- tdwg-phylo - lists.tdwg.org

MIAPA-relevant ideas for TDWG workshop (17-18 Oct)
by Arlin Stoltzfus 12 Oct '11

12 Oct '11

Dear workshop participants and others-- Now is the time to start thinking about possible workshop projects, if you haven't done so already. You do NOT have to be a workshop participant to help in the process of developing and discussing ideas. Please consider adding an idea on the "ideas" page here (you just need to get a TDWG twiki account): http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/Phylogenetics/MIAPAWorkshop2011Ideas The two ideas listed currently are: * Create benchmark of annotated pubs relating phylogenies and biodiversity * Sharing the tree of life: What can we learn from the re-use (and lack of re-use) of mega-phylogenies? I have cc'ed this message to the tdwg-phylo list and to some individuals who indicated their intention to participate. However, please address your replies only to the miapa-discuss list. Those who want to join in discussion will need to join the list. On behalf of the workshop organizers (Jim Leebens-Mack, Hilmar Lapp, Nico Cellinese, Enrico Pontelli), Arlin ------- Arlin Stoltzfus (arlin(a)umd.edu) Fellow, IBBR; Adj. Assoc. Prof., UMCP; Research Biologist, NIST IBBR, 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD tel: 240 314 6208; web: www.molevol.org

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MIAPA-related workshop at TDWG next week
by Arlin Stoltzfus 12 Oct '11

12 Oct '11

Dear workshop participants and others-- At the TDWG (Biodiversity Info Standards) meeting next week in New Orleans, there will be a workshop on phylogenetic standards. The workshop page, with the schedule, is here: http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/Phylogenetics/MIAPAWorkshop2011 Like last year, this will be a quasi-OpenSpace meeting. The workshop opens Monday with 3 short talks to set the stage. Then participants are invited to discuss issues arising from the talks, and then to discuss possible projects. Monday will end with participants coalescing spontaneously into clusters (of about 3 to 7 people each) to work on a project they have designed. Tuesday is the work day-- clusters will work all day on projects, taking breaks as needed. While this may not sound like much time, a cluster with clear goals can accomplish a lot in one day. One of the projects from last year turned into a larger study (manuscript in preparation) that you will hear about in my talk on Monday. I'm going to send a separate message about project ideas. Arlin ------- Arlin Stoltzfus (arlin(a)umd.edu) Fellow, IBBR; Adj. Assoc. Prof., UMCP; Research Biologist, NIST IBBR, 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD tel: 240 314 6208; web: www.molevol.org

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Recruiting members of the iEvoBio 2012 Organizing Committee
by Hilmar Lapp 02 Oct '11

02 Oct '11

iEvoBio, the conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity, is a recently founded satellite conference held in conjunction with the Evolution meetings. iEvoBio aims to be a forum bringing together biologists working in evolution, systematics, and biodiversity, with software developers, and mathematicians, both to catalyse the development of new tools, and to increase awareness of the possibilities offered by existing technologies (ranging from mega- scale data analysis to rich visualization). The inaugural meeting was held in 2010 (see http://ievobio.org/2010) and received wide acclaim; the second one, held in 2011 (see http://ievobio.org/2011), was similarly successful and productive. The conference is poised to establish itself as a self-sustaining annual event and a must-attend for researchers, developers, and users of informatics resources in our fields. For the 2012 iEvoBio conference, to be held in junction with the 2012 Evolution Meetings in Ottawa, Canada, we are seeking new members to join us on the organizing committee. Aside from being enthusiastic about the conference itself, we are particularly interested in people with research pursuits that involve integrative, interdisciplinary, and synthetic questions, and a commitment to promoting the reuse of data, information, and software. Serving on the iEvoBio organizing committee entails attending weekly conference calls, and sharing responsibility for making the conference happen at all stages, including crafting communications such as calls for abstracts, managing content contributions from participants, and budgeting. The iEvoBio organizing committee shapes and manages the entire event, from start to finish. As such, participating in the committee provides ample opportunities for people with ideas, wild or not, to conceive innovative program elements towards iEvoBio’s social objectives of fostering participation, interaction, and collaboration, and to make those happen. The committee has been marked by an open- minded, highly constructive, but also deeply professional climate. Serving on the committee is actual work, but also provides a unique opportunity to collaborate with like-minded people who one may not otherwise get to work with, on a product for the benefit of our community and the advancement of our science. To apply, fill out a short online application form at http://bit.ly/okxqS1 by October 15th, 2011. We expect the organizing committee to have at least 6-7 members, and thus currently at least 4-5 seats are available to be filled through this call. This call is open to people at all professional “grades” and our hope is that at least one, and hopefully more, seats will be filled with graduate or postdoctoral students. We (see the undersigned below) will sort through the applications and reach a decision within one week after close of applications. If you have any questions about the conference or the committee, we encourage you to resolve these before applying by contacting us (see email addresses below). Please feel free to re-send, tweet (http://bit.ly/qyYT0s), or share this message as needed. Thanks! On behalf of the future 2012 iEvoBio Organizing Committee, Rob Guralnick (robert.guralnick(a)colorado.edu), University of Colorado at Boulder Hilmar Lapp (hlapp(a)nescent.org), National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent)

