Species Occurrence Data for the Nation

USGS Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (BISON)—A Unique, Web-Based 

Federal Mapping Resource for Species Occurrence Data in the United States and 

its Territories

BISON’s size is unprecedented, including records for most living species found in the United States 

(ITIS, 2019) and encompassing the efforts of more than a million professional and citizen scientists. 

Most of BISON’s species occurrence records are specific locations, not just county or State records 

(BISON, 2019).

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) 

is a native tree whose important 

medicinal properties have 

caused it to be extirpated from 

Wisconsin, which is the edge of 

its natural range (USGS, 2019).

Web Interface

Users may query BISON 

(https://bison.usgs.gov) by scientific or 

common name, and then refine their search 

results by choosing one or more criteria, 

including basis of record (such as observation or specimen), provider or resource 

name, location, higher taxa, year range, 

marine exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and 

centroid inclusion/exclusion.

BISON also provides a refined search 

option for querying the database by selecting a county or State, or by drawing an 

exact boundary around an area of interest 

on the map such as protected areas, villages, 

or even much smaller areas. For instance, 

BISON maps more than 666,000 occurrences in New York 

City’s Central Park alone, with detailed information available 

for each species record.

Species occurrence data are displayed in BISON on an 

interactive map (with heat map or points layer options), or 

in checklist format. Mapped search results may be displayed 

on any of 50 available map layers. Users can download their 

search results in zipped text (.csv), Google Earth KML, or 

shapefile formats.

Distribution of a cold-loving tree species, mountain maple (Acer 

spicatum), shows point occurrences in BISON as they relate to mean 

annual temperature in the eastern United States (BISON, 2019).

“[BISON] is single handedly 

making my thesis research 

possible.”

Nathan Sutton, MS candidate, 

University of Tennessee (2013)

“Systems like BISON help us 

meet our mission responsibility to 

disseminate to the public USGS 

information and data.”

Donna N. Myers, U.S. Geological 

Survey, Chief of Office of Water 

Quality (2015)

Web Services

In addition to the website, 

BISON has numerous web services 

(https://bison.usgs.gov/#api): the Application Programming Interface provides access 

to the BISON system for web developers; a 

Web Map Service delivers maps remotely; 

a REST (REpresentational State Transfer) 

service generates links to individual species 

searches in BISON; and a direct interface to 

the BISON Solr index (a stand-alone enterprise search server) returns query results 

in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON or 

JSONP). This allows users to link analytical 

software and websites directly to BISON 

and use the power of the large BISON 

search platform to run their own complex analyses or even to 

generate unique custom websites powered by BISON.

Taxonomy

BISON uses standardized scientific names for searching 

on the web site and a hierarchy and synonymy supplied by 

the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS, 2019). 

For example, users can search for an exact name match to see 

occurrences only identified as genus Poa, or (with an ITISassisted search) choose to include all taxonomic children 

and synonyms (and see records for all of the species, subspecies, and varieties of Poa, along with all of their synonyms). 

Names not in ITIS can be searched only as exact matches, 

but 95 percent of the taxa represented in BISON are found 

in ITIS. BISON also offers an ITIS Enabled Common Name 

Search option.

The black swallowtail 

(Papilio polyxenes)

is a butterfly found 

throughout much of 

North America where 

it overwinters as a 

chrysalis (USGS, 2019).

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Fact Sheet 2015–3068

ver. 1.1, May 2019
National and International 

Partnerships

By agreement with the National Science 

Foundation (NSF), BISON serves as the Federal counterpart to iDigBio (iDigBio, 2019), 

which is part of the NSF-funded Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections 

(ADBC) program (Hanken, 2013). BISON 

has also partnered with members of the North 

American Invasive Species Management Association in the 

development of the updated NAISMA invasive species mapping 

standards (NAISMA, 2018).

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, 

https://www.gbif.org) is an organization dedicated to facilitating free and open access to biodiversity data worldwide. The 

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) administers the U.S. Node 

of GBIF, and is responsible for encouraging and facilitating 

U.S. data contributions to GBIF. BISON, by making species 

occurrence data more broadly accessible and available (in general 

and to GBIF), helps the USGS fulfill this role.

Geographic and Temporal Scope

Geographic.—BISON provides access to species occurrence 

data recorded or collected at locations within the coastal boundaries of the United States and its Territories, U.S. Marine Exclusive 

Economic Zones, and Canada. Some of these data, however, are 

contributed by data providers who are not themselves located in 

the United States or its Territories, or Canada.

