GBIF-US is the US node for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). GBIF-US is responsible for coordinating GBIF-related activities within the US, and is guided by the delegation and community. Funding for GBIF-US comes from the National Science Foundation.

This website, gbif.us, serves as a national data portal serves as an access point to U.S. species occurrence data contributed to GBIF.

What role does USGS play?

The Science Analytics and Synthesis Program (SAS) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) manages GBIF-US to facilitate access to species occurrence data. In addition to this national portal, USGS SAS also manages an Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) instance to faciliate publication of data to GBIF. The Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (BISON) project provided the foundation for the current implementation of GBIF-US.

What are species occurrence data?

Species occurrence data are records of an organism at a particular time in a particular place, and are primary or ancillary evidence for many biological field investigations. Records may describe presence, absence, or abundance (with any unit of quantity) and support analyses and investigations of species trends, drivers of change, and potential implications of future changes in biodiversity in the United States and U.S. Territories.