Workshop: Assembling the Tree of Life - the European Dimension ( in Paris, France in Setember 18-21 2002)

美国自然历史博物馆的沃德惠勒博士获得了一笔赠款，用于举办一个关于协调美国和欧洲努力重建地球生命系统发育史的研讨会。 从现代科学中产生的最深刻的想法之一是认识到所有的生命，从最小的微生物到最大的脊椎动物，都通过遗传相关性在一个巨大的进化树中联系在一起。 这棵生命树为我们现代对生物学的理解提供了框架，因为它显示了生命的多样性以及生物体之间相似性和差异性的历史基础。根据系统发育关系及其平行的分类层次来组织生物学知识对科学和社会都变得越来越重要。例如，这些分类学分组是所有比较生物学的基础，并越来越多地用于组织生物和生物医学数据库。生物体或其基因或基因产物的系统发生假说正被用于寻找和识别新出现的疾病，追踪个体之间感染的历史途径或了解其地理传播，寻找潜在的新药物，识别作物和其他农业土地（如森林）的入侵害虫并制定控制计划，以及解决应用生物学中的许多其他问题。 人们认识到，重建生命之树必须是一项大型的国际事业，最终的成功将取决于来自许多国家的科学专门知识和资源、收藏和资金。 因此，我们必须开始协调我们的努力并使生命树和其他系统生物学活动国际化的进程。这次讲习班将汇集大约20名欧洲主要的系统生物学家、欧洲资助机构的代表以及美国航天局、美国农业部和史密森学会的代表和国家科学基金会的观察员。讲习班将：（1）使欧洲研究人员和资助官员熟悉美国组装生命之树工作的迄今进展和计划;（2）更新欧洲研究人员对美国振兴修订系统学计划的了解;（3）为国际生命之树工作的挑战制定愿景;（4）讨论在科学专门知识和基础设施方面以及在国际组织方面需要什么;（5）编写一份报告，总结讨论情况，并就国际合作提出尽可能多的建议。

Dr. Ward Wheeler of the American Museum of Natural History has received a grant to conduct a workshop on coordinating US and European efforts to reconstruct the phylogenetic history of life on earth. One of the most profound ideas to emerge from modern science is the realization that all of life, from the smallest microorganism to the largest vertebrate, is connected through genetic relatedness in a vast evolutionary tree. This tree of life provides the framework for much of our modern understanding of biology because it shows the diversity of life as well as the historical basis for similarity and differences among organisms. Organizing biological knowledge according to phylogenetic relationships and their parallel classificatory hierarchies has become increasingly important for both science and society. These taxonomic groupings, for example, underlie all comparative biology and are increasingly used to organize biological and biomedical databases. Phylogenetic hypotheses of organisms, or of their genes or gene products, are being used to search for and identify new emerging diseases, trace the historical pathways of infections among individuals or to understand their geographic spread, search for potentially new pharmaceuticals, identify invasive pests of crops and other agricultural lands such as forests and develop control programs, and solve numerous other questions in applied biology. It is recognized that reconstructing the tree of life must be a large, international venture and that ultimate success will depend on scientific expertise and resources, collections and funding from many nations. Therefore, we must begin the process of coordinating our efforts and internationalizing the tree of life and other systematic biology activities.This workshop will bring together approximately 20 leading European systematic biologists, representatives of European funding agencies, and representatives of NASA, USDA and Smithsonian Institution and NSF observers. The workshop will: (1) familiarize European researchers and funding officials with progress to date and plans for the US Assembling the Tree of Life effort; (2) update European researchers on US plans for invigorating revisionary systematics; (3) develop a vision for the challenge of an international Tree of Life effort; (4) discuss what is needed in terms of scientific expertise and infrastructure and in terms of international organization; and (5) produce a report that summarizes the discussions and that makes as many recommendations toward international cooperation as possible.