What is it about?
Aggregating more than 3 billion records of where life on Earth exists, GBIF (The Global Bioversity Information Facility) is used in more than six scientific papers every day. This new study takes a deep dive into the more than 12,000 papers that have cited GBIF in the past 10 years, exploring patterns in research topics, methods, author affiliations and areas of study. The study shows accelerated growth in use of GBIF data, mirroring the growth in data availability through GBIF. Four in five studies focus on animals (especially vertebrates) while nearly all studies of plants involve the vascular variety. GBIF-enabled research has become more geographically spread, with authors representing more than 180 countries, an increase of 30 per cent in the past five years.
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Why is it important?
The analysis shows how open biodiversity data is transformative for scientific research. Data is a powerful resource that accelerates knowledge generation and enables innovative analyses to bridge the gap between raw data and actionable insights. In this way, open biodiversity data not only serves scientific accuracy and the conclusions that can be drawn from it, but also amplifies the impact of research in practice, far beyond the realm of biodiversity research itself.
Perspectives
While it's encouraging to see continued growth in use of GBIF-mediated data, the strong focus on vertebrates and vascular plants highlights a challenge for the GBIF community. We hope and expect that new data streams of eDNA, ecoacoustics and camera trap data will help both fill taxonomic gaps and continue to expand GBIF’s scientific relevance and coverage.
Daniel Noesgaard
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Globally aggregated biodiversity data impact predictive and descriptive research, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2519119122.
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