A new paper describing the latest version of BON in a Box has been published in BioScience. The article expands on the motivations, design and potential of BON in a Box as an open and collaborative platform for biodiversity monitoring, indicator calculation and reporting.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets ambitious targets for halting and reversing biodiversity loss, yet calculating indicators to track progress remains a major challenge for countries and organizations. BON in a Box helps to address some of these challenges by providing an open, transparent, and community-driven platform that transforms raw biodiversity data into Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and policy-relevant indicators through reproducible analysis pipelines.
Designed according to FAIR principles and containerized for portability, BON in a Box supports collaboration among scientists, governments, and Biodiversity Observation Networks (BONs), while respecting data sovereignty. The publication presents the vision behind the platform and illustrates its capabilities with examples of pipelines ranging from species distribution models to genetic diversity indicators.
For those working at the intersection of biodiversity science and policy, the paper highlights how BON in a Box can help accelerate monitoring and reporting in support of the GBF, and invites engagement from the wider community to explore, contribute, and apply shared workflows.
We encourage you to cite this article whenever referring to the calculation of biodiversity indicators or Essential Biodiversity Variables with the BON in a Box pipeline engine:
Jory Griffith, Jean-Michel Lord, Michael D Catchen, Maria Isabel Arce-Plata, F Guillaume Blanchet, Mathusan Chandramohan, M Camila Diaz-Corzo, Dominique Gravel, César Gutiérrez, Isabelle S Helfenstein, Sean Hoban, Jamie M Kass, Linda Laikre, Guillaume Larocque, Deborah M Leigh, Brian Leung, Alicia Mastretta-Yanes, Katie L Millette, Maria Alejandra Molina Berbeo, Dat Nguyen, Kari E Norman, María Helena Olaya-Rodríguez, Simon Pahls, Kaitlyn Pereira, Pedro R Peres-Neto, Timothée Poisot, Laura J Pollock, Juan Carlos Rey-Velasco, Victor J Rincon-Parra, Claudia Roeoesli, François Rousseu, Lina María Sánchez-Clavijo, Meredith C Schuman, Oliver Selmoni, Jessica M da Silva, Erika Suarez-Valencia, Thilina D Surasinghe, Eren Turak, Luis Fernando Urbina, Sarah Valentin, Noah Wightman, Juan Zuloaga, Maria Cecilia Londoño, Andrew Gonzalez, BON in a Box: An Open and Collaborative Platform for Biodiversity Monitoring, Indicator Calculation, and Reporting, BioScience, 2026, biaf189, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaf189
We look forward to seeing how the community uses and builds upon BON in a Box to advance global biodiversity observation and reporting.