Tutorials – The OBIS manual

Explore how to use OBIS data on a more efficient way with tutorials created by OBIS and partners. You can also contribute with tutorials following the guidelines available at our repository.

Don’t know where to start? We suggest reading the OBIS manual where you will find the most complete guide about how OBIS works and the different types of data available. Video tutorial playlists are also available from the YouTube logo OBIS YouTube channel. Some highlights from our How-To videos include:

How to construct eventIDs
How to create and format the Event, Occurrence, and eMoF tables
How to access data from OBIS using the Mapper or R
How to publish data to OBIS using the IPT
How to publish an OBIS dataset to GBIF
How to use the OBIS MapTool
A playlist dedicated to helping you find and select controlled vocabulary

Recent tutorials

Using DuckDB to query the OBIS occurrence dataset - Part 1

OBIS now has a occurrence dataset in GeoParquet format, but to work with large datasets you need the right tools. Here we explore how you can use DuckDB to (very) quickly retrieve data from this resource.

Sep 26, 2025

Using DuckDB to query the OBIS occurrence dataset - Part 2 (spatial extension)

Sep 26, 2025

Using DuckDB to query the OBIS occurrence dataset - Part 3 (`duckplyr` package)

Sep 26, 2025

Using the Parquet format with OBIS data

Working with large datasets can be hard due to memory constraints, but using Parquet files can make it possible.

Aug 1, 2023

Recent tutorials

Using DuckDB to query the OBIS occurrence dataset - Part 1

Using DuckDB to query the OBIS occurrence dataset - Part 2 (spatial extension)

Using DuckDB to query the OBIS occurrence dataset - Part 3 (duckplyr package)

Using the Parquet format with OBIS data

Using DuckDB to query the OBIS occurrence dataset - Part 3 (`duckplyr` package)