Really Big Biogeographically-based Integrative Historical and Ecological Science: Grand Collaborative Studies of Whole Biotas

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Many of the really exciting advances in science happen when researchers from different disciplines come together to collaborate on very large-scale questions. Yet, in the biological arenas of ecology, evolution, and biogeography, these sorts of grand collaborations have yet to emerge, and as such, our capacity to understand the complex interaction of biotic and abiotic processes involved in the assembly of the world's terrestrial and marine biotas is currently inadequate. The goal of this workshop is to bring highly productive researchers representing each of these disciplines together for three days of discussion on how to form a new, integrative and collaborative template for doing large-scale, multidisciplinary science on the historical development and current ecological attributes of the world's most fascinating and important biotic assemblages. Objectives will include exploration of cyberinfrastructure requirements, and structure needed in funding agencies to support such large-scale and integrative efforts.Of broader significance, this workshop will provide biologists with a new approach to understanding processes involved in assembling and sustaining the world's biological diversity, critically important at this time given the combined threats of stresses such as habitat destruction, invasive species, and global climate change on the future health of the Earth's biological diversity.