Observations Analysis

The observations analysis facility is provided through the NotebookLM app using the 'Data Table' function in its studio tab. The process is much the same as any 'AI' enquiry but the advantages of using the 'Data Table' are:

• The result is in a strict tabular form with rows and columns

• The table produced can be exported to Google Sheets (sorry! no Excel option by default)

• If the resulting table is not quite what you wanted you can copy the prompt, open a new enquiry, paste in the prompt and adjust the wording as necessary

In your prompt you need to specify what you want using the correct column names from the underlying database and these are explained in the next section so do take time to appraise that before you start.

The process of making an enquiry is quite straight forward:

• Click the link to the Notebook shown below  - note that this goes to a different knowledge base than the 'studio' link so that only the observation records are used in the search

• Once in the Notebook click on the 'Studio' tab

• Click on the pencil icon next to the 'Data table' tab

• When the dialogue box appear enter your prompt in the "What information do you want to extract?" area

• Click generate and wait a few seconds and your table of data will be returned. 

• Click on the table title to see the results

• Click 'Export to Sheets' if you want to download the results into a spreadhseet

Record structure:

Each observation has the following columns of data:

Species

• Common Name

• Specific Name

• Sort Code (sorting into a scientific sequence as opposed to alphabetical)

• Class (Tetrapod, arthropod, angiosperm or cryptogam)

• Order

Site

• Site

• Cluster (the biodiversity network it has been allocated to within the survey)

• Geology (the underlying geology)

• Habitat (the primary habitat classification)

Date

• Day

• Month (Note: format is nn-aaa - for example 06-Jun)

• Year

Observation

• Stage (adult, larva, plant, specimen, etc)

• Status (rare ---> abundant)

• Index (1 = rare ---> 7 abundant)

You can use any combination of species, site, date and observation that you desire but best to use just one parameter from each group and, of course, you do not need to use them all, you could omit date and observation if you just wanted a species list for a given site.

The simplest forms of enquiry would be:

• Create a list of all species recorded on [enter site]. Sort by sort code by specific name and show the common name, specific name, site and index

You might want to just have a species list for a site in a given month:

• Create a list of all species recorded on [enter site] during [enter month]. Sort by sort code by specific name and show the common name, specific name, site and index

Rather than just have records for a single site you might ask for a species list  for all sites within a cluster

• Create a list of all species recorded on [enter cluster] during [enter month]. Sort by sort code by specific name and show the common name, specific name, site and index

You can take this further to get a list of species of a certain order, diptera perhaps, in a specific general habitat, maybe woodland

• Create a list of all [enter order] recorded on [enter habitat] during. Sort by sort code by specific name and show the common name, specific name, site and index

You can, of course, switch the sequence of your search parameters, here you might produce a list of the  sites where lepidoptera were recorded for example:

• Create a list of all sites where [enter order} can be seen

The options are many and you can even try others if you wish to see what you get back!