1. Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation: 140+ million mapped species occurrences, 50+ map layers, includes ITIS-enabled search BISON: A national unified resource for discovery, linkage and reuse of species occurrence data.
Annie Simpson, Elizabeth Martin, & Elizabeth Sellers
U.S. Geological Survey; Core Science Analytics, Synthesis, & Libraries (CSASL) Program
Core Science Systems (CSS) Mission Area
15-August-2014

2. The BISON system Developed by the U.S. Geological Survey
Core Science Analytics, Synthesis, & Libraries (CSASL) Program
A species occurrence data aggregator providing 140+M species occurrence records for the U.S. and Territories including:
Almost every US species (animals, plants, fungi)
Various data types: observation-based, natural history collections (specimen-based), and literature-based
Federal and non-federal data
BISON is a species mapping application that aggregates more than 140 million occurrence records for taxa, and still growing. Our content covers all taxonomic groups, terrestrial and aquatic, and several different data types, from observations to museum specimens and literature based information. Although we contain federal and non-federal data, our priorities for new datasets are those created with federal funding and specialty data such as yours, for invasive species, and also for pollinator species.
BISON includes data for more than 95% of known US species – smaller organisms are not as well represented.

3. BISON Goals
Increase Data Accessibility, Exposure, Discoverability, and Quality
Data Mobilization through integration and application of standards, open data technologies, machine readable access
Our goals are simple.

4. What’s new in BISON?
Search is now more than “exact match” of a name, so taxon groups can be searched, including synonyms
Uses powerful name resolution ability of the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS)
We do have some new functionality in BISON.

5. Interface
Our current Graphic User Interface often enables the user to detect patterns and relationships among species and ancillary information. In this case, the graphic shows our home page’s default all species search result with a heat layer map -- California having the most results of any state – and also the different types of map layers that can be selected to be displayed with your search results.
Combine specimen and observation data with other data layers to detect relationships and patterns.

6. Search example – Acer spicatum & MAT
Heat intolerant tree species distribution follows mountain ridge.
190 mountain maple occurrences & mean annual temperature
If you search in BISON for Acer spicatum (mountain maple), and select the mean annual daily temperature layer from the map layer option, you will see how mountain maple prefers cooler climes, here following pretty closely along the ridge of the Great Smokey Mountains.

7. Search for Rudbeckia hirta in BISON
Photo by Brynn
ITIS-lookup enabled (732 points)
Exact name match (339 points)
you can see that the ITIS-enabled search (on the left) that there are xx more results
This is because Rudbeckia hirta has had other recognized names in the past that are included in the ITIS-enabled search. The results on the right are from an exact match name search.
This flexibility in search technique can be very valuable to BISON users.

8. Search example – Chiroptera
Chiroptera in CA =
4,939 georeferenced records
Chiroptera in CA (exact name match)
24 georeferenced records
Ecosystems layer from GEOSS
ITIS’ taxonomic lookup functionality allows BISON users to search for larger groups and to include all their children. The larger image is an ITIS enabled search for Chiroptera (bats), in California. It is displayed over an Ecosystems type layer provided by the Group on Earth Observations’ System of Systems, or GEOSS. That same layer is provided in the smaller image at the top right, which is the search result from BISON using an exact name match search for Chiroptera, which provides only 24 results for California.

9. What else is new in BISON?
40+ data fields now supported, including several verbatim from provider
Support for voucher images, video, audio files, reference URLs
So what else is new in BISON since last year?

