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Title: Dear Colleague Letter - Announce of Assembling the Tree of
Life Solicitation
Date: 01/16/08



Dear Colleague,
The National Science Foundation's Assembling the Tree of Life
(AToL) solicitation has recently been renewed and updated (see the
program solicitation, NSF 08-515;
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf08515). As
in the past, the AToL competition will support creative and
innovative research to resolve evolutionary relationships for large
groups of organisms. The program also supports research on theory
and methods and tool development for these large scale phylogenetic
investigations.  With this letter we wish to draw your attention to
several new and/or enhanced areas of interest. Proposals in the
following areas are especially encouraged:

  1. Proposals that seek to understand the role and importance of
     lateral gene transfer and reticulation in evolutionary history,
     as well as proposals to develop methods and theory that will
     address this important issue in phylogenetic research and
     phyloinformatics.

  2. Proposals to develop tools to facilitate the efficient
     integration and management of the diverse types of data and
     extensive amounts of data that are generated by these
     large-scale phylogenetic studies.

  3. Proposals that focus on major taxonomic groups not yet
     addressed in ongoing or completed AToL projects. Examples
     include but are not limited to: viruses and the various major
     groups of prokaryotes, protists, and lower invertebrates.

The deadline date for proposal submission to the AToL program is 14
March 2008. NSF FastLane requirements (www.fastlane.nsf.gov) apply
to all proposals. Proposals must conform to all format requirements
in the Grant Proposal Guide
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=papp; in
addition there are special proposal requirements for this
competition (see AToL solicitation
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf08515).
Investigators with questions about AToL proposals are encouraged to
contact the AToL Working Group (BIO-atol@nsf.gov). A link to the
list of previous AToL awards and abstracts can be found on the AToL
web page (http://www.nsf.gov/ef).