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Postdoc available
by Nico Cellinese 24 Sep '11

24 Sep '11

Hello everyone, A postdoc position is available in my lab, in case you know someone who might be interested :-) http://cellinese.blogspot.com/2011/09/postdoc-position-in-phyloinformatics-… Cheers, Nico <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Nico Cellinese, Ph.D. Assistant Curator, Botany & Informatics Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Biology Florida Museum of Natural History University of Florida 354 Dickinson Hall, PO Box 117800 Gainesville, FL 32611-7800, U.S.A. Tel. 352-273-1979 Fax 352-846-1861 http://cellinese.blogspot.com/

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MIAPA Workshop at the TDWG 2011 meeting, New Orleans, LA
by Nico Cellinese 22 Sep '11

22 Sep '11

TDWG MIAPA Workshop Call For Participation: Steps towards a Minimum Information About a Phylogenetic Analysis (MIAPA) Standard Synopsis Many phylogenetic analysis results are published in ways that present serious barriers to their reuse in numerous research applications that would stand to benefit from them. While some of these barriers are well understood, such as issues with adherence to standard exchange formats, those centering on the associated metadata necessary for researchers to evaluate or reuse a published phylogeny have only recently begun to be articulated. One of the critical next steps towards formalizing these metadata requirements as a minimum reporting standard is to convene meetings of key stakeholder communities with the goal to identify information attributes necessary and desirable for facilitating reuse, and to build consensus on their priority. To this end, we are holding a workshop at the 2011 Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Conference to determine how a future reporting standard for phylogenetic analyses can best serve biodiversity science and related research applications. We invite all interested colleagues to participate. Background The workshop of the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Phylogenetics Standards Interest Group held at the 2010 TDWG conference included a project focused on how to publish re-usable trees that can be linked into an emerging global web of data. Through follow-up work, this led to the following tangible results: An online draft report of the 2010 TDWG workshop [1], and a corresponding manuscript on best practices for publishing phylogenetic trees (Stoltzfus et al. in preparation); An 2011 iEvoBio presentation on “Publishing re-usable phylogenetic trees, in theory and in practice” [2]; A lighting talk presentation and Birds-of-a-Feather gathering at 2011 iEvoBio, and A survey group that explored barriers to re-use and developed plans for a survey These activities have considerably clarified our understanding of the theory and practice of publishing re-usable phylogenetic trees: how many phylogenies are published each year, the (low) frequency of archiving, what archives and tools are available, what policies are in force, etc. We have identified a number of barriers to re-use involving such aspects as technology, standards, culture, and access. Many of these barriers can be interpreted as a consequence of the lack of a community-agreed standard for what constitutes a well documented phylogenetic record. In the absence of such a standard, trees are often archived as image files rather than in appropriate data exchange formats, and lack important accompanying information (metadata), such as externally meaningful identifiers, that would be needed to make them useful to others. The idea of a Minimum Information About a Phylogenetic Analysis (MIAPA) standard has been suggested [3], but so far there has not been a deliberate process to develop and disseminate a community standard. Meanwhile, a number of systematics and evolution journals have begun to require archiving of the data underlying published research findings [4]. The emerging cultural shift in data archiving and sharing promoted by this policy change offers a unique window of opportunity to move ahead with the development and actual specification of a MIAPA standard. Similar to other minimum reporting standards [5], the primary focus of a future MIAPA standard would be on defining a “checklist” of metadata information attributes that, at a minimum, needs to accompany an archived phylogenetic analysis, and to which standards