The 9th GEO European Projects Workshop took place on 15 and 16 June 2015, in Copenhagen, Denmark. A special session dedicated to biodiversity and ecosystems was held as a part of the meeting, where EU BON and other topic relevant projects were presented.

The session was started by Gary Geller with an introduction and overview. Particularly the importance of the long-term sustainability of the projects and the linkages to the overall aims of GEO were stressed, as well as the opportunity of the session to find further synergies among the GEO-related projects.

Participants at the biodiversity and ecosystems sessions during the 9th GEO European Projects Workshop; Credit: Florian Wetzel

EU BON was presented at the meeting by the project coordinator Christoph Häuser, who outlined the core elements for an integrated biodiversity information system. There is the challenge to provide a sound framework to overcome the fragmentation of available biodiversity information to obtain better information for political decision making.  EU BON with its 31 partners tackles this challenge and its main objective is to serve as a European contribution to GEO BON.

Other projects presented during the session were EU H2020 projects ECOPOTENTIAL and GLOBIS‑B, both already in the list of associated partners of EU BON.  The third H2020 project presented here was SWOS, a Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service.

One of the major outcomes of the session was the agreement that further follow-ups of the discussions are needed and that the projects should have further exchange among each other.

The European Environmental Agency (EEA) has published its Annual Report describing the work carried out by the EEA in 2014. The EEA annual report includes the EMAS environmental statement 2014.

Download the report here.

A free GEO/Ramsar webinar titled "Wetlands, Biodiversity and the Role of Earth Observations" is taking place today - 18 June 2015. The webinar  is designed for anyone with an interest in or passion for biodiversity and wetlands - students, scientists, experts, or anyone with a general interest in one or more of these topics – who wants to learn from these vast global communities​.

This is the first of a series of planned webinars on the role of Earth observations in monitoring and sustaining biodiversity and wetlands. The webinars will be hosted by the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) and GEO Water Community, together with the Ramsar Secretariat and will include leading experts from the global communities highly engaged in biodiversity, wetlands and Earth observations.

To watch the event and register follow the link: https://blbgroup.leadpages.net/webinar-wetlands/

Our family of Associated Partners has grown with three new members that joined us this month. EU BON has signed MoUs with the GLOBal Infrastructures for Supporting Biodiversity research (GLOBIS-B), the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources of the National Research Council of Italy (IGG-CNR) and ECOPOTENTIAL: Improving Future Ecosystem Benefits through Earth Observations, The hand over took place during the 9th GEO European Projects' Workshop in Copenhagen (15 – 16 June 2015).

   
Left: EU BON coordinator Christoph Hauser and Anke Hoffmann handing over the MoUs to our partners from IGG-CNR and ECOPOTENIAL  Antonello Provenzale, Carl Beierkuhnlein and Palma Blonda; Right: Handing over the MoU to Daniel Kissling - scientfic coordinator of GLOBIS-B; Credits: Anke Hoffmann
 

The GLOBIS-B project is a new H2020 project aiming to bring together biodiversity scientists with research infrastructure operators and legal interoperability experts to address the research needs and infrastructure services required to calculate Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV) at a global scale.

ECOPOTENTIAL makes significant progress beyond the state-of-the-art and creates a unified framework for ecosystem studies and management of protected areas (PA). ECOPOTENTIAL focuses on internationally recognized PAs in Europe and beyond in a wide range of biogeographic regions, and it includes UNESCO, Natura2000 and LTER sites and Large Marine Ecosystems. Best use of Earth Observation (EO) and monitoring data is enabled by new EO open-access ecosystem data services (ECOPERNICUS). 

IGG-CNR conducts studies based on mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, geodynamics and geophysics, aimed at understanding the processes occurring both in the interior and at the surface of the Earth, and providing the fundamental knowledge for the applications (technological use of geomaterials, mitigation of the natural risks and correct management of the Earth resources for a sustainable development).

The 9th GEO European Projects Workshop is now taking place on 15 and 16 June 2015 in Copenhagen, co-organised by the Danish Meteorological Institute, the European Commission and the European Environment Agency.

While registration is now closed, due to demand the event will be recorded and streamed live on http://stream.dvc.dk/9thgeo/ for those who are interested to follow.

The objective of the GEO European Projects Workshop is to bring together European players interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS). The aim is to enable participants to present their work and discuss how Europe can contribute to this international effort. Its timing has been set to maximise early insight and awareness of the new Implementation plan for the next decade of GEO as well as input to and awareness of Horizon 2020 work programme for 2016 and 2017.

Building on the experience from previous GEO European Projects Workshops, it is intended to continue working towards greater involvement of the European private sector, especially SMEs, in GEO.  The workshop will also focus on user engagement, and the priorities for future flagship initiatives, foreseen to be strengthened in the next phase of GEO, in order to fulfil GEO's ambition to provide information for decision making.

More information available on the official event page: http://geo.pbe.eionet.europa.eu/

A new issue in Science for Environment Policy "Monitoring Nature: Research Developments" provides a flavour of recent work by scientists in the area of biodiversity monitoring to highlight both up-to-date approaches to conservation and evaluation, and how long-term monitoring data could be used more effectively in management and policy decisions.

This Issue also includes topics such as monitoring to environmental policy, remote sensing, citizen science, DNA barcoding and more.

Find this issue on the SEP website here, or go straight to download.

The annual EU BON General Meeting was successfully held from 1 to 4 June 2015 at the Clare College Conferencing, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 

The meeting was attended by a total of 85 participants with various organizational background and relation to EU BON. Among these were almost all EU BON alongside representatives of eight associate partners and many guests.

Participants at the EU BON General Meeting, 2015; Credit:  Dirk Schmeller

One of the highlights of the meeting was its very start with three inspiring keynote speakers. 

Among these, Bill Sutherland from the University of Cambridge started off to give an interesting speech about the progress and future plans on combining Biodiversity science and policy. Second was Gary Geller from the GEO secretariat who talked about GEO, GEOSS and GEO BON, its vision and goals. 
Later on, Johannes Peterseil from LTER-Europe shared some interesting thoughts about linking ecosystem research and earth observation through the cooperation between LTER-Europe and EU BON. 

