[Pollinator] USGS Press Release: Discovering Species - Just a Click Away. The USGS makes finding the locations (and more) of U.S. species a lot easier...

Thu Apr 18 06:18:56 PDT 2013

Cheers, Liz

Elizabeth Sellers

Eco-Science Synthesis (ESS)
Core Science Analytics and Synthesis (CSAS)
United States Geological Survey (USGS)
12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Mail Stop 302
Reston, VA 20192  USA
Ph 703.648.4385 | Fax 703.648.4224 | esellers at usgs.gov

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LINK TO THE ACTUAL PRESS RELEASE ONLINE:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3566

Discovering Species - Just a Click Away
The USGS makes finding the locations (and more) of U.S. species a lot
easier with the new digital resource - BISON
Released: 4/18/2013 8:00:00 AM
Contact Information:
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communications and Publishing
12201 Sunrise Valley Dr, MS 119
Reston, VA 20192Dr. Gerald "Stinger"
Guala<https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=gguala@usgs.gov>
 [image: 1-click
interview]<http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/interview.asp?e=gguala%40usgs%2Egov&n=Dr%2E+Gerald+%22Stinger%22++%2BGuala>

Phone: 703-648-4311

Mike McDermott<https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=mmcdermo@usgs.gov>
 [image: 1-click
interview]<http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/interview.asp?e=mmcdermo%40usgs%2Egov&n=Mike%2BMcDermott>

Phone: 703-648-5771

Mark Newell, APR<https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=mnewell@usgs.gov>
 [image: 1-click
interview]<http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/interview.asp?e=mnewell%40usgs%2Egov&n=Mark%2BNewell%2C+APR>

Phone: 573-308-3850

Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation or
BISON<http://bison.usgs.ornl.gov/> is
the only system of its kind; a unique, web-based Federal resource for
finding species in the U. S. and territories.  Its size is unprecedented,
offering more than 100 million mapped records of nearly every living
species nationwide and growing. And the vast majority of the records are
specific locations, not just county or state records.

What’s more, BISON provides an "Area of Interest" search capability in
which users can query by drawing the exact boundary around their area of
interest, down to and including towns, villages, or even much smaller areas
such as parks. For instance, New York City's Central Park has more than
100,000 "species occurrences" recorded in BISON, with each species noted in
detail. Other BISON search options include querying the species by
scientific or common name, year range, state, county, basis of record, or
provider institution.

As for the results, BISON displays them in both an interactive map and a
list format. Users can click on each species occurrence point to retrieve
more information, such as the institution providing the data, the
collector, the date collected, and whether it was from a collection or an
observation.  Further, occurrences can be dynamically visualized with more
than 50 other layers of environmental information in the system. Extensive
web services are also available for direct connections to other systems.

"The USGS is proud to announce this monumental resource", said Kevin
Gallagher, Associate Director, Core Science
Systems<http://www.usgs.gov/core_science_systems/>,"
and this is a testament to the power of combining the efforts of  hundreds
of thousands of professional and citizen scientists into a resource that
uses Big Data and Open Data principles to deliver biodiversity information
for sustaining the Nation's environmental capital".

"BISON is destined to become an indispensable toolkit to manage species
occurrence data to support scientific, educational, and policy-making
activities in the US", Dr. Erick Mata, Executive Director of the Encyclopedia
of Life <http://eol.org/>explained.  "This is highly complementary and
synergistic with EOL's efforts to raise awareness and understanding of
living nature."

"With BISON, the USGS takes a big step toward making biodiversity data held
within Federal agencies easier to find and use", added Mary Klein,
President & CEO of NatureServe <http://www.natureserve.org/>. "I am
enthusiastic about future opportunities to work with USGS to increase
collaboration among Federal, state and private data holders."

USGS Core Science Systems Mission Area, which developed the resource,
expects that BISON users will be broad-based and include land managers,
researchers, refuge managers, citizen scientists, agriculture
professionals, fisheries managers, water resource managers, educators, and
more.

Land managers, for instance, might be looking for a piece of land to
purchase for conservation—but first they want to know what species have
been documented for that parcel. BISON will tell them after only a few
mouse clicks.

BISON serves as the U.S. Node of the Global Biodiversity Information
Facility <http://www.gbif.org/> (GBIF) and will form an integral part of
EcoINFORMA<http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast_sustaining_environmental_capital_report.pdf>,
the information delivery strategy in "Sustaining Environmental Capital:
Protecting Society and the
Economy<http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast_sustaining_environmental_capital_report.pdf>,"
a recent report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology (PCAST <http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/pcast>
).

"BISON responds directly to a key need PCAST pointed out in 'Sustaining
Environmental Capital' - to make Federal environmental data available,
inter-operable, and usable to the public," said PCAST member Rosina
Bierbaum, "We look forward to this 'biodiversity' hub being supplemented by
complementary ecological data hubs by other Federal partners, to further
the goal of helping communities across the Nation make increasingly wise
planning and management decisions."

BISON already includes millions of points from the Federal investment in
biodiversity research. It is formally cooperating with other Federal
agencies to greatly expand the delivery of federally funded biodiversity
data for the greatest possible good. Hundreds of thousands of citizen and
professional scientists have collected the data in BISON. Non-governmental
organizations, state and local governments, universities, and many others
are also participating in this enormous undertaking.

The USGS has built and maintains BISON, which is hosted on the massive
Federal computing infrastructure at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

To learn more, visit: http://bison.usgs.ornl.gov or contact the USGS BISON
Team at BISON at usgs.gov<https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=BISON@usgs.gov>
.

The USGS Core Science Analytics and Synthesis
program<http://www.usgs.gov/core_science_systems/csas/index.html>
within
Core Science Systems is home to BISON and focuses on innovative ways to
manage and deliver scientific data and information. The program implements
and promotes standards and best practices to enable efficient, data-driven
science for decision-making that supports a rapid response to emerging
natural resource issues. One of the ways this is accomplished is by
developing national data products that increase our understanding of the
Earth’s natural systems.
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