Grand challenges in organismal biology

7 GRAND CHALLENGES Kurt Schwenk,1,*,† Dianna K. Padilla,2,† George S. Bakken3,† and Robert J. Full4,† 1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-3043, USA; 2Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245, USA; 3Department of Biology and Center for Biodiversity Studies, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809, USA; 4Department of Integrative Biology, 3060 Valley Life Sciences Building, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140, USA Synopsis A renaissance in organismal biology has been sparked by recent conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and computational advances in the life sciences, along with an unprecedented interdisciplinary integration with Mathematics, Engineering, and the physical sciences. Despite a decades-long trend toward reductionist approaches to biological problems, it is increasingly recognized that whole organisms play a central role in organizing and interpreting information from across the biological spectrum. Organisms represent the nexus where sub- and supra-organismal processes meet, and it is the performance of organisms within the environment that provides the material for natural selection. Here, we identify five ‘‘grand challenges’’ for future research in organismal biology. It is intended that these challenges will spark further discussion in the broader community and identify future research priorities, opportunities, and directions, which will ultimately help to guide the allocation of support for and training in organismal biology. Introduction Organismal biology is currently experiencing a renaissance. Some have considered it old fashioned, and not an integral part of ‘‘modern biology.’’ It is increasingly clear, however, that organisms are the key to organizing and understanding the information in other areas of biology. There is increased recognition of the fundamental importance of the organism as a focal unit for studies at all levels of organization and integration. Organisms assume a similar central role in studies addressing the pressing issues of limited resources and changing environments. The advent of new technologies, methods, and approaches now allow us to tackle long-standing questions in new ways and to ask entirely new ones. In recent decades, most research efforts have focused on the study of basic mechanisms, without regard to the whole organism. There is increasing recognition that to understand life and basic processes, biological information must be understood in the context of the integrated living organism, and not as a collection of systems operating independent of the organism. Indeed, organisms are the central biological unit that integrates and responds to internal and external information. As a consequence, they serve as the bellwethers of environmental change and sentinels of environmental degradation. The relatively newfound ability to sequence genes and genomes has opened a treasure trove of information about living systems that has led to new areas of research. However, it has become apparent that the path from genomes to functioning organisms and diversity is neither simple nor direct. The processes and products of development, cell division and regulation, protein production, hormone production, regulation, feedback, and homeostasis are all the result of organismal evolution. As Darwin recognized, individual organisms and their integrated phenotypes are the units on which natural selection operates to produce the adaptations and biodiversity *E-mail: † These authors contributed equally to this work. Integrative and Comparative Biology, volume 49, number 1, pp. 7–14 doi:10.1093/icb/icp034 ß The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions please email: . Grand challenges in organismal biology 8 Five grand challenges in organismal biology Looking to the future, we have identified five areas of research in organismal biology representing important challenges for the field and the promise of significant scientific advances, which will contribute to societal needs (Table 1). Owing to recent advances in theory, methods, techniques, computational power, and knowledge in a variety of fields, this is a propitious time to tackle these particular, synthetic problems. A common thread running through each of the ‘‘grand challenges’’ described here is the call for collaborative, interdisciplinary work that integrates knowledge across fields and levels of biological organization, and which indicates the need to consider how we are to train and provide the best education for the organismal scientists of the future (Wake 2008a,b). The grand challenges outlined here (Table 1) grew out of discussions among a wide range of organismal biologists, and we emphasize that they are ‘‘works in progress.’’ They are intended to stimulate discussion, development, expansion, and refinement by the broader community of organismal biologists. Understanding the organism’s role in organism– environment linkages The form, function, responses, and performance of organisms at all levels of organization are the result of integration and feedback between internal systems and the external environment, in both the short term and through evolutionary time. We know that the physical environment, physiological and developmental processes, and organismal function are clearly linked, but, at present, we know little about the mechanistic bases of these linkages and how they ultimately translate into changes in populations, communities, and ecosystem function. This knowledge is essential for understanding the consequences of climatic change and environmental degradation, and their impact on human health and welfare. Our reliance on living resources, such as harvestable species, and the services provided by biodiversity and functioning communities and ecosystems, as well as the threats to humans and agriculture posed by emerging diseases, makes it critical that we understand these organism–environment interactions. However, at present, many global and ecosystem models are forced to be overly simplistic due to inadequate knowledge about organismal-level responses to environmental variability and change. Advances have been made in physical biology such that we are now better able to predict and model the physical Table 1 Five grand challenges in organismal biology—summary Understanding the organism’s role in organism–environment linkages Organism–environment feedbacks Organismal responses to environmental changes including climatic change Mechanisms of organismal resilience or fragility Responses at different time scales: behavior, acclimation, plasticity, adaptation Utilizing the functional diversity of organisms Organisms as successful outcomes of evolutionary testing Biodiversity as a storehouse of adaptive solutions t (...truncated)