The BryoZone project was conceived at the 13th International Conference of the International Bryozoological Association in Concepción, Chile, in 2004. We were `persuaded' by several of our colleagues that the bryozoan research community and other scientists would benefit greatly from a web-served relational database that brought together taxonomic, bibliographic, biogeographic and temporal data as a single unified resource. Our goal was to begin work on a dynamically accessible database available to the entire field, one that could evolve with knowledgeable individuals and institutions contributing missing pieces.

The initial phase of the project was funded in 2004 by a grant from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. This phase relied on the expertise of a five-member international team for conversion and scrubbing of extensive lists of taxonomic information that had been compiled through decades of toil by Phil Bock, Dennis Gordon and the late Alan Horowitz. Members of the development team were responsible for adding newer species names, researching taxonomic histories and synonyms to fill the gaps in existing data sets, making decisions about uncertain genus and family assignments, validating this first round of data, and implementing the database and website.

We look forward to expanding the project with the collaboration of the bryozoan research community.

- Scott Lidgard, for the BryoZone development team