the philosophy of biology has existed as a distinct sub-discipline within the philosophy of science for about thirty years. the rapid growth of the field has mirrored that of the biological sciences in the same period. today the discipline is well represented in the leading journals in philosophy of science, as well as in several specialist journals. there have been two generations of textbooks...

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques have deeply impacted multiple research areas in biology. In molecular systematics, NGS has boosted the field from being based on a few loci—phylogenetics— to the use of hundreds or thousands of loci— phylogenomics. However, while massive multilocus data sets should facilitate the resolution of complex phylogenetic problems, more data is not a panacea ...

The rapid development of interest inbiodiversity has provided unprecedented opportunities for interactions among disciplines. Although systematic biology and conservation biology have developed largely independently of one another, it is clear now from the burgeoning literature that conservation concerns can motivate systematic studies and that better knowledge of the systematics of organisms c...

We review the resources available to systematic biologists who wish to use computers to build classifications. Algorithm development is in an early stage, and only a few examples of integrated applications for systematic biology are available. The availability of data is crucial if systematic biology is to enter the computer age.