Dimensions of Biodiversity

The Dimensions of Biodiversity initiative seeks to characterize biodiversity on Earth by using integrative, innovative approaches to fill rapidly the most substantial gaps in our understanding of the diversity of life on Earth. This campaign will take a broad view of biodiversity, and in its initial phase will focus on the integration of genetic, taxonomic, and functional dimensions of biodiversity. Successful proposals should integrate these three dimensions to understand interactions and feedbacks among them. While this focus complements several core NSF programs, it differs by requiring that multiple dimensions of biodiversity be addressed simultaneously, in innovative or novel ways, to understand the roles of biodiversity in critical ecological and evolutionary processes.Despite centuries of discovery, most of our planet's biodiversity remains unknown. The scale of the unknown diversity on Earth is especially troubling given the rapid and permanent loss of biodiversity across the globe. With this loss, humanity is losing links in the web of life that provide ecosystem services, forfeiting an understanding of the history and future of the living world, and eliminating future beneficial discoveries in the domains of food, fiber, fuel, pharmaceuticals, and bio-inspired innovation. This reality has stimulated a campaign to characterize key but little known dimensions of biodiversity on Earth. By 2020, the Dimensions of Biodiversity??campaign is expected to have transformed how we describe and understand the scope and role of life on Earth. The??campaign promotes novel, integrated??approaches to identify and understand the evolutionary and ecological significance of the dimensions, of biodiversity amidst the changing environment of the present day and in the geologic past.Investigators wishing to inquire about the suitablility of potential projects for Dimensions of Biodiversity are encouraged to email a brief summary and contact information to Dimensions@nsf.gov.??