• Peterson et al. (2010) The big questions for biodiversity informatics. Systematics and Biodiversity, 8(2): 1–10.

<abstract> Science is a series of generating new ideas, detailed explorations, incorporation of the results into a toolbox for understanding data, and turning it into useful knowledge. One recent development has been large-scale, computer-aided management of biodiversity information. This emerging field of biodiversity informatics has been growing quickly, but without overarching scientific questions to guide its development; the result has been developments that have no connection to genuine insight and forward progress.We outline what biodiversity informatics should be, a link between diverse dimensions of organismal biology – genomics, phylogenetics, taxonomy, distributional biology, ecology, interactions, and conservation status – and describe the science progress that would result. These steps will enable a transition from ‘gee-whiz’ to fundamental science infrastructure.