The NEON-V Workshop was held at the Field Museum, Chicago, 14-16 June 2002. It was organized to provide advice to the National Science Foundation regarding the possible involvement, interactions, opportunities, and needs of the biological collections institutions (BCI) community within the NEON program. A NEON-BCI collaboration would present significant and unique opportunities to combine ecological data with specimen/collections data and systematic research, thus bringing vital phylogeographic context to ecological studies. Such a collaboration would both enhance the success and impact of the NEON program overall and address the urgent need for expanded biodiversity research mandated by increasingly accelerating changes in the global environment.
