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)