New centre for biodiversity research

The Centre for Biodiversity Analysis was officially launched in Canberra today.

A joint initiative between CSIRO and the Australian National University (ANU), the centre will harness new and emerging technologies in biodiversity science to inform better environmental management decision making. The centre’s key aim will be to improve our knowledge of Australia’s biodiversity and enable governments and conservation organisations to translate policy into meaningful actions.

“It’s estimated that Australia is home to over half a million unique living species, but of these only about one-third are known to science,” said Professor Craig Moritz, Director of the Centre for Biodiversity Analysis.

“Improved knowledge of Australia’s biodiversity - how many species, where they are and how they evolve across environments and through time - will be especially important to ensure sustainable development and production, to maximise ecosystem benefits and to protect our unique biodiversity in the face of rapid environmental change.”

The centre will promote collaborative biodiversity research by hosting conferences and workshops, forming ANU-CSIRO working groups, supporting collaborative projects, connecting students and researchers with managers and policy makers, and facilitating the collation and connection of biodiversity information in the ANU-CSIRO Canberra Precinct.

The centre is also an early example of the developing Canberra Global Research Precinct, which will focus on plant and environmental sciences. Like the centre, the precinct will be built on CSIRO-ANU collaboration, and will use its location in Canberra to promote the uptake of research outputs by government agencies.

The launch will also mark the opening of the centre’s inaugural conference, which will focus on recent advances in biodiversity genomics.

Image credit: Marie Davies