values for these attributes would need to adhere. The key step in developing community consensus on these elements of the standard is to convene a series of meetings that collectively involve participants from all major groups of stakeholders who would be affected by such a standard, such as users, producers, publishers, or archivists of phylogenetic analyses. To aid this process, the Phylogenetics Standards Interest Group is holding a workshop at the 2011 TDWG conference, with the goal to obtain consensus requirements and priorities for a MIAPA checklist for the purposes of biodiversity science, taxonomy, museum collections, and related research applications. Goals and deliverables The main goal of the workshop is to develop a shared understanding of the role that a MIAPA standard could play in facilitating re-use of phylogenetic analyses for the biodiversity science and related communities, and what the standard would need to specify in order to best fill that role. Possible deliverables include A draft set of information attributes that should or could be included in a provisional MIAPA checklist, with a level of consensus for each of them. A database with use-cases based on exemplifying publications, that report phylogenies to elucidate a broad spectrum of questions relating to biodiversity science. A refined MIAPA survey to be informed by biodiversity science cases for reuse. A plan for further community engagement and consensus-building among biodiversity science stakeholders. Workshop format The workshop will start with a few presentations focused on (i) introducing MIAPA and its potential in facilitating reuse (J. Leebens-Mack); (ii) summarizing recent developments and current status of MIAPA-related efforts (A. Stoltzfus); and (iii) past experiences and resulting best practice recommendations on developing a minimum reporting checklist standard (D. Field). The rest of the workshop will be hands-on. Participants in the workshop will break out into groups to address separate issues according to the anticipated deliverables and best practice recommendations. The workshop will be 1.5 days in duration, and be held during the 2011 Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) conference, to take place Oct 17 to 21, 2011 in New Orleans, USA. (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2011/). The workshop will start in the afternoon of Monday, Oct 17, and end on Tuesday. Oct 18. How to participate Participation in the workshop is open to everyone interested. However, space is limited, and we therefore ask that, if you are interested in attending, to please communicate your interest through the MIAPA discussion group [6]. This will also allow us to include you in pre-workshop planning. Since the workshop is part of the TDWG conference, participants will need to register either for the full conference, or for the days of the workshop. The organizers will provide an electronic venue for participants to share ideas and develop plans in advance of the workshop. After the initial presentations, participants will self-organize into task groups. Organizers Nico Celinese, University of Florida Hilmar Lapp, NESCent Jim Leebens-Mack, University of Georgia Enrico Pontelli, New Mexico State University Arlin Stoltzfus, NIST & University of Maryland References [1] Whitacre et al. (2010). Current Best Practices for Publishing Trees Electronically. http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/Phylogenetics/LinkingTrees2010 [2] O’Meara et al. (2011). Publishing re-usable phylogenetic trees, in theory and practice. Available from Nature Precedings <http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npre.2011.6048.1> [3] Leebens-Mack, J., T. Vision, et al. (2006). "Taking the first steps towards a standard for reporting on phylogenies: Minimum Information About a Phylogenetic Analysis (MIAPA)." Omics 10(2): 231-7. [4] Whitlock, M., M. McPeek, M. Rausher, L. Rieseberg, and A. Moore (2010). Data Archiving (Editorial). The American Naturalist 175(2): 145. [5] Taylor, C.F., D. Field, S. Sansone, J. Aerts, R. Apweiler, M. Ashburner, C.A. Ball, et al. (2008). Promoting coherent minimum reporting guidelines for biological and biomedical investigations: the MIBBI project. Nature Biotechnology 26(8): 889-96. doi:10.1038/nbt.1411 [6] MIAPA discussion group: http://groups.google.com/group/miapa-discuss Published by Google Docs–Report Abuse–Updated automatically every 5 minutes