It is important to note that the absence of data for any species 

in BISON does not prove or indicate the absence of that species 

from North America. Data available through BISON should not 

be considered comprehensive in terms of species’ taxonomic or 

geographic ranges or distributions.

Temporal.—BISON provides access to species occurrence 

data from any time period that can be represented with a four 

digit year (YYYY), which is BISON’s minimum requirement 

for a species occurrence date on which a species’ presence was 

observed, recorded, or collected. BISON does not currently 

(2019) accommodate geologic time units, but BISON does 

provide access to species occurrence data that are based on fossil 

evidence (with date of collection or observation).

Data Fields

BISON requires only a minimum of four basic species occurrence data fields that are common to most species research datasets: (1) scientific name; (2) occurrence date (ISO–8601 standard 

format YYYY-MM-DD preferred); (3) latitude and longitude 

coordinates (point or centroid, preferably decimal degrees), or 

State name (or FIPS 5–2 standard) and county name (or FIPS 6–4 

standard), or other geographic location name reference (national 

park name, wildlife refuge name, and so on); and (4) collector. But BISON also currently (2019) accommodates and serves 

Osage orange (Maclura 

pomifera) is a small tree 

native to the southeast 

and popularly used as 

fence rows throughout 

much of the United 

States. The tree is in 

the mulberry family, not 

related to oranges 

(USGS, 2019).

BISON Statistics (June 2019)

• Total records: 464 million

• Georeferenced: 433 million

• Data providers: 482

• Resources (datasets): 2,730

48 provided or verbatim (original, uncorrected) and calculated (standardized, cleaned) 

data fields. The internationally developed 

Darwin Core Standard (Wieczorek and others, 

2012) provides the basis for the fields displayed in BISON.

BISON adds value to original, raw datasets 

by retaining original data field contents, and 

adding standardized, cleaned data fields. For 

example, the establishment_means field indicates taxa that are non-native in the conterminous United States, 

Alaska, and (or) Hawaii. Important information about a species’ native status is not always included in original occurrence 

records. This value-added field informs species’ early detection 

and rapid response actions. This homogeneous collection of fields 

is available in all BISON records, greatly facilitating indexing 

and analysis.

Becoming a Data Provider

If you wish to become a BISON data provider and make your 

data more broadly available through BISON (and optionally 

GBIF), please email bison@usgs.gov. As a product developed 

and supported by the Science Analytics and Synthesis Program of 

the USGS, the BISON project prioritizes acquisition and processing of datasets from USGS Science Centers, other agencies of 

the Department of the Interior, and other U.S. Federal and State 

agencies; followed by institutions, organizations, and individual 

researchers. BISON also seeks datasets with occurrence records 

specifically for invasive species or pollinators.

References Cited

BISON, 2019, Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation: accessed April 29, 

2019, at https://bison.usgs.gov. 

Hanken, J., 2013, Biodiversity Online—Toward a network integrated biocollections alliance: Bioscience, v. 63, no. 10, p. 789–790, accessed April 29, 2019, at 

https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2013.63.10.4. 

iDigBio, 2019, Integrated Digitized Biocollections: accessed April 29, 2019, at 

https://www.idigbio.org. 

ITIS, 2019, Integrated Taxonomic Information System: accessed April 29, 2019, 

at https://www.itis.gov. 

North American Invasive Species Management Association [NAISMA], 

2018, Mapping standards for program managers: North American Invasive Species Management Association, 34 p., accessed May 9, 2019, at 

https://www.naisma.org/images/mappingstandardsfinal.pdf.

U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2019, USGS BISON Team—Species 

recognizable in images and video, biodiversity information serving our 

Nation: accessed April 29, 2019, at https://bison.usgs.gov/?providerID=

440&resourceID=100026.

Western Governors’ Association, 2018, Invasive species data findings and 

recommendations: Western Governors’ Association, accessed April 29, 2019, 

at https://westgov.org/images/editor/WGA_Invasive_Species_Data_Findings_

And_Recommendations.pdf. 

Wieczorek, J., Bloom, D., Guralnick, R., Blum, S., Döring M., Giovanni, R., Robertson, T., and Vieglais, D., 2012, Darwin core—An evolving community-developed biodiversity data standard: PLoS ONE, v. 7, no. 10, accessed April 29, 

2019, at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029715. 

For more information, please contact:

bison@usgs.gov

Gerald Guala, Branch Chief, 

EcoScience Synthesis

Director of BISON and ITIS

Core Science Systems 

Mission Area

U.S. Geological Survey

12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, 

Mailstop 302

Reston, Virginia 20192 USA

Phone: 703-648-4311

ISSN 2327-6916 (print) ISSN 2327-6932 (online) https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20153068