While profound changes are affecting earth’s biosphere and climate, cyberinfrastructure is changing the pace and methods of biodiversity research. Global- and continental-scale environmental issues demand accelerated research strategies, and rapid progress requires timely, global- and continental-scale collaboration. International collaboration with biodiversity and ecological informatics will build the common network protocols for taking on 21st century environmental science challenges. Biodiversity informatics training will be critical to develop the proficiencies needed to build and sustain that shared cyberinfrastructure.

To address these challenges, this Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute (PASI) was held at the OTS La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, on May 31 through June 12, 2008. The Institute emphasized the application of cyberinfrastructure tools for environmental research collaboration. The intensive daily PASI curriculum served advanced graduate students and young faculty from North, South and Central America by teaching the application of software tools and services to biodiversity and ecological research problems through lectures, demonstrations and hands-on lab tasks and rain forest data collection exercises.

The Institute was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering, under awards #0617469 and #0617616 to Florida International University and to the University of Kansas.