During the meeting other relevant projects were also introduced to all participants. These were DataOne and Species 2000/Catalogue of Life and two new EU projects Ecopotential and Globis-B. 

The General Meeting included six thematic sessions on highly relevant EU BON topics, followed by many cross-task modules which led to better cooperation and communication between work packages and tasks. The exchange of experience gave new input to all work packages and set the milestones for the work ahead. 

Presentations from the meeting will be uploaded shortly.

PRESENTATIONS:

AGENDA - EU BON 3rd General Assembly

Keynote speakers: 

W.Sutherland - Biodiversity science and policy

G.Geller - GEO / GEOSS / GEOBON

J.Peterseil - Linking ecosystem research and earth observation

Other projects:

B.Wilson - DataONE

C.Flann - Species 2000 Catalogue of Life

C.Marangi - Ecopotential

W.Los - Globis-B

EU BON presentations:

C.Haeuser - EU BON core elements for an integrated biodiversity information system

U.Koljalg - Data mobilization strategy and show case

H.Saarenmaa - European biodiversity portal

Y.Gavish - Developing EU BON's site-specific portal

E.Regan - Stakeholder requirements

I.Geijzendorffer - Context of EU BON

Selection of pictures from the meeting:

Stakeholders from across Europe are coming together at Green Week to discuss biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe. The European Environment Agency (EEA) will present its latest findings, recently published in its reports 'State of nature in the EU' and 'The European Environment – state and outlook 2015'. 

The European Environment Agency's recent assessments, including The European environment – state and outlook 2015 and State of Nature in the EU, show that Europe's biodiversity is still being eroded, despite significant local improvements. To halt the loss of biodiversity, stabilise and restore degraded ecosystems, the European Union has adopted the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, which sets various targets and actions. An effective implementation of the strategy depends, among others, on the data and information available on biodiversity in Europe. Through its extensive network and close collaboration with partners, the EEA contributes extensively to the knowledge base on Europe's biodiversity.

Read the full original news story on the EEA website.

Sustainable governance of our biological resources demands reliable scientific knowledge to be accessible and applicable to the needs of society. To achieve this, the EU BON project aims to develop a European Biodiversity Observation Network that facilitates open access to biodiversity data of relevance to environmental policy, and to develop innovative platforms for sharing and conveying this information through visually effective and policy-relevant media.

As part of this endeavour, EU BON partners FishBase Information and Research Group (FIN), the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN), and the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre collaborated to produce an infographic titled ‘Climate Change & Biodiversity: What may happen to bony fishes in the North Sea?’. This infographic explains the economic and ecological importance of bony fishes in the context of the North Sea. It also visualises potential changes to species diversity and composition over time, using habitat suitability and climate change predictions. These changes have been projected to 2100 based on modelled environmental conditions under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s A2 emissions scenarios. The projections have direct policy relevance to Aichi Biodiversity Target 10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which seeks to understand trends in climatic impacts on community composition in ecosystems, and to thereby minimize these impacts.

The infographic was published on the 1^st June 2015 on page 26 of The Parliament Magazine’s ‘Green Week’ edition (Issue 413), which is distributed to all members of European Parliament, the European Commission, Presidency Office, Party political groups, and various other EU institutions, with over 50,000 readers worldwide. 

A Special Section: "Conservation in Europe as a model for emerging conservation issues globally" is featured in the Early View module of Conservation Biology online. The section includes: 

Mapping opportunities and challenges for rewilding in Europe

Silvia Ceaușu, Max Hofmann, Laetitia M. Navarro, Steve Carver, Peter H. Verburg and Henrique M. Pereira

John D. C. Linnell, Petra Kaczensky, Ulrich Wotschikowsky, Nicolas Lescureux and Luigi Boitani

DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12534

FishBase on the US and CA servers (www.fishbase.us and www.fishbase.ca) are now updated to version April 2015.

BiodivERsA3 has officially launched its 2015 pan-European joint call for research proposals. The call, co-funded by the European Commission, will focus on understanding and managing the biodiversity dynamics to improve ecosystem services and functioning.

BiodivERsA is a network of 29 research-funding agencies across 18 European countries. It is an ERA-NEt Co-fund, funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. BiodivERsA works to coordinate national research programmes on biodiversity across Europe and to organize international funding for research projects in this field.

The complete announcement on this call, including details on the topics, is listed here.

Scientific teams are invited to form international consortia comprising research groups from at least three countries participating in the BiodivERsA call. The complete list of participating countries can be found here.

The deadline for submission of pre-proposals (mandatory) is set on Monday 20 July 2015, 17:00 GMT +1:00. More information on the time schedule can be found here.

The  4th edition of the DEST course ‘BASICS of TAXONOMY’ will take place from 5 to16 October 2015 at the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences, Kristineberg, Sweden.

Taught by renowned experts in their field, the course topics are:

- DELTA
- Digital drawing
- Scientific illustration
- Scientific writing and communication
- Scratchpads, a tool to build, publish and share information on the web

Target audience: MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers

Thanks to funding of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, this 2-weeks course is offered at a discounted rate of 550 EUR.

Fee includes accommodation and meals.                                                                                                                                          

More info: http://taxonomytraining.eu/content/basics-taxonomy-describing-illustrating-and-communicating-biodiversity

XML markup of taxonomic research and specimen data is a valuable tool for structuring the incessantly accumulating biodiversity knowledge. It allows for the opportunity to collectively use the currently fragmented information for more detailed analysis.

A new research paper, published in theBiodiversity Data Journal, demonstrates how XML markup using GoldenGATE can address the challenges presented by unstructured legacy data, like those presented in the widely used PDF format. The paper demonstrates how structured primary biodiversity data can be extracted from such legacy sources and aggregated with and jointly queried with data from other Darwin Core-compatible sources, to present a visualization of these data that can communicate key information contained in biodiversity literature.