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Deadline extended for Call for Challenge entries for iEvoBio conference
by Hilmar Lapp 14 Jun '11

14 Jun '11

The deadline for submitting entries to the Challenge held by conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio) has been extended by one week to June 20, 2011. The iEvoBio Challenge is a competition to create a new software tool, or add a new feature or features to an existing platform. Entries to the Challenge need to respond to its theme, which for 2011 is "Data Integration". Further information on the nature of challenge entries and how to submit them can be found on the iEvoBio website at http://ievobio.org/challenge.html . Selected candidates will make short oral presentations to demonstrate their work in a "Challenge session" at the conference, and if suitable will automatically be entered into the Software Bazaar track of the conference. The winning entries will be selected by a vote of the iEvoBio meeting participants, and will be awarded cash prizes. Challenge entries are only 1 of 5 kinds of contributed content that iEvoBio will feature. The other 4 are: 1) Full talks (closed), 2) Lightning talks, 3) Software Bazaar entries, and 4) Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings. All tracks except Full Talks remain open(see http://ievobio.org/ocs/index.php/ievobio/2011/) . More details about the program and guidelines for contributing content are available at http://ievobio.org. You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/ iEvoBio , or subscribe to the low-traffic iEvoBio announcements mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/ievobio-announce iEvoBio is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in partnership with the Society for the Study of Ecolution (SSE) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB). Additional support has been provided by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The iEvoBio 2011 Organizing Committee: Rob Guralnick (University of Colorado at Boulder) (Co-chair) Cynthia Parr (Encyclopedia of Life) (Co-chair) Dawn Field (UK National Environmental Research Center) Mark Holder (University of Kansas) Hilmar Lapp (NESCent) Rod Page (University of Glasgow)

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Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings for Conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio)
by Hilmar Lapp 10 Jun '11

10 Jun '11

In anticipation of the 2011 conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio), we solicit all attendees to propose and discuss Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings. See below for details. Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings (BoFs) are informal, ad-hoc, focused face-to-face discussion groups that form around a shared interest. BoFs can also take the form of a hands-on software tutorial on using a tool, or on programming an API. BoFs have a leader (usually, but not necessarily, the proposer) who initiates or moderates the discussion. The topics of BoFs can range widely, including general cultural or computational infrastructure issues, or narrower questions such as how to make the best use of a particular software tool or how to solve a particular computational challenge. Anyone willing to lead such a group can propose a BoF. iEvoBio will provide space that can accommodate up to 8-10 BoFs. Sign-up sheets will be provided on-site on the first day of the conference where attendees can propose a BoF or sign up for one proposed by someone else. BoFs will be about 1-1.5 hours in duration and take place in the afternoon of the second day of the conference. In line with their informal nature, there is no official prior call for or submission of BoFs. However, we encourage those intending to propose one to sound out or rally potential attendees ahead of time. We suggest to employ Twitter (http://twitter.com) for this, using the #ievobioBof tag to mark BoF proposals and comments. Similarly, users interested in seeing a hands-on tutorial BoF about their favorite tool are encouraged to use similar means to give tool developers a sense of the community interest in a tutorial BoF, and what common usage (or programming) questions are. Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings are only 1 of 5 kinds of contributed content that iEvoBio will feature. The other 4 are: 1) Full talks (closed), 2) Lightning talks, 3) Challenge entries, and 4) Software Bazaar entries. All Calls except for Full Talks remain open (see http://ievobio.org/ocs/index.php/ievobio/2011/) . More details about the program and guidelines for contributing content are available at http://ievobio.org. You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/iEvoBio. iEvoBio is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in partnership with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB). Additional support has been provided by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The iEvoBio 2011 Organizing Committee: Rob Guralnick (University of Colorado at Boulder) (Co-chair) Cynthia Parr (Encyclopedia of Life) (Co-chair) Dawn Field (UK National Environmental Research Center) Mark Holder (University of Kansas) Hilmar Lapp (NESCent) Rod Page (University of Glasgow)

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Call for Software Bazaar entries open for Conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio)
by Hilmar Lapp 22 May '11

