scales of agency and folds the unseen labor of decomposition, fixation, and exchange into the symbiont's sensorium.

fungi — FUNGI OCCURRENCE DENSITY (GBIF)

What it does: Queries GBIF for occurrences of species in the Fungi kingdom within a square-degree bounding box. The number of results is used as a proxy for fungal biodiversity.

How location is fetched: The first attempt uses getLandBiasedCoordinates(). On retry, it queries a random location from the master biodiversityHotspots list (see animals stream for the full list and reasoning).

Source of the data: GBIF Occurrence API

API or JSON: API

Description: Fungal biodiversity represents mycelial networks as ecological infrastructure: decomposers, communicators, and architects of soil and forest health.

plants — PLANT OCCURRENCE DENSITY (GBIF)

What it does: Queries GBIF for occurrences of species in the Plantae kingdom within a square-degree bounding box. The number of results is used as a proxy for floral biodiversity.

How location is fetched: The first attempt uses getLandBiasedCoordinates(). On retry, it queries a random location from the master biodiversityHotspots list (see animals stream for the full list and reasoning).

Source of the data: GBIF Occurrence API

API or JSON: API

Description: Plants are primary producers and timekeepers of seasons, the photosynthetic engines of the biosphere whose presence structures entire ecosystems.

endangered — THREATENED SPECIES COUNT

What it does: Pulls a random country's data from the local JSON file. The value, which represents the total number of known threatened (vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered) species in that nation, is mapped to the particle scale.

How location is fetched: A random country is selected from the pre-compiled list in the local JSON file.

Source of the data: The data is from the World Bank (indicator EN.HPT.THRD.NO), which aggregates data from the IUCN Red List. This curated list is compiled by the bundler script and stored in the local all-static-data.json file.

API or JSON: JSON

Description: Endangerment indexes systemic fragility, mapping the edges of survival within anthropogenic change. Each species represents an irreversible temporal rupture: evolutionary lineages millions of years in the making vanishing in decades underscoring the urgency and ethical weight of extinction.

forest — FOREST COVER PERCENTAGE

What it does: Selects a country’s forest cover percentage from the local JSON file and maps it to the particle scale with rawMax: 100.

How location is fetched: A random country is selected from the pre-compiled list.

Source of the data: The data is from the World Bank (indicator AG.LND.FRST.ZS), which aggregates data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This curated list is compiled by the script and stored in the local all-static-data.json file.

API or JSON: JSON

Description: Forest cover is a multilayered proxy for carbon sequestration potential, habitat integrity, and culturally embedded landscapes. It indexes ecological health and governance choices that protect or expose biomes. Forest cover is a living infrastructure that functions as a site of cultural knowledge and contestation—from indigenous stewardship to extractive clearing.