10. Additional data fields are welcome/encouraged
Darwin Core standard fields desirable
Minimum fields necessary for new datasets to be successfully added into BISON
Field
provider - resource
scientific_name
decimal_latitude / decimal_longitude (or a place name e.g. state, county…)
occurrence_date
Who -
What -
Where -
When -
The minimum information required to share your data with us is small: who you are, scientific name, where the organism was seen or collected, and when. In addition to our emphasis on including federal species datasets, we accept most all US invasive species and pollinator occurrence datasets. Please see me during the break if you have any data you would like to share with us.
Additional data fields are welcome/encouraged

11. BISON fields (43) BISON FIELD NAME valid_accepted_scientific_name
calculated_county_name
valid_accepted_tsn
calculated_fips
itis_common_name
calculated_state_name
basis_of_record
centroid
occurrence_date
provided_county_name
year
provided_fips
provider
provided_state_name
provider_url
thumb_url
resource
associated_media
resource_url
associated_references
occurrence_url
general_comments
catalog_number id
collector
provider_id
collector_number
resource_id
clean_provided_scientific_name
provided_common_name
itis_tsn
provided_kingdom
provided_scientific_name
calculated_tsn
provided_tsn
geodetic_datum
latitude
coordinate_precision
longitude
coordinate_uncertainty
verbatim_elevation
verbatim_locality
verbatim_depth
iso_country_code
The number of fields in BISON has increased from 17 to 43.

12. Darwin Core Fields (148)
occurrenceID
associatedSequences
locationAccordingTo
identificationID
type
associatedTaxa
locationRemarks
identifiedBy
modified
eventID
verbatimCoordinates
dateIdentified
language
samplingProtocol
verbatimLatitude
identificationReferences
rights
samplingEffort
verbatimLongitude
identificationRemarks
rightsHolder
eventDate
verbatimCoordinateSystem
identificationQualifier
accessRights
eventTime
verbatimSRS
typeStatus
bibliographicCitation
startDayOfYear
decimalLatitude
taxonID
institutionID
endDayOfYear
decimalLongitude
scientificNameID
collectionID
year
geodeticDatum
acceptedNameUsageID
datasetID
month
coordinateUncertaintyInMeters
parentNameUsageID
institutionCode
day
coordinatePrecision
originalNameUsageID
collectionCode
verbatimEventDate
pointRadiusSpatialFit
nameAccordingToID
datasetName
habitat
footprintWKT
namePublishedInID
ownerInstitutionCode
fieldNumber
footprintSRS
taxonConceptID
basisOfRecord
fieldNotes
footprintSpatialFit
scientificName
informationWithheld
eventRemarks
georeferencedBy
acceptedNameUsage
dataGeneralizations
locationID
georeferenceProtocol
parentNameUsage
dynamicProperties
higherGeographyID
georeferenceSources
originalNameUsage
catalogNumber
higherGeography
georeferenceVerificationStatus
nameAccordingTo
occurrenceDetails
continent
georeferenceRemarks
namePublishedIn
occurrenceRemarks
waterBody
geologicalContextID
higherClassification
recordNumber
islandGroup
earliestEonOrLowestEonothem
kingdom
recordedBy
island
latestEonOrHighestEonothem
phylum
individualID
country
earliestEraOrLowestErathem
class
individualCount
countryCode
latestEraOrHighestErathem
order
sex
stateProvince
earliestPeriodOrLowestSystem
family
lifeStage
county
latestPeriodOrHighestSystem
genus
reproductiveCondition
municipality
earliestEpochOrLowestSeries
subgenus
behavior
locality
latestEpochOrHighestSeries
specificEpithet
establishmentMeans
verbatimLocality
earliestAgeOrLowestStage
infraspecificEpithet
occurrenceStatus
verbatimElevation
latestAgeOrHighestStage
taxonRank
preparations
minimumElevationInMeters
lowestBiostratigraphicZone
verbatimTaxonRank
disposition
maximumElevationInMeters
highestBiostratigraphicZone
scientificNameAuthorship
otherCatalogNumbers
verbatimDepth
lithostratigraphicTerms
vernacularName
previousIdentifications
minimumDepthInMeters
group
nomenclaturalCode
associatedMedia
maximumDepthInMeters
formation
taxonomicStatus
associatedReferences
minimumDistanceAboveSurfaceInMeters
member
nomenclaturalStatus
associatedOccurrences
maximumDistanceAboveSurfaceInMeters
bed
taxonRemarks
And datasets that are more complex and compatible with the Darwin Core standard will be accepted and stored with up to 148 fields of information.

