About us

The Society for Biological Systematics (in German: Gesellschaft für Biologische Systematik, GfBS) represents scientific research in systematics and the knowledge about biodiversity and diversity of all extant and fossil organisms in the German-speaking region. It supports researchers and nature-loving people, who devote themselves to organismic biology, taxonomy and phylogenetic systematics and want to preserve living organisms on our planet.

The society focusses on questions such as how diversity can be detected and identified, how organismic diversity evolved and changes and how biodiversity influences the environment. In this way, the Society supports and encourages national and international intra- and interdisciplinary cooperation and represents scientific systematics in public.

Objectives

The GfBS

  • promotes systematics as the core competence for biodiversity research
  • furthers the connections it shares with other scientific disciplines
  • improves the flow of information between colleagues of the different systematic disciplines as well as collaboration between universities, natural history museums and research institutions
  • promotes understanding of the scientific and societal meaning of systematic research among the general public
  • represents the interests of systematic research towards funding institutions and ministries
  • demands and encourages the development and expansion of scientific collections

Commitment

  • The GfBS offers all systematists a forum for sharing and exchanging know-how and for continuing education in workshops, at our annual conferences, with our publications and with this website
  • The Society supports young scientists, their education and state-of-the-art training
  • The GfBS awards the Bernhard Rensch-Prize to young scientists who have demonstrated exceptional work in any area of biological systematics
  • GfBS working groups such as the Curators and the Young Systematists (JuSys) are established under the auspices of the Society
  • The Society is the editor of the scientific journal Organisms, Diversity & Evolution (ODE)
  • Two times each year, the GfBS publishes a Newsletter that includes information about our scientific meetings and those of other organizations, new initiatives, projects, need-to-know facts, tips and new ideas connected with our scientific disciplines
  • In the tools and tricks section, the Society collects information for work and the daily challenges encountered in museums, during education or the identification of organisms
  • With the e-mail list, managed by the GfBS, all members are easily able to connect with all other members of the Society.

According to its statutes, the GfBS is a scientific non-profit organisation.

Network

The GfBS is integrated into a national and an international network and collaborates with several initiatives and sister organisations.

History

The GfBS was founded in Berlin in 1997.