The conference organizers issue the following two challenges to the subcommunities of researchers and users of Biodiversity Informatics. Each subcommunity will have the opportunity to submit manuscripts that respond to these challenges for possible publication in the Conference Proceedings Volume.

The challenges are:

1. Prepare a real-time demonstration for the three days of the e-Biosphere 09 conference that shows how information on new discoveries enters, propagates, and becomes interconnected with the rest of Biodiversity Informatics. For example, can a newly discovered species be described, published, and documented worldwide through a cascade of information through interconnected databases, all in three days?

2. Prepare a Position Paper that describes the information resources, database interoperability, and data analysis capabilities that each subcommunity will need five to ten years from now. For example, what new information resources and informatics capabilities will agricultural researchers need? What interoperability will they need concerning plant biology, agricultural pests, pathogens, invasive species, environmental factors, to name a few?