GBIF - tool for science and society

Data discovered and accessed through GBIF are being used in many areas of scientific research and decision making. These uses support international policies and responses to key targets for ending the loss of biodiversity.

GBIF-mediated data have been used in scientific studies, for example to:

• Model the potential spread of known invasive alien species, under current and future environmental conditions.
• Predict the consequences of climate change for biodiversity, from single species to global impacts.
• Research agriculture and food security, including crop wild relatives and pest control.
• Suggest priorities for conservation of threatened species and protected areas.
• Explore links between biodiversity and human health, including modelling of disease vectors.

GBIF data use examples

See 'Featured uses of data accessed through GBIF'.
These are selected examples from the growing body of peer-reviewed research making use of GBIF-mediated data, including descriptions of what types of data were used and how they contributed to the study.

Ecological niche modelling

Among the most common applications enabled by the data is ecological niche modelling, in which records about where and when a species was present can be overlaid with information about climate and other factors to predict past, present and future distributions. This in turn can help to model, for example, the spread of invasive alien species, impacts of future climate change and the spread of disease-carrying organisms.