Specimen data in taxonomic literature are among the highest quality primary biodiversity data. Innovative cybertaxonomic journals such as the Biodiversity Data Journal are using workflows that preserve the data's structure and semantic specificity and disseminate electronic content to aggregators and other users that makes these data reusable.

Such structure however is lost in traditional taxonomic publishing and currently, access to that resource is cumbersome, especially for non-specialist data consumers.

The question is: how do you manage this vast distributed repository of knowledge about biodiversity to make it easily available reusable for future research?

To answer this challenge this project queried XML structured articles published in Biodiversity Data Journal along with historical taxonomic literature marked up using GoldenGATE, and represents the results as a series of standard charts. XML structured documents are maintained by the Swiss NGO Plazi and are freely available online.

In such form, data associated with specimens becomes much more valuable as it can reveal key information about a particular species, and even about the scientists who investigate them. Charts indicate at a glance, for example, what time of year and elevation range a species is likely to be found at, useful information if you want to search for it in the field.

Our accumulated biodiversity knowledge includes an estimated 2-3 billion specimens in natural history collections and 500 million pages of printed text. These are the data we need to answer questions that are relevant to our world today, like setting conservation priorities and anticipating the effects of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem functions that affect the lives of people.

"In short, we have half a billion pages worth of biodiversity knowledge and are just learning how to query it. The real power comes when data from many articles are combined, queried, and reused for new purposes. Potential applications span the scientific, policy, and public spheres. When we all have better access to the information that already exists in the global corpus of biodiversity literature, this helps us do a better job of exploring what we don't know and wisely applying what we do." explains the lead author Dr Jeremy Miller, Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

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This project was supported by pro-iBiosphere and EU BON, two FP-7 (European Union Seventh Framework Programme, 2007-2013) grants (No 312848 and 308454).

EU BON is happy to announce a new addition to our growing family of associated partners. In April 2015, the project has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio).

GFBio is a project that brings together national key players providing environmentally related biological data and services to develop the ‘German Federation for Biological Data' . The overall goal is to provide a sustainable, service oriented, national data infrastructure facilitating data sharing and stimulating data intensive science in the fields of biological and environmental research. 

The federation will build on proven data archiving infrastructures and workflows such as those of PANGAEA for environmental data and the resources of Germany's major natural history collection data repositories. The new infrastructure will improve and integrate these existing components within a common technological and organizational framework.

The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences offers a new position for Postdoctoral researcher in ecology: Spatial population dynamics at a species’ northern range margin at the Department of Ecology.

The department conducts empirical and theoretical research for sustainable forest and agricultural production and efficient biological conservation. Research on populations, communities, and ecosystems forms the foundation for studying the influence of land use and climate on animals, plants, soils nutrient status, and greenhouse gas balances. Solutions are sought that will mitigate climate change, preserve threatened species, benefit biological diversity and ecosystem services, and control pests in forest and agricultural landscapes as well as in urban areas.

Duties: The postdoc researcher will study spatial population dynamics in an insect at the northern margin of its global distribution, by taking advantage of a data from a long-term study of the butterfly Pyrgus armoricanus. The main purpose of the project is to understand how climate, habitat fragmentation and habitat quality influence the regional distribution and population dynamics of this butterfly, and to use this knowledge to predict population persistence and distribution in an altered climate and after changed land use. The successful candidate wull also analyze time-series data on population dynamics in relation to weather and habitat quality. There will also be opportunities to model future regional distribution or population persistence under scenarios of future land use and climate change.

Place of work: Uppsala

Form of employment: Temporary employment, 1 year.

Deadlines: June 1, 2015

For more information on requirements and how to apply, lease visit the official job offer page: http://www.slu.se/sv/om-slu/fristaende-sidor/aktuellt/lediga-tjanster/las-mer/?eng=1&Pid=1875

A new aticle published in Ecology Letters  looks into the indirect interactions among tropical tree species through shared rodent seed predators. The reasearch is part of the work of EU BON postdoc Carol X. Garzon-Lopez.

Abstract: The coexistence of numerous tree species in tropical forests is commonly explained by negative dependence of recruitment on the conspecific seed and tree density due to specialist natural enemies that attack seeds and seedlings (‘Janzen–Connell’ effects). Less known is whether guilds of shared seed predators can induce a negative dependence of recruitment on the density of different species of the same plant functional group. We studied 54 plots in tropical forest on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, with contrasting mature tree densities of three coexisting large seeded tree species with shared seed predators. Levels of seed predation were far better explained by incorporating seed densities of all three focal species than by conspecific seed density alone. Both positive and negative density dependencies were observed for different species combinations. Thus, indirect interactions via shared seed predators can either promote or reduce the coexistence of different plant functional groups in tropical forest.

Carol X. Garzon-Lopez et. al. (2015) Indirect interactions among tropical tree species through shared rodent seed predators: a novel mechanism of tree species coexistence. Ecology Letters. doi: 10.1111/ele.12452

A team representing the EU BON project travelled to the Joint Research Centre (Ispra, Italy) on 23-24 April 2015 to meet with representatives of various JRC Units dealing with biodiversity.

Working in close collaboration with policy Directorate-General, the JRC’s mission is to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support, throughout the whole policy cycle. Gregoire Dubois (JRC), who seats the Advisory board of the EU BON project, chaired the two-day meeting intended to establish concrete links between EU BON and JRC. 

The objectives of the meeting were hence to become familiar with JRC’s biodiversity work, present the EU BON project to JRC, and above all identify overlapping interests, so as to develop cooperation between the EU BON project and JRC. Stimulated by a number of presentations from both sides, long discussions took place, mainly centred around how can JRC and EU BON work together to ensure the long-term presence of EU BON and its products.

The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) publishes a monthly newsletter  to keep stakeholders informed of news about biodiversity concerns and efforts that are relevant to the ASEAN region, including about the work of ACB.