13. BISON Associated Media
With our expanded fields, we now support media files at the record level, including Thumbnails for images that can either point to an onsite repository or to a provided URL. Especially with citizen science projects, we have found that including an image within a record gives the dataset much greater credibility and usefulness. We also now are able to include sound and video recordings.

14. USGS GeoPlatform
A National and Federal focal point where governmental, non-governmental, private, 
and public data and applications can be visualized together to inform and address national and regional issues
In the field of data sharing there is often frustration in the adoption of parallel and incompatible standards, such as different map projections. The USGS GeoPlatform is a National and Federal focal point where governmental, non-governmental, private, 
and public data and applications can be visualized together to inform and address national and regional issues. It provides a powerful framework for comparing disparate datasets.
I wanted to point out that BISON is available in GeoPlatform, and we are working on several more projects to make our content even more accessible and interoperable through its infrastructure.
As a result we are examining how we can combine BISON data with CropScape data using GeoPlatform infrastructure. With a little work and technical expertise, by the end of this year this will lead to much better modeling capability through mashups of different federal datasets of disparate data types.
GeoPlatform.gov Conceptual Model

15. BISON Data Workflow Products
Final Package – original dataset + BISON (enhanced) dataset + metadata record (linked and archived) + ReadMe file (record of BISON data modifications)
Standardized data – Darwin Core format, Scientific Name mapping to ITIS, FIPS Code location references
Data updates – ongoing for living datasets
Data Quality – improvement reports/recommendations sent to Data Provider
Web and Web Services access – inc. mapping and visualization, and integration with other data layers
Multi-format data download – .csv, .kml, .zip
Machine access – via API
BISON products include a series of standardized data and metadata files for both sharing and storage.
We accept updates, perform QA/QC, and provide Web services to aggregated datasets.
Information is both displayed visually and available for download in various formats, and is machine accessible via our API.

16. BISON & ESA How can BISON help ecologists?
“Submit-a-dataset”
Smarter search including synonyms and children; search for host species and species groups
Post BISON API search results on your Web pages as canned search results
Use BISON data or visualizations in your publications
I would like to briefly describe four ways you can use BISON in your work.
If you are a BISON data provider we have an assortment of widgets that can be used by simply copy/pasting code so you can show your own data on your websites.

17. 1. Submit a dataset to BISON
[this is you]
BISON
GBIF
(US)
(Global)
QA/QC
All Data
All Data
US Data
Consumer
Access
Consumer Access via Web Services & Web
Machine
Access
BISON API
Consumer
Access
More and more research grants are requiring a data management plan as an integral requirement for funding. BISON offers you a place to put your species occurrence data, and a conduit to inclusion in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. This is a simple schematic to show you how this can be accomplished.

18. Future Attractions Addition of non-native status tags to species
Automated species lists by protected area (e.g. refuge or park)
In the near future, BISON will be able to accept media files at the record level.
We are undertaking an interface redesign to make the web interface more user friendly.
We will be tagging records as to their native/nonnative status.
We will be able to offer an automated species list functionality for areas designated by the user.

19. Data Retrieval and Download
Again, briefly, in summary:
BISON is a mapping application for occurrence data, with more than 137 million records – and we would like to include yours.
Search has been improved to assist the user in dealing with synonyms (naming errors), and larger taxonomic groups.
Images and other media can be added to submitted datasets at the record level.
Let’s talk about how I can help you fulfill your occurrence data management requirements.

20. For questions, additional information: bison@usgs.gov
Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (BISON):
For questions, additional information:
BISON Team
Elizabeth Martin – elizabeth_martin
Elizabeth Sellers – esellers
Annie Simpson - asimpson
Gerald (Stinger) Guala [Director] - gguala
Derek Masaki - dmasaki
Here are the names and contact information for all the members of the BISON data team. Thank you.