Division of Environmental Biology
Assembling the Tree of Life
(ATOL)
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CONTACTS
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PROGRAM GUIDELINES
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Solicitation
09-522
As announced on May 21st, proposers must prepare and submit proposals to the National
Science Foundation (NSF) using the NSF FastLane system at
http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/.
This approach is being taken to support efficient Grants.gov operations during this busy
workload period and in response to OMB direction guidance issued March 9, 2009. NSF will
continue to post information about available funding opportunities to Grants.gov FIND and
will continue to collaborate with institutions who have invested in system-to-system
submission functionality as their preferred proposal submission method. NSF remains
committed to the long-standing goal of streamlined grants processing and plans to
provide a web services interface for those institutions that want to use their
existing grants management systems to directly submit proposals to NSF.
Please be advised that the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) includes
revised guidelines to implement the mentoring provisions of the America COMPETES Act (ACA)
(Pub. L. No. 110-69, Aug. 9, 2007.) As specified in the ACA, each proposal that requests
funding to support postdoctoral researchers must include a description of the mentoring
activities that will be provided for such individuals. Proposals that do not comply
with this requirement will be returned without review (see the PAPP Guide Part I:
Grant Proposal Guide Chapter II for further information about the implementation of
this new requirement).
SYNOPSIS
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A flood of new information, from whole-genome sequences to detailed structural information to inventories of earth's biota to greater appreciation of the importance of lateral gene transfer in shaping evolutionary history, is transforming 21st century biology. Along with comparative data on morphology, fossils, development, behavior, and interactions of all forms of life on earth, these new data streams make even more critical the need for an organizing evolutionary context. Phylogeny, the genealogical map for all lineages of life on earth, provides an overall framework to facilitate biological information retrieval, prediction and analysis. Currently, single investigators or small teams of researchers are studying the evolutionary pathways of heredity usually concentrating on taxonomic groups of modest size. Assembly of a framework phylogeny, or Tree of Life, for all 1.7 million described species requires a greatly magnified effort, often involving large teams working across institutions and disciplines. This is the overall goal of the Assembling the Tree of Life activity. The National Science Foundation announces its intention to continue support of creative and innovative research that will resolve evolutionary relationships for large groups of organisms throughout the history of life. Investigators also will be supported for projects in data acquisition, analysis, algorithm development and dissemination in computational phylogenetics and phyloinformatics.
THIS PROGRAM IS PART OF
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Additional Funding Opportunities for the DEB Community
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Emerging Frontiers
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Abstracts of Recent Awards Made Through This Program
News
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