In their latest issue they feature articles about: 

• ASEAN-Japan cooperation on nature parks management
• Phl hosts international conservation financing conference
• ACB briefs German researchers on coastal ecosystem management

And many more news, features and updates. To read the newsletter, please go to: http://e-news.aseanbiodiversity.org/acb_eweb_mar15/#phl

The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is an intergovernmental regional centre of excellence that facilitates cooperation and coordination among the members of ASEAN, and with relevant governments and organizations on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.  Protecting Southeast Asia’s rich but highly threatened web of life is its main goal.

GEO BON announces the launch of their newly designed webpage located at the same address: www.geobon.org

The site’s home page welcomes visitors with a clean uncluttered design with featured content focused on GEO BON's to improve the acquisition, coordination and delivery of biodiversity information and services to users, particularly decision-makers,  achieved through easier navigation to content, applications and products, but also for the site to serve as a data portal in future.

Go and explore if you haven't done so: www.geobon.org

The University of Cambridge invites for applications for a Research Associate to work on EU-BON, a major EU-funded research project, seeking to improve the use of biodiversity data in public policy. EU-BON will carry out research towards building a European gateway for biodiversity information, which will integrate a wide range of biodiversity data from on ground observations to remote sensing datasets and make it accessible for scientists, policy makers, and the public. The project is coordinated from the Berlin Natural History Museum with the University of Cambridge contribution being led Professor William Sutherland (Department of Zoology) and Dr Robert Doubleday (Centre for Science and Policy and Department of Geography). EU-BON started on 1 December 2012 and runs for 4.5 years.

The post The researcher will carry out research on how biodiversity data is currently used in European policy making and will contribute to analysis of the opportunities to increase its effective provision and use. Research methods are likely to combine qualitative and quantitative analysis and to focus on the use of biodiversity data in public policy contexts. The researcher will be expected to spend time working in both the Department of Zoology and the Centre for Science and Policy.

In addition to carrying out research on the use of biodiversity data in European policy making, the researcher will support Cambridge's contribution to EU BON as a whole. This will involve contributing to other workpackages as and when required. More information about EU BON can be found here:http://www.eubon.eu

Person Specification Applicants should have a PhD in a relevant field. Experience in both qualitative and quantitative analysis is desirable. Applicants should ideally have some first-hand experience of public policy processes and a willingness to travel within the European Union for research. Excellent organisational and communication skills will be essential in working as a successful part of this large, multi-partner and multinational team.

Any enquiries concerning the position can be made to Dr Robert Doubleday,rob.doubleday@csap.cam.ac.uk or Professor William Sutherland, w.sutherland@zoo.cam.ac.uk

Interviews for this post will take place on Thursday 18th June 2015.

To apply and for more information, please go to teh official job offer.

Reporting under policy instruments to inform on the trends in biodiversity requires information from a range of different elements of biodiversity, from genetically viable populations to the structure of ecosystems. A new research looks into the Essential Biodiversity Variables as an analytic framework to identify ways in which gaps between biodiversity data and policy reporting needs could be bridged. The study was published in theJournal of Applied Ecology.

The Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs, Pereira et al. 2013) which were previously developed by ecology experts in GEO BON, is as a list of the most essential elements that need to be monitored worldwide, if we want to know how biodiversity is really changing.Example of essential variables is the population abundances of species (like the Living Plant Index from the WWF) or the extent of habitat fragmentation.

In the recently published study, funded by the EU FP7 project EU BON, scientists used the identified EBVs as a framework to analyse the gaps between the biodiversity objectives stated in international policy instruments, the indicators used to develop the related policy reports and the data that is actually available to quantify indicators and proxies.

Results of the recently published study show:

1) which aspects of biodiversity are being asked for the reporting on policy instruments. Based on this knowledge,it became apparent which aspects of biodiversity are not often asked to be in these reports and thus for which aspects policy makers are unlikely to receive information. For example information on the changes in the EBV class "Genetic Composition", was not often asked in reports, not often used in indicators and little data is directly available.

2) which of these biodiversity aspects actually end up being in the CBD reports, because scientists were able to quantify indicators. For instance, information for Ecosystem function is often asked for, but is not represented by many indicators.

3) for some EBVs data seems available to improve current reporting efforts, for instance for indicators on Ecosystem structure.

Additionally, the study identified which potentially available data could be used to improve existing indicators by adding more taxa or spatial or temporal coverage. This analysis also showed that the EBVs will not cover all the information asked in policy reporting. This is because the policy objectives also include things related to awareness raising of the public and the implementation of protection measures - aspects which are not within the scope of EBVs.

"Analytical properties, such as an identification of which data and indicators are relevant per EBV, will need to be addressed before EBVs can actually become operational and facilitate the integration of data flows for monitoring and reporting." commented the lead author of the study Dr. Ilse Geijzendorffer.

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Original Source:

Geijzendorffer, I.R., Regan, E.C., Pereira, H. M., Brotons, L., Brummitt, N., Gavish, Y., Haase, P., Martin, C.S., Mihoub, J.-B., Secades, C., Schmeller, D.S., Stoll, S., Wetzel, F. T., & Walters, M.,Journal of Applied Ecology http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12417/abstract

Additional information:

Pereira, H.M., Ferrier, S., Walters, M., Geller, G.N., Jongman, R.H.G., Scholes, R.J. M. W. Bruford, Brummitt, N. , Butchart, S.H.M., Cardoso, A.C., Coops, N.C., Dulloo, E., Faith, D.P., Freyhof, J., Gregory, R.D., Heip, C., Höft, R., Hurtt, G., Jetz, W., Karp, D.S., McGeoch, M.A., Obura, D., Onoda, Y., Pettorelli, N., Reyers, B., Sayre, R., Scharlemann, J. P. W., Stuart, S.N., Turak, E., Walpole, M., & Wegmann, M. (2013) Essential biodiversity variables. Science, 339, 277-278.

The European Environment Agency has published its flagship report, the European Environment - State and Outlook 2015 (SOER 2015) .

It contains excellent online resources with detailed information, including downloadable graphs, tables and images. The report is compiled every five years and includes an assessment of trends and prospects, information on individual countries and regions, cross-country comparisons and the global context.

Aggregated level information on climate change, impacts, vulnerability and adaptation is included. 

