Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (BISON) now with more than 1/3 billion species occurrences

Abstract

Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (BISON) is a web-based resource (https://bison.usgs.gov) for finding and accessing occurrence records of species found in the United States (US), its Territories and marine Exclusive Economic Zones. BISON serves as a data aggregator that compiles and standardizes species occurrence data from multiple data providers, and now contains more than 1/3 billion species occurrences. BISON uses the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) to standardize species names in searches. It is also the US hub of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and obtains much of its data from that resource. BISON also enables access to numerous federal datasets such as the US Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis and the US Geological Survey's Bird Banding Lab. BISON accepts all US species occurrence datasets that are Darwin Core-compatible, but especially seeks to mobilize pollinator and invasive species occurrence datasets. Data from BISON can also be accessed via various map services, and the US National Parks Service's Species Checklists application is currently available in a development environment as an example of use of BISON web services.