A Workshop to Address the Grand Challenge: How Organisms Walk the Tightrope Between Stability and Change

Understanding the complexity of living systems and how they work is a major challenge for biology. At present, we do not understand what properties of complex living systems allow them to be flexible, and change in response to the environment, versus those that cannot change without disrupting the whole system. This is particularly important for organisms that must deal with current and future climate change. For example, many of the processes that are essential for animals to function are temperature dependent. Even small changes in temperature could disrupt development or functioning of individuals, thereby affecting species and systems on which humans depend. Some organisms successfully adapt to environmental change, while others cannot and go extinct. This project will support an important workshop that will be held in November 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. The goals of this workshop are to address this grand challenge question, to identify key research and information needs, and facilitate the collaborations that will be needed to make progress addressing this question. This workshop will bring together scientists from very wide ranging fields who do not normally interact so that they can bring the expertise of their fields to others, build bridges and develop a common language. This effort will allow knowledge and solutions to be transferred, and identify key areas where we need new information that will form the basis of new research that is needed to address these critical questions. To make sure that the best scientists from a broad range of fields are included, there will be a steering committee that will meet in August 2012 in Cold Spring Harbor, NY to select workshop participants, set the specific agenda of the workshop, and communicate with participants beforehand so that they come to the workshop fully prepared for the work at hand. The broader impacts of this workshop include the central focus on this research question that has been identified as a Grand Challenge in Organismal Biology. The workshop and the steering committee will include a diversity of scientists including those from small and large institutions, members of groups underrepresented in the sciences, and a diversity of research areas. This workshop will be used to develop a research agenda to address this important question facing organismal biologists in the 21st century.