Read more and find the report online here: http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer

EU BON and CETAF informatics groups had an astronomically successful meeting at Digitarium in Joensuu, Finland, 17-20 March 2015. The event coincided with solar eclipse and show of the decade for northern lights.

Major progress in data standards for information exchange took place during the week when the Biodiversity Information Standards TDWG organisation announced ratification of five new terms for quantitative biodiversity data, which had been proposed by the EU BON project one year earlier. The new terms include, in particular, organismQuantity and sampleSizeValue. This allows for exchange of ecological data in much wider scale than what has been possible until now. The participants of the meeting applauded for this occasion.

Northern lights over Joensuu Science Park 2015-03-18. Photo: Riitta Tegelberg

The meeting included a training workshop on new data sharing tools, and working sessions for designing the EU BON portal, which will allow using biodiversity observation data in research.

The 40 attendees came from 18 different countries.

Participants at the meeting.

During the meeting the attendees also were given presentations and demonstrations of Digitarium's equipment and methods for high-performance digitisation.

New research published with the support of the FP7 large-scale bioinformatics project Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) and the Alien Challenge COST action reveals the importance of open data in the study and control of invasive alien species. The study was published online in open access in the journal Management of Biological Invasions.

Invasive alien species cause a wide variety of problems, including issues related to conservation; to human and animal health; to agriculture and to fisheries management. But how can science be useful to manage such potential issues?

"To advise policy makers and inform land managers on the dangers posed by and how to fight alien species we need to understand the invasion process. Ideally, we would like to be able to predict the causes, routes and progression of invasions." explains Dr. Quentin Groom, Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium.

Recently, several research groups have pioneered the process of "Horizon Scanning" for new alien species, also there have been parallel developments in the creation of dynamic ecological models to predict invasions. However, the greatest limitation to these advances is the lack of suitable data.

"The problem of invasive species is international and rapidly changing. Data are required from an extensive area, for many species and for a long period but what is currently available is patchy and often inaccessible. We argue for the importance of open data to tackle the problem of invasive alien species." explains Dr. Groom.

This new research reviews why access to data are so important to invasive alien species research and gives an overview of the reasons why data are unavailable to researchers. Currently access to data is patchy and is restricted in many ways:

• Legally, the use of restrictive data licensing blocks its use.
• Technically, many software systems don't adequately support sharing, particularly in their provision of unique identifiers.
• Culturally, data secrecy is the default position for most organizations.

Currently invasive species data is patchy and often restricted legally, through the use of restrictive data licensing. Credit: Peter Desmet

Gradually, data are becoming more accessible and attitudes towards data access are changing. The advent of data publications allows researchers to attract citations from their data, while simultaneously making their data accessible and discoverable.

The community of biodiversity observers is highly fragmented and the creation of a European biodiversity network will improve communication so that grassroots biodiversity surveyors will understand issues of data sharing, citation and licensing that are so critical for a rapid response to invasive species.

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Original Source:

Groom QJ, Desmet P, Vanderhoeven S & Adriaens T (2015) The importance of open data for invasive alien species research, policy and management. Management of Biological Invasions 6: in press. doi: 10.3391/mbi.2015.6.2.02

FishBase on the US and CA servers (www.fishbase.us and www.fishbase.us) are now updated to version February 2015.

The domain www.sealifebase.org is now served with load balancing between the two mirrors below.

- sealifebase.ca (UBC, Vancouver)
- sealifebase.de (Geomar, Kiel)

You will see which mirror is serving at the bottom left corner of the page.

The DE domain is recently acquired.

The second WP6 and 7 workshop was organised by CNRS and took place from 16 to 18 of February in Aix-en-Provence, France. During this meeting, partners brainstormed on possible cross work package papers, products and tasks. Partner’s enthusiasm for the ongoing work and possible impact of EU BON outputs fuelled energetic discussions.

Participants at the workshop. Credit: Florian Wetzel

Topics on the agenda include:

The possibilities of visualisations like Aquamaps and Fishbase to provide information for Marine policy targets or for capacity building on marine biodiversity information. We were very happy to have Sandrine Vaz from IFREMER, Montpellier joining us as an expert on marine data and its policy context.

For the EU BON business plan, the next steps were defined for its development, part of which Pan Xingliang will explore in his masters project. One of the steps will include a strategy meeting with other initiatives and European projects that face the same challenge of ensuring life of their products and networks of knowledge after the project end date.

The objective of the third stakeholder round table was further defined based on lessons learned from previous stakeholder round tables and identifying the information needs from the data portal for EU BON from our EU BON test case study regions.

A recent paper by Duccio Rocchini et al. (2015) has been classified as the fourth hottest article in Ecological Informatics. The paper is part of the EU BON project, and discusses from a conceptual point of view, the potential of remote sensing in estimating biodiversity using various diversity indices, including alpha- and beta-diversity measurements. 

Abstract:

Many geospatial tools have been advocated in spatial ecology to estimate biodiversity and its changes over space and time. Such information is essential in designing effective strategies for biodiversity conservation and management. Remote sensing is one of the most powerful approaches to identify biodiversity hotspots and predict changes in species composition in reduced time and costs. This is because, with respect to field-based methods, it allows to derive complete spatial coverages of the Earth surface under study in a short period of time. Furthermore, remote sensing provides repeated coverages of field sites, thus making studies of temporal changes in biodiversity possible. In this paper we discuss, from a conceptual point of view, the potential of remote sensing in estimating biodiversity using various diversity indices, including alpha- and beta-diversity measurements.

Original source:

Rocchini D, Hernández Stefanoni JL, He, KS (2015) Advancing species diversity estimate by remotely sensed proxies: a conceptual review. Ecological Informatics, 25: 22-28. doi:10.1016/j.ecoinf.2014.10.006

The second EU BON Roundtable took place on 27 November 2014 at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The workshop was dedicated to explore ways in which EU BON can support citizen science (CS) activities. Many partners and interested stakeholders participated, coming from different European research institutions, Natural History Museums, SMEs or representatives from European Institutions like European Commission (DG Research & Innovation and the Joint Research Centre) or the European Environmental Agency and EU-funded Citizen Observatories projects. On secondment to the Earth Observation Sector at DG Research and Innovation, European Commission, Jose-Miguel Rubio-Iglesias showed the possibilities of Citizen Science as one option to improve the science-society bridge. In the following interview he gives an overview of the topic covered and his participation at the round table.

