Case Study: Map of Life achieves scalable, rapid biodiversity analysis for conservation with Google Cloud Platform

Map of Life Preserving biodiversity with data

Map of Life, a collaboration led by Yale and the University of Florida, aggregates global species-distribution data to support biodiversity education, research, monitoring, and conservation decision-making. Facing accelerating threats to ecosystems and a patchwork of data sources, the project needed a scalable way to integrate, analyze, and visualize disparate records so scientists, managers, and the public could identify where interventions are most needed.

Using Google Cloud Platform and Google Earth Engine, Map of Life stores and processes over 600 million records covering 44,000+ species, running fast, large-scale analyses (queries on 600M records in under a minute), on-demand mapping, and visualization tools for researchers and park managers. The result: faster, evidence-based assessments of at-risk species, tools used by 100,000+ people, and scalable dashboards that inform conservation policy and local management across regions such as South America.

Map of Life

Jeremy Malczyk

Lead Software Engineer