Data and Access
BIEN provides several ways to reach plant biodiversity data, depending on whether you want to explore interactively, work in R, or move through a service-specific workflow. The main entry points are the BIEN Data Portal, the BIEN R package, the BIEN Species ShinyApp, the BIEN Traits ShinyApp, and the four workflow services used to clean and integrate records.
Browse BIEN data interactively and review available products before downloading or querying.
Use BIEN from reproducible scripts, notebooks, and analysis pipelines.
Explore species occurrence summaries and BIEN-backed visualization workflows.
Review trait-focused summaries and trait exploration workflows.
Core access paths
- BIEN Data Portal for interactive exploration and downloads.
- BIEN on CRAN for programmatic access from R.
- BIEN Species ShinyApp for species-level occurrence review and exploration.
- BIEN Traits ShinyApp for trait-focused exploration and summaries.
- Methods and Workflow for the underlying BIEN services that support access and validation.
What the 2026 BIEN paper emphasizes
Enquist et al. 2026 describe BIEN 4.2 as an open, reproducible biodiversity informatics ecosystem. The BIEN 4.2 release integrates 284 million plant observation records, 363,258 vegetation plots, and 25.9 million trait measurements, and provides 98,829 curated species range maps (plus 289,743 species in the associated open-access range database; Enquist et al. 2026, Table 3). Records are standardized and validated through four services: TNRS (Taxonomic Name Resolution), GNRS (Geographic Name Resolution), GVS (Geocoordinate Validation), and NSR (Native Status Resolver, which assigns native/introduced status by region). Only about half of original records pass strict combined taxonomic and geographic validation, so BIEN attaches quality-control flags for transparent filtering. Counts are version-dependent and change between releases.
Use the database version and access date with any analysis or citation.
Results depend on scope, filters, and validation settings.
Occurrence, trait, and range products should not be treated as interchangeable.
Use-case caveat: Range products indicate modeled potential distribution, not direct proof of occupancy at all locations.
Primary citation: Enquist BJ, Boyle B, Maitner BS, et al. (2026). BIEN: A biodiversity informatics ecosystem advancing open and reproducible workflows for plant observation, plot and trait data. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 17(5), 1556-1584. DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.70274.