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

许多真正令人兴奋的科学进步发生在来自不同学科的研究人员聚集在一起合作研究非常大规模的问题时。然而，在生态学、进化论和生物地理学的生物领域，这种大规模的合作还没有出现，因此，我们目前理解世界陆地和海洋生物群组装中所涉及的生物和非生物过程的复杂相互作用的能力是不够的。本次研讨会的目标是将代表这些学科的高产研究人员聚集在一起，讨论如何形成一个新的，综合的和协作的模板，用于对世界上最迷人和重要的生物组合的历史发展和当前生态属性进行大规模，多学科的科学研究。目标将包括探索网络基础设施的要求，以及资助机构支持这种大规模和综合努力所需的结构。具有更广泛的意义，这次研讨会将为生物学家提供一种新的方法来理解组装和维持世界生物多样性所涉及的过程，这在这个时候至关重要，因为栖息地破坏，入侵物种，和全球气候变化对地球生物多样性未来健康的影响。

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.