Mission and Goals
The mission of the International Institute for Species Exploration is to inspire, encourage and enable the advancement of taxonomy and exploration of earth’s species. The IISE represents a convergence of cutting-edge computer science and engineering with the goals of descriptive taxonomy. The results will include a transformation of taxonomy, the rapid discovery of earth’s species, and open access to reliable information about them.
Taxonomy is unique among the biological sciences in its historical focus, broadly comparative method, and utilization of collections. Taxonomists ask questions about monophyletic groups --- groups that include all species descended from a common ancestral species. Thus, their research is worldwide and unconstrained by geographic, ecological or temporal boundaries associated with experimental biology. Taxonomy is inherently a “big” science demanding access to all relevant specimens, regardless of where or when they were collected. Because collections are distributed in scores of countries, it was impossible in the past to “see” all relevant specimens efficiently. The IISE and its partners seek infrastructure, instruments, and practices necessary to build a virtual distributed “species observatory” for taxonomists. Transforming taxonomy into a planetary-scale science will allow it to answer questions that have remained beyond reach for centuries:
- What are species?
- What species exist? How do they vary?
- What are their characters and the history of their transformations?
- What are their phylogenetic relationships?
- What are their distributions in geographical and ecological space? How have their distributions changed through time?
In addition, there are enormous practical questions to be addressed, such as:
- What are the most informative and predictive classifications based on phylogenetic reconstructions?
- What is the best system of names for scientific communication and information storage and retrieval?
- What are the most effective strategies for planetary scale species inventories?
References discussing taxonomy’s great questions:
Cracraft, J. 2002. The seven great questions of systematic biology an essential foundation for conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity. Ann. Miss. Bot. Gard. 89: 127-144.
Page, L.M., H.L. Bart Jr., R. Beaman, L. Bohs, L.T. Deck, V.A. Funk, D. Lipscomb, M.A. Mares, L.A. Prather, J. Stevenson, Q.D. Wheeler, J.B. Woolley & D.W. Stevenson. 2005. LINNE: Legacy Infrastructure Network for Natural Environments. Champagne, IL: Illinois Natural History Survey.