July 2-4, Bryan Heidorn is serving as a working group chair at the Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference (GBIC), to discuss how informatics can best meet the challenges posed by biodiversity science and policy. The conference, to be hosted in Copenhagen University.

GBIC will bring together experts in the fields of biodiversity informatics, genomics, earth observation, natural history collections, and biodiversity research and policy. Through a series of structured workshops led by interdisciplinary teams of experts, the conference will address questions such as:

• What are the opportunities for novel integration of data to support science?
• What are the most significant biodiversity data products and applications that the community could develop to address issues such as:

              o     the degradation of ecosystem services;
              o     patterns and impacts of habitat loss and climate change;
              o     the spread of invasive and pest species that threaten environmental health and food security?

• How can breakthrough research in computer science and new informatics tools enhance fundamental research on populations, species, communities and entire ecosystem landscapes?
• What new organizational structures and interactions are needed to make this possible?