22 May '11

The Call for Software Bazaar entries is now open for the 2011 conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio), at http://ievobio.org/ocs/index.php/ievobio/ 2011. See below for instructions. The Software Bazaar features presenters demonstrating their software live on a laptop. At iEvoBio, this session takes the place of a poster session, and will be approximately 2.0 hours in duration. Conference attendees will be able to walk from one demonstration to the next and open a conversation with the presenters. Please also see our FAQ for this information (http://ievobio.org/faq.html#software). The Software Bazaar is part of the interactive afternoon program on the first conference day. Entries should be software aimed at advancing research in phylogenetics, evolution, and biodiversity, and can include interactive visualizations that have been pre-computed (such as SVGs, or Google Earth-compatible KML files). Submissions consist of a title, which will typically be the name of the software (or visualization method) being presented, the URL of a website where more information about the software can be obtained, and the license under which the source code is available. The provided website must contain a link to where the source code (and possibly binaries) can be downloaded. If it is not obvious from the provided website, the submission must describe what the software does. Reviewers will judge whether a submission is within scope of the conference (see above), and need to be able to verify whether the open- source requirement(*) is met. Presenters are expected to bring their own laptops for presentation, and any auxiliary devices necessary (such as a mouse). Power will be available at the presentation tables (110V/60Hz, US-style plugs; international presenters need to bring a suitable adaptor). Please let the organizing committee know as much in advance as possible if you expect to have unusually high demands for wireless network bandwidth, a large display, or other hardware. Note that commercial marketing activities are not permitted - presenters wishing to promote commercial or proprietary services or products should contact the Evolution conference about exhibitor space. Review and acceptance of Software Bazaar submissions will be on a rolling basis. The deadline for submission is the morning of the first day of the conference (June 21). As the number of Software Bazaar presentation slots is finite, we cannot guarantee the availability of slots up until the day of the conference. We cannot accept submissions until the open-source requirements are met. We ask all submitters of Software Bazaar presentations to be willing to also serve as reviewers of such, as described above. Software Bazaar demonstrations are only 1 of 5 kinds of contributed content that iEvoBio will feature. The other 4 are: 1) Full talks (closed), 2) Lightning talks, 3) Challenge entries, and 4) Birds-of-a- Feather gatherings. The Calls for Challenge entries (http://ievobio.org/challenge.html ) and Lightning Talks (same submission URL as above) remain open, and information on the Birds-of-a-Feather session is forthcoming. More details about the program and guidelines for contributing content are available at http://ievobio.org. You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/iEvoBio. iEvoBio is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in partnership with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB). Additional support has been provided by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The iEvoBio 2011 Organizing Committee: Rob Guralnick (University of Colorado at Boulder) (Co-chair) Cynthia Parr (Encyclopedia of Life) (Co-chair) Dawn Field (UK National Environmental Research Center) Mark Holder (University of Kansas) Hilmar Lapp (NESCent) Rod Page (University of Glasgow) (*) iEvoBio and its sponsors are dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of Open Source software development (see http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php) and reuse within the research community. For this reason, software to be demonstrated to conference attendees must be licensed with a recognized Open Source License (see http://www.opensource.org/ licenses/), and be available for download, including source code, by a tar/zip file accessed through ftp/http or through a widely used version control system like cvs, Subversion, git, Bazaar, or Mercurial. Authors are advised that non-compliant submissions must be revised to meet the requirement by June 21 at the latest, and in the event that presentation slots run out, precedence is established by the date they are first found in compliance, not the date of submission.

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Call for Challenge entries for conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio)
by Hilmar Lapp 14 May '11

