We are calling for abstracts for a symposium titled “Linking biodiversity data through phylogenetic knowledge” at the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) conference, August 25 - September 2, 2018, Dunedin, New Zealand. This meeting will be held jointly for the first time with the annual meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC). A description of the symposium is available here: https://tdwg.github.io/conferences/2018/sessions/S14. I would like to invite you to submit an abstract. I would also appreciate it if you could spread the words by forwarding this email to your colleagues or students. Thanks!

We will be able to provide a limited amount of funding to offset expenses where needed and on a competitive basis. Please fill in a Google form at this link to apply for funding: https://goo.gl/forms/SKlAXQxVnR6cBK5E3 

The purpose of this form is to register your intent to submit a talk to this symposium (regardless of your need of funding), to collect demographic information on potential speakers to ensure a diverse symposium, and to solicit applications for funding to present at the symposium.

The symposium aims to illuminate opportunities offered by integrating phylogenetic knowledge with biodiversity data, examine the methodological and computational challenges of doing so, and highlight approaches addressing these challenges. We especially encourage submissions that span the domains of evolutionary biology, bioinformatics (i.e. phyloinformatics) and biodiversity informatics to address the themes of this symposium. Please note that straightforward systematics research without a data integration component will not be the focus of this symposium.

Symposium keynote speaker: Dr. Susan Perkins (American Museum of Natural History).

You *must* also submit an abstract through the conference website. Instructions are available here: https://tdwg.github.io/conferences/2018/instructions-for-authors.

Deadline: Mar 12, 2018. Please contact Dr. Guanyang Zhang <gyz151@gmail.com> with any question.

Thank you,

Guanyang Zhang*, Emily Jane McTavish+, Gaurav Vaidya*, Hilmar Lapp^, Nico Cellinese*

* Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida

+ University of California, Merced

^ Duke University