Much biodiversity data is collected worldwide, but it remains challenging to assemble the scattered knowledge for assessing biodiversity status and trends. The concept of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) was introduced to structure biodiversity monitoring globally. Here, the challenges of a ‘Big Data’ approach to building global EBV data products across taxa and spatiotemporal scales is assessed, focusing on species distribution and abundance.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets of the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity set ambitious goals for protecting biodiversity. The availability of biodiversity data is a key requirement to address biodiversity loss. Key gaps, however, remain in our knowledge of biodiversity. These are mostly a result of barriers preventing existing data from being discoverable, accessible and digestible. In this paper, what BONs can do to address these barriers is described