ForBio - The Research School in Biosystematics - towards permanent existence

ForBio ? Research School in Biosystematics We know approximately around two million species globally but the total number is estimated to be somewhere between three and an astonishing 100 million species. It is a well known fact that the biodiversity decreases rapidly?perhaps faster than ever before in the history of life on Earth. In order to have a chance to slow the extinction and ultimately reverse the trend, it is important that we understand the composition of the diversity. We need to learn more about how species arise and how they are related, where they occur and how they disperse, and why they go extinct. In order to share the information we need a uniform system for understanding and describing the species diversity and an understanding of the processes contributing to the species diversity. That is what future researchers will learn in courses and other activities arranged by ForBio?Research School in Biosystematics. ForBio is a network of researchers and students working with biosystematics at mainly Nordic universities. The school was founded in February 2010 with funding from the Norwegian Taxonomy Initiative and the Research Council of Norway and the Universities of Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø. Four scientists are hired to coordinate the courses given by the ForBio network and strengthen research on the natural history museums in Norway. The goal is to provide advanced field and theory courses focusing on different groups of organisms and analyses. More than 260 PhD students and postdocs working with biosystematics to some extent at Nordic universities and research institutes are ForBio members. More than 220 MSc students, PhD students and postdocs from non-Nordic universities, senior researchers, teachers, and nature management personnel are involved as associated members. Since its founding in 2010, ForBio received approximately 680 participants on more than 50 courses and workshops. The ForBio courses have gathered an impressive group of teachers with many internationally recognized experts. Field courses have covered 400 million years old fossil animals, marine animals and algae, terrestrial animals, plants, fungi and lichens. The theoretical courses have included methods for consistent naming of species (taxonomy), basic and advanced kinship analyses, DNA and morphology based species delimitation methods, analyses of species' geographic distribution and methods of use of fossils for dating evolutionary relationships. Several courses have focused on methods to analyse large amounts of data as new methods of DNA sequencing enabled. ForBio organises an annual conference bringing researchers in biosystematics from all the Nordic countries together for presenting and discussing their ongoing research during two-three days. Lectures by invited national and international experts and ForBio members have gathered nearly 300 people during the conferences that took place in Bergen (2011), Trondheim (2012) and Oslo (2013). This year's conference was held in Tromsø in late March 2014. Visit the ForBio website at http://www.forbio.uio.no for more information on upcoming courses and other ForBio events.

Biosystematics includes studies of variation (morphological, genetic, geographic) of species and species groups, the processes that causes variation, and evolutionary relationships. Taxonomic knowledge is fundamental for such studies and a prerequisite fo r biodiversity estimates. Biosystematics is the core discipline of natural history museums and inextricably tied to museum collections. While society's need for high-quality information on biodiversity is rapidly increasing, there has been a reduction of biosystematics as a research discipline nationally and internationally. In collaboration with The Norwegian Species Initiative (Artsdatabanken), we propose to make the recently established Research School in Biosystematics (ForBio) permanent to reverse t he trend. ForBio will link the fragmented and often small research environments in Scandinavia to form an internationally strong platform for research and research training to improve research training and ensure long-term recruitment. A portfolio of cour ses will be coordinated within the universities' regular education program. Courses will be designed to provide a solid theoretical and practical understanding of the subject. Topics will include nomenclature, taxonomic practices and principles, basic and advanced phylogenetics, bioinformatics, and field courses to provide a broad knowledge of species in their ecological settings. Distribution of resources and courses, joint advisory groups, progress meetings, joint web site, workshops, and annual confere nces will secure a strong network. ForBio will continue to be organised as an open network headed by Dr. Popp (Natural History Museum, Oslo), and with one representative from each of the other university museums (Bergen Museum; Museum of Natural History a nd Archaeology, NTNU, Trondheim; Tromsø University Museum) constituting the executive staff. We apply for a four-year extension of the pilot project to implement ForBio as a permanent network-based research school.