14 May '11

The conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio) is holding a Challenge, a competition to create a new software tool, or add a new feature to an existing platform. Entries to the Challenge need to respond to its theme, which for 2011 is "Data Integration". Improving our understanding of the evolution of life requires combining data sets from a wide variety of disparate sources. Thus, data integration poses a serious challenge for evolutionary research. Entries for the 2011 iEvoBio challenge must enable new approaches to data interoperability or represent an exceptional example of integrating existing sources of data. Further information on the nature of challenge entries and how to submit them can be found on the iEvoBio website at http://ievobio.org/challenge.html . Selected candidates will make short oral presentations to demonstrate their work in a "Challenge session" at the conference, and if suitable will automatically be entered into the Software Bazaar track of the conference. Cash prizes will be awarded for first place ($1,000) and runner-up entries. The winning entries will be selected by a vote of the iEvoBio meeting participants. Challenge entries are only 1 of 5 kinds of contributed content that iEvoBio will feature. The other 4 are: 1) Full talks (closed), 2) Lightning talks, 3) Software Bazaar entries, and 4) Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings. The Call for Lightning Talks is currently open (see http://ievobio.org/ocs/index.php/ievobio/2011/) , and the information on Software Bazaar entries is forthcoming. More details about the program and guidelines for contributing content are available at http://ievobio.org. You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/ iEvoBio , or subscribe to the low-traffic iEvoBio announcements mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/ievobio-announce iEvoBio is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in partnership with the Society for the Study of Ecolution (SSE) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB). Additional support has been provided by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The iEvoBio 2011 Organizing Committee: Rob Guralnick (University of Colorado at Boulder) (Co-chair) Cynthia Parr (Encyclopedia of Life) (Co-chair) Dawn Field (UK National Environmental Research Center) Mark Holder (University of Kansas) Hilmar Lapp (NESCent) Rod Page (University of Glasgow)

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Call for Lightning Talks for Conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio)
by Hilmar Lapp 07 May '11

07 May '11

The Call for Lightning Talks is now open for the 2011 conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio), at http://ievobio.org/ocs/index.php/ievobio/2011. See below for instructions. Lightning talks are short presentations of 5 minutes. They are ideal for drawing the attention of the audience to new developments, tools, and resources, or to subsequent events where more in-depth information can be obtained. Please also see our FAQ for more information (http://ievobio.org/faq.html#lightning ). Lightning talks will be part of the more interactive afternoon program on both conference days. Submitted talks should be in the area of informatics aimed at advancing research in phylogenetics, evolution, and biodiversity, including new tools, cyberinfrastructure development, large-scale data analysis, and visualization. Submissions consist of a title and an abstract at most 1 page long. The abstract should provide an overview of the talk's subject. Reviewers will judge whether a submission is within scope of the conference (see above). If applicable, the abstract must also state the license and give the URL where the source code is available so reviewers can verify that the open-source requirement(*) is met. Review and acceptance of lightning talks will be on a rolling basis. The deadline for submission is the morning of the first day of the conference (June 21). Note that the number of lightning talk slots is finite, and given the high volume of submissions we experienced for full talks, the Lightning Talks track may fill up early. We cannot accept lightning talks until the open-source requirements are met, and so waiting with that until the deadline risks that the track is full by that time. We ask all submitters of lightning talks to be willing to also serve as reviewers of such, as described above. Lightning talks are only 1 of 5 kinds of contributed content that iEvoBio will feature. The other 4 are: 1) Full talks (closed), 2) Challenge entries, 3) Software bazaar demonstrations, and 4) Birds-of- a-Feather gatherings. The Call for Challenge entries remains open (see http://ievobio.org/challenge.html) , and information on the Software Bazaar and Birds-of-a-Feather sessions is forthcoming. More details about the program and guidelines for contributing content are available at http://ievobio.org. You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/iEvoBio. iEvoBio is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in partnership with the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB). Additional support has been provided by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The iEvoBio 2011 Organizing Committee: Rob Guralnick (University of Colorado at Boulder) (co-Chair) Cynthia Parr (Encyclopedia of Life) (co-Chair) Dawn Field (UK National Environmental Research Center) Mark Holder (University of Kansas) Hilmar Lapp (NESCent) Rod Page (University of Glasgow) (*) iEvoBio and its sponsors are dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of Open Source software development (see http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php) and reuse within the research community. For this reason, if a submitted talk concerns a specific software system for use by the research community, that software must be licensed with a recognized Open Source License (see http://www.opensource.org/licenses/), and be available for download, including source code, by a tar/zip file accessed through ftp/http or through a widely used version control system like cvs, Subversion, git, Bazaar, or Mercurial.

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