Distributed Graduate Seminars are an innovative approach to advancing science through an integration of research and education. The Dimensions of Biodiversity Distributed Graduate Seminar (DBDGS) focuses on increasing knowledge about biodiversity. The DBDGS will include 15-20 university teams, with international partners on four continents, and more than 100 students chosen from a wide range of disciplines needed to address biodiversity science (e.g., biology, geophysics, economics, anthropology, computer science and health). The scientific goals of the DBDGS include production of an on-line database of the state of knowledge about the taxonomic, genetic, and functional dimensions of biodiversity at the global level and a synthetic review on the integration of these and other dimensions of biodiversity to create a framework for future research and discovery.
This DBDGS will have a fundamental impact on this emerging field through its focus on the graduate student community, both nationally and internationally. Distributed seminars provide an intense team-driven multi-disciplinary research experience that is likely to be important in future biodiversity research. Because Core Team members represent both academic and non-governmental organization institutions, graduate students will also be exposed to a range of scientific career pathways. The DBDGS will foster international collaboration among young scientists. Products of the seminar will be of interest to a broad range of researchers and will include open-access databases, student-led publications, and a symposium highlighting DBDGS findings at the Ecological Society of America annual meeting.
