The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international network and data infrastructure funded by the world's governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth.
Provides mapping functions for species globally. The GBIF network draws sources together through the use of data standards, such as Darwin Core, which forms the basis for the bulk of GBIF.org's index of hundreds of millions of species occurrence records. Publishers provide open access to their datasets using machine-readable Creative Commons license designations, allowing scientists, researchers, and others to apply the data in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and policy papers each year. Many of these analyses—which cover topics from the impacts of climate change and the spread of invasive and alien pests to priorities for conservation and protected areas, food security and human health— would not be possible without this.
Note: USGS's BISON (Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation) which provided North American species occurrence data and maps moved away from the 10-year-old infrastructure of the previous BISON website (bison.usgs.gov) to a GBIF data portal for the U.S. provided by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The new site became live on October 1, 2021, and the previous BISON website was be taken down on December 17, 2021.