This year, iEvoBio will have a special focus Session on Metagenomics, Barcoding, and Biodiversity and the challenges that these new approaches raise for evolutionary informatics. We now have over 6000 genomes and vast quantities of metagenomic sequences in the public domain, primarily from bacteria and archaea from many habitats. Various short sequences (e.g. barcodes) for quick identification of eukaryotes are emerging. The availability of this sequence data and ever-cheaper methods for producing it offer exciting opportunities forunderstanding molecular evolution and biodiversity. However, the data are growing faster than the infrastructure to support it. Moreover, the eukaryotic and microbial informatics communities have independent histories and approaches, so synergy is not easy. These challenges typify the intersection of fields that are the scope of iEvoBio. Invited speakers in this special session include Neil Davies (http://moorea.berkeley.edu/aboutus/people/ndavies ) from the Moorea Biocode project, Linda Amarral-Zettler (http://amarallab.mbl.edu/ ) from the Marine Biological Laboratory Wood's Hole, and Holly Bik, from the Hubbard Center for Genome Studies at the University of New Hampshire. After the talks, there will be an open panel with all the speakers, including keynote speaker Dawn Field (http://ceh.academia.edu/DawnField ) from the Center for Ecology and Hydrology at Oxford.
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 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)