Sponsored by iDigBio, the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, the University of Michigan Herbarium, and the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology.

Abstract submission will open in early January 2017. Featured speakers include:

Beth Brainerd, Brown University
Dori Contreras, Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley
Mike Donoghue, Yale University
Dan Fisher, Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan
Lawrence Hudson, Natural History Museum, London
Maureen Kearney, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
Peter McCartney, U. S. National Science Foundation
Stephen Smith, University of Michigan
Pam Soltis, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida
Adam Summers, University of Washington
Mike Webster, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Cornell University

Two of the Saturday afternoon workshops will be led by U-M EEB professors Alison Davis Rabosky with grad student Pascal Title (Automated Species Range Map Construction through Aggregated Global Museum Records) and Dan Rabosky with postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Mitchell (Computational Macroevolution: Analysis and Visualization of Complex Evolutionary Dynamics on Phylogenies).

The rapid mobilization of digitized biodiversity data, led largely in the United States by the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections program, has resulted in a substantial increase in available data for research and related activities. This conference will encompass the uses of digitized data across all biodiversity disciplines, with special emphasis on digitized specimen data and the potential for “big data” analytics in organismal biology. This conference will provide an important opportunity to explore digital data tools, techniques, discoveries, and outcomes across the biodiversity sciences.

Oral presentations and posters will emphasize the use of digital data for biodiversity research, inclusive of the neontological and paleontological domains. Emphases might include:

* published or publishable biodiversity research that depends on digital datasets

* systematics and the use of digital data

* ongoing research projects that derive from and use digital datasets

* gaps and deficiencies in currently available digital data that hinder effective use,

* user critiques of digital data aggregators and providers

* integrated digitization/data use/research pipelines

* standards and practices for depositing and documenting open access digital datasets

* the role and relevance of “Big Data” in biodiversity research

* use of digitized biodiversity data within the ecological sciences

* the relative importance of digital data derived from specimens vs. observations

* managing digital biodiversity data in support of research pipelines

* analyzing and visualizing biodiversity digital data

The planning team for the conference includes: Chris Dick, Dan Fisher, Rich Rabeler, Alison Davis Rabosky, Dan Rabosky, Adam Rountrey, Cody Thompson, and Priscilla Tucker from the University of Michigan, and Gil Nelson, Larry Page, Pam Soltis, and Alex Thompson from iDigBio.

For further information or to ensure that you are on the email list, please contact Gil Nelson at iDigBio (gnelson@bio.fsu.edu).