Greetings GBIF Folks,
Collectively, many of us are learning a lot exploring what LLMs (including ML) can do or might offer us in our efforts to capture, share, and learn from our (aggregated) data and current methods. We need thoughtful opportunities to share the good, the exciting, and the caveats. With that in mind, we invite you to register and join our conversations at TaxonWork Together 2026 – some of which focus on this topic. See:
Teaser topics:
- Roundtable I - Global Aggregators and Aggregations in Biodiversity Informatics: Balancing Community Within the Onslaught of AI.
- Join with us for this discussion with Leen Vanderpitte, Rob Guralnick, Rod Page, Colleen Funkhouser, Olaf Banki, Matt Yoder.
- Each of our roundtable members have influenced ways for how we think about Biodiversity Informatics, lead globally recognized programs, and they are, no doubt, burning a lot of energy thinking about AI. This session specifically looks at what Community means within the tidal-wave of “AI”. If everything is free and open, and AI facilitates individuals to act like they are a team, what then Community? How do Communities adapt and allocate their time given the omnipresence of AI? This is free-flowing opportunity to predict, fret, panic and shout with joy on the topic.
- Join with us for this discussion with Leen Vanderpitte, Rob Guralnick, Rod Page, Colleen Funkhouser, Olaf Banki, Matt Yoder.
- Roundtable III - AI that Inspires Us: Real World Examples And Discussion
- Join Nick Dowdy, Vaughn Shirey, Bruno de Medeiros, Elizabeth Postema, and Deborah Paul in an open discussion of their experiences (and experiments) with AI from a Collections and Natural History Research viewpoint. We will explore discoveries, share insights, and find out what questions, joys, or concerns, our roundtable panelists realize need to be discussed more. The adventure has only just begun.
- AI Show and Tell From TaxonWorks Adopters
- Join us to hear about their AI / LLM use from a few of our TaxonWorks Adopters
- Davide Dal Pos: Making Innovation Happen for the World Ichneumonidae Database and Community
- Josh Pletcher: Hopping On - Getting Flea Taxonomy Into The Open Source TaxonWorks Ecosystem With AI And Community Support
- Robert Luke Kresslein, Jessica Awad: The host in the machine (learning algorithm).
- Join us to hear about their AI / LLM use from a few of our TaxonWorks Adopters
- AI Facilitated Data-capture Workflows in Natural History Collections and Research
- Nick Dowdy shares his work about speech-driven data-capture in a Natural History Collection
Please share this opportunity to be part of these conversations in this rapidly shifting landscape and from individual experiences to global level perspectives.
See you there! Thanks from Debbie for the Species File Group and TaxonWorks Together 2026
Please help spread the word @DagEndresen @dshorthouse @DavidFichtmueller @rukaya @grantfitzsimmons @qgroom @sharif.islam @vijaybarve @vsmithuk @libby @DavidFichtmueller @sunray1 @dkoureas @JessUtrup @seltmann @EstebanMH-SiB @elyw @dbloom @trobertson @nickyn @siobhanleachman @sorellana @sgrant @Kate @nfranz