Citation and Publications
Please cite BIEN when using BIEN data products, portal outputs, software tooling, or derived analyses. Where you use a specific service or R package, please cite that tool in addition to the primary reference below.
Recommended 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.
Legacy citation and background:
Enquist, Brian J., Rick Condit, Robert K. Peet, Mark Schildhauer, and Barbara M. Thiers. Cyberinfrastructure for an integrated botanical information network to investigate the ecological impacts of global climate change on plant biodiversity. PeerJ Preprints, 2016. https://peerj.com/preprints/2615.pdf.
When citing BIEN-derived outputs, include the access date, query scope, and the key filters or validation rules used to produce your results.
Software and tools
If your analysis relies on one of the following tools, please cite it alongside the primary reference.
BIEN R package
Maitner BS, Boyle B, Casler N, Condit R, Donoghue J, Durán SM, Guaderrama D, Hinchliff CE, Jørgensen PM, Kraft NJB, McGill B, Merow C, Morueta-Holme N, Peet RK, Sandel B, Schildhauer M, Smith SA, Svenning J-C, Thiers B, Violle C, Wiser S, Enquist BJ. (2018). The BIEN R package: a tool to access the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) database. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 9(2), 373-379. DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12861.
Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS)
Boyle B, Hopkins N, Lu Z, Raygoza Garay JA, Mozzherin D, Rees T, Matasci N, Narro ML, Piel WH, McKay SJ, Lowry S, Freeland C, Peet RK, Enquist BJ. (2013). The taxonomic name resolution service: an online tool for automated standardization of plant names. BMC Bioinformatics, 14, 16. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2105-14-16.
Geographic Name Resolution Service (GNRS)
Boyle BL, Maitner BS, Barbosa GGC, Sajja RK, Feng X, Merow C, Newman EA, Park DS, Roehrdanz PR, Enquist BJ. (2022). Geographic Name Resolution Service: a tool for the standardization and indexing of world political division names, with applications to species distribution modeling. PLOS ONE, 17(11), e0268162. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0268162.
Plant-O-Matic
Goldsmith GR, Morueta-Holme N, Sandel B, Fitz ED, Fitz SD, Boyle B, Casler N, Engemann K, Jørgensen PM, Kraft NJB, McGill B, Peet RK, Piel WH, Spencer N, Svenning J-C, Thiers BM, Violle C, Wiser SK, Enquist BJ. (2016). Plant-O-Matic: a dynamic and mobile guide to all plants of the Americas. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 7(8), 960-965. DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12548.
Online data services
The following validation services are part of the BIEN workflow and are documented in the primary reference above (Enquist et al. 2026). When a dedicated methods citation is not available, cite the primary reference and the service URL and access date.
- Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS) — tnrs.biendata.org (see Boyle et al. 2013, above)
- Geographic Name Resolution Service (GNRS) — gnrs.biendata.org
- Geocoordinate Validation Service (GVS) — gvs.biendata.org
- Native Species Resolver (NSR) — nsr.biendata.org
Selected research using BIEN
Enquist BJ, Feng X, Boyle B, et al. (2019). The commonness of rarity: global and future distribution of rarity across land plants. Science Advances, 5(11), eaaz0414. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz0414.