Workshop on the Implementation of the Grand Challenges

Abstract

The Grand Challenges in Organismal Biology (GCOB) were proposed in order to focus dialogue among organismal biologists on emerging priorities for research that require our uniquely integrative approach. The premise of the GCOB is that organisms are the key to understanding both biological phenomena and implications beyond their biological boundaries. In 2009, with encouragement from the National Science Foundation, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) took steps to identify compelling questions and to initiate discussions on whether these GCOB have resonance among SICB members and the greater community of researchers of organismal biology. Several initial papers were written to establish a framework for the GCOB (Heatwole 2009; Satterlie et al. 2009). Five GCOB were identified: (1) understand the organism’s role in organism–environment linkages; (2) utilize the functional diversity of organisms; (3) integrate living and physical systems; (4) understand how genomes produce organisms; and (5) understand how organisms walk the tightrope between stability and change (Schwenk et al. 2009). This initial paper on GCOB was then followed by concept papers that attempted to elicit further discussion on the GCOB, but in more focused arenas of research including ecomechanics (Denny and Helmuth 2009), endocrinology (Denver et al. 2009), systematics (Halanych and Goertzen 2009), and physiology (Mykles et al. 2010).

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