Jose-Miguel Rubio-Iglesias gave a talk on improving the science-society-policy bridge by Citizen Science

Jose-Miguel Rubio-Iglesias, Policy Officer (Spanish National Centre for Geographic Information, on secondment to the European Commission)

Q: Where do you see the place of citizen science in the future of European research and innovation efforts?

A: I see a brilliant future of Citizen Science as a driver for research and innovation activities, especially in its shape of "Citizens' Observatories". The vertiginous increase in the use of mobile technologies, with a pervasive Internet accessible to everyone and social media usage at its peak, offers a world of opportunities for research and innovation in the domain of environmental monitoring technologies where citizens have a key role to play. Citizen science can also foster advancement in social innovation as these are normally collective actions carried out by citizens, sometimes in partnership with NGOs, researchers and public organisations, which are bringing benefits for the whole society. Furthermore, the European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020, is already offering a framework to mainstream public engagement in science and research, from programming to implementation and evaluation, being citizen science a one of the key instruments to realise this objective. Data and information gathering, results interpretation and co-creation are examples of activities in which citizens can be involved, leading to different kinds of innovation, including social innovation.

Q: What are the success factors for citizen science? What are the challenges for Citizen Science on a European scale?

A: In my opinion there is no magic formula to achieve success in a citizen science activity, nor any plug-and-play solution. There are many variables that have to be considered, such as the thematic, spatial or temporal scope of the activity. But a common element that seems to be an ingredient for success is to plan carefully not only the process of engagement but the feedback mechanisms, so citizens realise their actions and the outcomes of what they have done are really being useful. Working on creating a strong perception of ownership is always a success factor on a voluntary initiative.

I see a number of challenges for Citizen Science at a European scale, especially, the need for a better coordination of the local and regional activities. This can avoid duplication of initiatives, foster best practices across activities and help position better citizen science vis-à-vis the EU and national and local governments, so citizen science can be higher up on their agendas. In this sense, I think the role of associations such as ECSA (European Citizen Science  Association) is key in achieving this coordination.

Q: How can EU projects on biodiversity information like EU BON facilitate the process?

A: EU BON, like other EU projects which have biodiversity information as a focus, has an important role to make visible the knowledge treasured by citizen science groups. The European Biodiversity Portal, one of the EU BON main achievements, is a fantastic opportunity to open up the wealth of biodiversity data which has been collected by citizens throughout Europe, making it available for a better informed decision making in those areas in which biodiversity has a role.

Q: Where do you see the place of large European Earth observation projects such as EU BON in the global context?

A: The biodiversity information system resulting from EU BON is one of the main European contributions to GEO BON (GEO Biodiversity Observation Network), which is a flagship initiative of GEO (Group on Earth Observation). GEO BON is joining forces at international level to coordinate the activities relating to the Societal Benefit Area on Biodiversity of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Its main goals are to organize and improve terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity observations globally and make their biodiversity data, information and forecasts more readily accessible to policymakers, managers, experts and other users. As EU BON is creating a stable and open-access platform for sharing biodiversity tools and data, taking stock of existing components such as LifeWatch or GBIF, this is clearly a step forward towards the fulfilment of the objectives of GEO BON.

At global level, EU BON and GEOBON are strategically positioned to contribute to delivery of data for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Finally, together with EU BON, other large EU Earth Observation projects, such as SIGMA or Earth2Observe, are also providing an important contribution at global level to GEO, in this case to the GEO Societal Benefit Areas of Agriculture (GEO-GLAM) and Water respectively. 

NOTE: The views expressed in this interview are only of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Commission. 

A new policy brief featured a recent issue of Science for Environment Policy highlights a new study suggesting that the Aichi biodiversity targets, set by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, are unlikely to be achieved by 2020— despite some progress towards halting the global loss of biodiversity. The authors of the study call for policy responses to be strengthened if the ongoing loss of nature is to be stopped.

The loss of biodiversity affects the healthy functioning of ecosystems and the benefits they provide to people. The ongoing loss of the world’s natural diversity, which underpins all life, prompted Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002 to pledge reductions in the global decline in biodiversity by 2010.

The 2010 targets set by the CBD were missed. Consequently, a new set of goals to curb the loss of species and ecosystem services, supported by the 20 Aichi targets, were adopted by 193 nations in 2010. The Aichi targets, to be achieved by 2020, are part of the global Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020.

A global panel of 51 experts, drawn from a wide range of institutions, has recently assessed mid-term progress towards meeting these targets. They based their assessment on an analysis of 55 indicators (for example, extent of wetlands) selected from 163 potential indicators, which are key measures of the world’s biodiversity. They built statistical models for each indicator, based on their status in 2010 and data trends and then projected changes to the indicators by 2020. The value for each indicator in 2010 was then compared with the projected value in 2020 to assess progression towards the 2020 Aichi targets.

Read more in the original SEP policy brief. 

Original Study: 

Tittensor, D.P., Walpole, M., Hill, S.L.L. et al. (2014) A mid-term analysis of progress toward international biodiversity targets. Science 346 (6206): 241- 244. DOI:10.1126/science.1257 484

The European Environment Agency (EEA) is organising an open competition with a view to recruiting a contract agent to work as Project Manager within the area of biodiversity indicators and assessments and further with a view to establishing a reserve list.

THE AGENCY

The EEA is an Agency of the European Union (EU) and one of the decentralised Union bodies. The EEA aims to support sustainable development and to help achieve significant and measurable improvement inEurope’s environment, through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policy-making agents and the public.

