Font Size: 

The first 18 months of operations after the public release of BISON (bison.usgs.ornl.gov) in April of 2013 has brought an enormous outpouring of interest and data as well as several important new capabilities and previously unrecognized opportunities. In just this short time, the size of this integrated and permanent resource for biological occurrence data from the United States has grown from 110 million to 168,063,755 records and the rate of growth shows no sign of slowing.  The profound impact of the integration of the authoratative Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS: www.itis.gov) on search efficiency and quality control will be discussed. Several other capabilities including numerous widgets and spinoff applications will also be presented. These include an augmented reality interface for mobile phones and glasses, and a new collaboration with the University of Kansas Lifemapper project to implement cloud-based capabilities for current niche modeling and assembly of species checklists under current and potential future climate regimes.  Finally, the foundational role of BISON in mobilizing US Federal biological occurrence data sets, serves as a central hub in the US strategy for management of biodiversity data, and as the flagship of the US Node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.