Brazil has sharply expanded its biodiversity database, but the country still knows far more about species in its wealthier southeast and coastal regions than in large parts of the Amazon, according to a new assessment by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, or IBGE.
The number of species-occurrence records in Brazil rose 65.49% from 2022 to 2025, reaching 37.5 million entries, IBGE said in its 2025 Assessment of Brazilian Biodiversity Data. The report, released on May 26 and based on the Brazilian Biodiversity Information System, examines the volume, quality and completeness of records across nine taxonomic groups: amphibians, arthropods, birds, fungi, mammals, mollusks, bony fish, vascular plants and reptiles.
The largest absolute databases are for birds, with 19.0 million records, plants, with 11.2 million, and arthropods, with 3.7 million. The fastest growth since 2022 came from fungi, up 176.6%, followed by mammals, up 155%, and fish, up 139.9%.
IBGE said the improvement reflects both new data collection and the digitization of historical records. Biological collections remain important sources, but citizen-science platforms have become central to the system. They now account for 49.83% of all available species occurrences. For birds, their share reaches 93.84%, showing the influence of amateur observers and collaborative databases.
Leonardo Bergamini, IBGE’s manager for environment and geography, said systematic biodiversity data help public policy, territorial planning and the conservation of ecosystem services. By combining information on species, habitats and human pressure, he said, authorities can monitor trends, identify priority conservation areas and guide climate-adaptation measures.
The quality of records has also improved, especially in spatial data, which had been one of the weakest areas in the previous assessment. In 2025, 34.1% of records were classified as “Level 1,” IBGE’s highest category for completeness and suitability for analysis, up from 32.74% in 2022. Birds performed best, with roughly half their records at Level 1. Fungi remained the weakest group, with only 3.5% in that category. Reptiles showed notable progress, rising from 11% to 24% high-quality records.
The gains still leave major structural weaknesses. Missing geographic coordinates remain the main problem, affecting about 9.45 million occurrences in 2025. Data redundancy is now the second-largest factor undermining quality, alongside gaps in taxonomic identification.
The report also updated IBGE’s Biodiversity Knowledge Index, which summarizes the quantity, age, timing and sampling completeness of records. It found that regional inequality persists. Better-known areas remain concentrated in the southeast and along Brazil’s coast. Large parts of the north, especially Pará and Amazonas states, still have significant information gaps.
IBGE said recent growth in records has mainly occurred in places that were already well sampled, rather than in the least documented regions. Marine biodiversity data have increased but remain scarce compared with terrestrial data and are often old.
Of Brazil’s 5,571 municipalities, 376 had fewer than 10 species-occurrence records in the database, and 43 had none. Poconé, in Mato Grosso state, had the most records, with 897,113, followed by Brasília, São Paulo, Alta Floresta and Foz do Iguaçu.
Between 2022 and 2025, 4,877 municipalities improved their Biodiversity Knowledge Index, while 651 declined. In every Brazilian state, more than 70% of municipalities improved. Amapá, in the far north, recorded gains in all municipalities.
This article is based on single-source reporting from Poder360, which republished material originally produced by Agência IBGE.