Species Exposure Dashboard

A global interactive dashboard tracking how much of each species' geographic range has been exposed to extreme climate events—temperatures and precipitation outside the historical baseline.

Overview

This dashboard uses ERA5 reanalysis data to quantify species exposure to climate extremes across their entire geographic range. It provides insights into which species, regions, and climate variables are most affected by extreme conditions.

Explore the dashboard: Species Exposure Dashboard

What You Can Explore

• Species Explorer — Select any species to view its historical exposure time series, a polar summary of which climate variables have affected it most, and a map of its geographic range.

• Hotspot Explorer — Click any grid cell on the global map to see all species present there and how many are currently exposed to extreme conditions.

• Shiny App — For more flexible filtering and custom data exploration, download and run the full interactive Shiny app from github.com/SpeciesExposure/exposureApp.

Data & Methods

Climate Variables Tracked

Eight ERA5-derived extremes, covering both tails of temperature and precipitation at annual and seasonal timescales:

• High temperature (annual)
• Low temperature (annual)
• High temperature (warmest 3 months)
• Low temperature (coldest 3 months)
• High precipitation (annual)
• Low precipitation (annual)
• High precipitation (wettest 3 months)
• Low precipitation (driest 3 months)

Data Sources

• ERA5 Reanalysis (ECMWF) — Climate variables on a 0.25° global grid, 1940–present
• IUCN Red List — Species range polygons and conservation status

Spatial Resolution

0.25° (~28 km) global grid

Installation & Usage

Interactive Dashboard

The dashboard is hosted online and requires no installation:

1. Visit speciesexposure.github.io
2. Explore species and hotspots directly in your browser

Local Shiny App

For custom filtering and advanced analysis, install the interactive Shiny app:

install.packages(
  "https://github.com/SpeciesExposure/exposureApp/archive/refs/heads/main.tar.gz",
  repos = NULL,
  type = "source"
)

exposureApp::exposureApp()

Build Locally

To build the dashboard locally:

git clone <this-repo>
cd exposureWeb
Rscript build.R

Or render only (after caches/figures exist):

quarto render index.qmd

Requirements:

• Quarto
• R with packages: dplyr, ggplot2, plotly, leaflet, jsonlite, leaflet.extras, DT, terra

Species allowlist (GitHub Pages size)

The static site only includes species listed in config/species-allowlist.csv (column species). The build applies this filter in _R/db_01_prepare-data.R and prunes stale per-species maps/figures so they are not republished.

To change the set later:

1. Edit config/species-allowlist.csv (or replace it with a new CSV that has a species column; spaces or underscores are fine).
2. Rebuild with Rscript build.R.

Overrides:

SPECIES_ALLOWLIST=/path/to/other.csv Rscript build.R   # custom list
SPECIES_ALLOWLIST=off Rscript build.R                  # all species in source data
DEV_N_SPECIES=10 Rscript build.R                       # first N after allowlist (dev)

Project Structure

• index.qmd — Main dashboard definition (Quarto document)
• _R/ — R scripts for data processing and figure generation
• config/species-allowlist.csv — Species included in the static dashboard build
• data/ — Pre-computed cache files and source data
• _site/ — Built dashboard output

Related Projects

• SpeciesExposure/exposureApp — Interactive Shiny app for local filtering and analysis
• cmerow/2025_Exposure — Source code and documentation

License

See the LICENSE file in the repository.

Contact & Citation

For questions or citations, please refer to the GitHub organization.