More information is available on the official EEA page: http://www.eea.europa.eu/about-us/jobs/eeavacancy.2015-01-14.3625557226

The 2nd EU BON training on data sharing tools will take place side by side to CETAF/EU BON informatics workshops (see full program and logistic details here). The event will be organised by UEF and Digitarium, EU BON consortium member and work package leader (WP2), in collaboration with CETAF ISTC and other EU BON work packages.

Next topics will be covered:

• Introduction to GEOSS, GEO BON, EU BON (Hannu Saarenmaa)
• Information architecture of EU BON (Antonio Garcia)
• Data standards, Darwin Core and extensions for sample-based quantitative data (Éamonn Ó Tuama)
• Demonstration of GBIF/EU BON IPT for monitoring networks (Larissa Smirnova and Franck Theeten)
• Practical exercise with sample dataset (Larissa Smirnova and Franck Theeten)
• Practical exercise with own data (all trainees)

The workshop will include lectures and hands-on work, so participants are required to bring their own laptops. We will provide information and instructions on software installations. If the participants want to install IPT tool themselves, they can read and learn how to de it here. For the practical exercises it’s recommended to bring  own data (taxonomic, monitoring).

Place and date: Joensuu, Finland, 19 March 2015

Venue: Joensuu Science Park, Digitarium and the Conference Facility "Network Oasis"

To register, please fill in the registration form

Find the event in our calendar here.

UNEP-WCMC, Dutch Butterfly Conservation, and EU BON recently convened a workshop of 14 global experts from the field of butterfly monitoring, specifically the tropics and subtropics. The workshop has catalysed the process for the development of global butterfly monitoring guidelines and the creation of a new specialist butterfly monitoring group.

Hosted by GEO BON (Group on Earth Biodiversity Observation Network) at the offices of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig, Germany, the meeting took place on 8^th and 9^th December 2014. The global experts attending the meeting shared their significant experience and knowledge from the tropics, sub-tropics and deserts; including countries such as Papua New Guinea, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, USA, South Africa, Malaysia, and Liberia.

Blue Copper (Lycaena helle); Credit: Chris van Swaay

Butterfly populations have been monitored in Europe for over 35 years. This monitoring has used standardized protocols, produced long-term datasets, and has resulted in indicators tracking the changes in butterfly populations. These data are proving to be very valuable for informing decision-makers on biodiversity changes and are used at local, national and regional levels to inform conservation management decisions and policies. As a result of the success of schemes in Europe, butterfly monitoring is growing and is now being implemented in countries outside of Europe including North America and Israel using similar protocols.

However, the protocols for butterfly monitoring in temperate regions are not applicable in regions with high numbers of butterfly species such as the tropics. In these biomes methodologies such as fruit-bait traps, counts of puddling butterflies, and timed counts have been used. The aim of this meeting, therefore, was to agree a standard set of methodologies that could be applied globally and from which data could be aggregated through an Essential Biodiversity Variable into a Global Butterfly Indicator.

The main agenda items and points of discussion were an overview of current butterfly monitoring, structured by continent and habitat, with emphasis on the different protocols; steps to process count data into indicators and trends; essential variables required to measure changes in butterfly populations; compatibility of different protocols and the logistics of creating a global indicator; whether the entire species diversity should be measured or just a portion; and agreement on a standard set monitoring protocols.

This workshop has catalysed the development of a number of products, including: global butterfly monitoring guidelines; the development of a Global Butterfly Indicator; and a suite of scientific journal articles on butterfly monitoring in different regions of the world. The development of an Essential Biodiversity Variable (EBV) ‘butterfly population abundance’ that will facilitate the harmonisation of butterfly monitoring data from different habitat types and regions is also being developed. A new butterfly monitoring specialist group has also been established to provide support for practitioners working in the field of butterfly monitoring and to continue momentum from this workshop.

The standardization of monitoring protocols that can be implemented in any country is crucial for the robust estimation of butterfly populations globally to assess progress towards the 2020 targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). These guidelines can also provide the foundation for developing scenarios for the future of butterfly populations under different policy and management options. The outcomes of this meeting provide a clear path to increased harmonization among the efforts of global butterfly experts in different regions and towards the establishment of a Global Butterfly Indicator.

We would like to thank GEO BON and EU BON for funding this meeting.

Participants of the butterfly monitoring experts meeting at iDiv, Leipzig, Germany, December 2014

A second WP4 (Link environment to biodiversity: analyses of patterns, processes and trends) meeting was held on 8 & 9 December 2014 in Brussels, to discuss progress towards objectives and set plans for future development.

Hot topics during the meeting were: GBIF data: who will use them, and how; development and use of methodology; collaboration between WP4 and the relevant WP3 (Improving tools and methods for data analysis and interface) and WP5 (EU BON testing and validation of concepts, tools, and services); as well ways to translate WP4 results for the use of policy and practice.

Image: Participants at the meeting;  Credit: Dirk Schmeller

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed at the second EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable on Citizen Science between Christoph Häuser, on behalf of EU BON, and Fermin Serrano Sanz, on behalf of the Citizen Science Project Socientize at the 27^th of November 2014. The Roundtable on Citizen Science took place at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany and followed the General Assembly Meeting of the European Citizen Science Association. 

Signing the MoU: (left) Christoph Häuser, EU BON and (right) Fermin Serrano Sanz, Socientize

Socientize (Society as e-Infrastructure through technology, innovation and creativity) is a Citizen Science Project that was funded by the European Union. The project aims to coordinate agents involved in the citizen science process and to foster and promote the usage of citizen science infrastructures.  There are several linkages between the citizen science related work of EU BON and Socientize (e.g. policy recommendations for citizen science) and by signing the MoU, a further exchange and follow-ups were agreed.

The second EU BON Roundtable took place on 27 November 2014 at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The workshop was dedicated to explore ways in which EU BON can support citizen science (CS) activities. EU BON is building a large integrated biodiversity information infrastructure in order to serve science, policy and administration as well as citizen scientists. Citizen scientists are important stakeholders, as they support the increase of knowledge in various aspects, they may debate research questions, most often they collect data, and they may interpret data and publish their results.

