{"id":93,"date":"2011-05-26T16:03:37","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T00:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bien.nceas.ucsb.edu\/bien\/?page_id=93"},"modified":"2026-07-03T06:51:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T14:51:27","slug":"tools","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bien.nceas.ucsb.edu\/bien\/tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Applications & validations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Applications & Tools<\/p>\n

Open tools that standardize, validate, and integrate plant data<\/h2>\n

BIEN develops open tools so records from herbaria, plots, and checklists can be combined for reproducible ecological and evolutionary research. They are available as web services, application programming interfaces (APIs), and R packages.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

\n \"Plant
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Core validation services<\/h3>\n

Four services standardize names and locations and add quality-control information to every record.<\/p>\n

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\n TNRS — Taxonomic Name Resolution Service<\/strong><\/p>\n

Standardizes plant names against reference taxonomies and flags synonyms and misspellings.<\/p>\n

Web service<\/a> · R package<\/a> · Publication<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n GNRS — Geographic Name Resolution Service<\/strong><\/p>\n

Standardizes political-division names against reference gazetteers, the first step in validating coordinates.<\/p>\n

Web service<\/a> · GeoNames<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n GVS — Geocoordinate Validation Service<\/strong><\/p>\n

Validates coordinates, flags points in the ocean, and detects political-division centroids.<\/p>\n

Web service<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n NSR — Native Species Resolver<\/strong><\/p>\n

Assigns native or introduced status by region<\/em>. Status is context-dependent and may be incomplete; treat it as documented inference, not universal truth.<\/p>\n

Web service<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Data access applications<\/h3>\n
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\n biendata.org portal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Interactive geospatial portal to view and download species-level BIEN data.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n BIEN R package<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Programmatic access to occurrence, plot, trait, and range data for reproducible pipelines.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n BIEN Species ShinyApp<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Explore species occurrence summaries and visualizations.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n BIEN Traits ShinyApp<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Review trait-focused summaries and exploration workflows.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n Plant-O-Matic<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mobile app listing plant species expected near a user’s location (publication<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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BIEN in action<\/p>\n

From standardized data to real-world application<\/h3>\n

Because BIEN’s services resolve taxonomy, geography, and native status consistently, its harmonized data support downstream applications from conservation assessment to species distribution modeling.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Figure 8 · Applications of BIEN data<\/span><\/div>\n

\"BIEN

Conservation and distribution modeling.<\/strong> (I) UNESCO World Heritage Sites protect an estimated 16% of global plant diversity, integrating BIEN plant occurrences with IUCN Red List assessments via TNRS, GNRS, GVS, and NSR (UNESCO-IUCN 2023). (II) Stacked species distribution models of American cactus richness from BIEN data compared with IUCN expert maps (Pillet et al. 2022). Source: Enquist et al. (2026), Methods in Ecology and Evolution<\/em> 17(5), Fig. 8. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vegetation-data standards<\/h3>\n