Many partners and interested stakeholders participated, coming from different European research institutions, Natural History Museums, SMEs or representatives from European Institutions like European Commission DG Research & Innovation, the European Environmental Agency or the JRC and EU-funded Citizen Science projects.

Participants at the 2nd EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable

The Citizen Science Roundtable started with a "Setting the scene" session where a welcome address was given by Katrin Vohland from the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN). In a brief introduction from a biodiversity data perspective, some gaps in current bio-diversity data were shown, for example the large data gaps in Eastern European data in plant datasets and the restricted access to many datasets. Christoph Häuser from the MfN outlined EU BON and its main activities in the field of Citizen Science.

As a representative from DG Research and Innovation from the European Commission, Jose-Miguel Rubio-Iglesias showed the possibilities of Citizen Science as one option to improve the science-society bridge. Lucy Robinson (ECSA/NHM London) focused on citizen science in Europe, its impact and development. 

The next session targeted the question of how EU BON can possibly support data mobilization of and for citizen scientists. Antonio García Camacho from CSIC Donana showed, with a colleague from IBM, the prototype of the future EU BON data portal, to integrate biodiversity data/metadata sources into a single user interface. In another talk, Jaume Piera pointed out the requirements that exist in a CS portal, e.g. with regards to the role of citizen collaboration, the social media channels, and particularly the conceptual requirements. Important aspects here are for example that data access tracking has to be guaranteed, for giving credits to data producers and for keeping track of data use. Simao Belchior of the SME Simbiotica showed successful ways of visualizing georeferenced data, e.g. the mapping of pan-tropical forest clearing.

The next session called "A spotlight on some (meta)data provider" was started by Veljo Runnel who presented an assessment of Citizen Science involvement in biological research. Nils Valland described in his talk key success factors for citizen science and species occurrence data in Europe. Dirk Schmeller informed the audience about Volunteer Species Monitoring in Europe. He pointed out the need that governments should invest more to support and expand current monitoring initiatives. For example the EuMon project had documented 395 monitoring schemes for species, which represents a total annual cost of about €4 million, involving more than 46,000 persons devoting over 148,000 person-days/year to biodiversity monitoring activities.

In the "Synergies of European Citizen Science projects" session, presentations outlined of the main aims of several EU funded Citizen science projects (Citclops, COBWEB, Socientize). Pierre-Philippe Mathieu from the European Space Agency highlighted the new era for Earth Observation and links to Citizen Science projects. Siro Masinde from showed the Citizen Science activities of GBIF, which is one of the largest data providers of species occurrence records.

For more detailed information on the issues discussed, please see below the presentations from the meeting or contact us:

Dr. Katrin Vohland ( katrin.vohland@mfn-berlin.de)  

Dr. Florian Wetzel (florian.wetzel@mfn-berlin.de)

PRESENTATIONS

1.Rubio-Iglesias - Citizen Science as science-society bridge

2. Häuser - EU BON

3. Robinson - Citizen science in Europe

4. Camacho - EU BON biodiversity portal

5. Piera - Requirements for the EU BON biodiversity

6. Belchior - Fall of data portals and future of data workflows

7. Runnel - Assessing Citizen Schience involvement

8.  Arvanitidis - Crowdsourcing initiatives in the Mediterranean Basin

9.  Valland - Key success factors of citizen science

10. Schmeller - Volunteer Species Monitoring

11. Mathieu - Crowd Sourcing for Space Science

12. Sanz – Socientize

13. Ceccaroni – Citclops

14. Williams – COBWEB

15. Masinde - GBIF, plans for integrating Citizen Science data

Meeting agenda

Selection of pictures from the meeting:

The consultation will run from the 7th of October to the 30th of November 2014. Comments received before the 31st of October 2014 will be, as much as possible, presented with the first results of this project during the IUCN World Parks Congress taking place in Sydney, Australia, 12-19 November 2014.

Contributors are not required to comment on the entire Consultation Document – any input will welcomed. 

More information available here.

Connecting the dots: Integrating Biodiversity Observations to Better Track the CBD 2020 Targets. 

Biodiversity: Journal of Life on Earth invites authors to share their experiences using systematic observations - including remote sensing observations - for monitoring change in biodiversity. The journal envisions submissions focusing on models for blending in-situ and remotely sensed data to fill gaps in the understanding of biodiversity status and trends.Biodiversity would welcome papers from members of the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, working in the wider landscape of data and observation, and from contributors to the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) exploring how Essential Biodiversity Variables could provide a framework for integrating biodiversity data. The journal also welcomes papers related to support offered by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility for implementing the Aichi Targets. 

This special double issue will be published in September 2015, the midpoint of the 2020 mandate of the CBD, and following the release of the 4th edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook at the October 2014 12th meeting of the CBD’s Conference of the Parties (COP-12) in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea.

Prospective authors may wish to refer to UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/17/2, Facilitating the Implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets through Scientific and Technical Means, prepared for the Seventeenth meeting of the CBD’s Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA-17); the SBSTTA-17 report (http://www.cbd.int/doc/?meeting=SBSTTA-17); and meeting documents for the Expert Workshop on Enhancing Biodiversity Data and Observing Systems in Support of the Implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 (http://www.cbd.int/doc/?meeting=WS-BDOBS). 

Please submit abstracts (250 words or less) in Times New Roman 12 pt. by 27 November 2014 to the Managing Editor, Vanessa Reid. A special board of editors will review the submitted abstracts. Only approved abstracts will be asked to proceed to final draft (4000-5000 words plus references and figures). Publication will be subject to peer review via Scholar One manuscripts online.

The Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE, Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France), in its research group "Macroecology and Biogeography of Global Change (MacroBio)" has a PostDoc position open for applications. The post has a duration of 36 months, the initial contract is made for 18 months, being extended based on an assessment of performance. The position is funded by the European Commission through the FP7 Research Project LUC4C and affiliated to the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS).

The main topic is to improve the way LULCC processes are represented in the DGVM LPJmL through enhanced soil and vegetation process representation. Work should improve the model's capacity to project climate-LULCC interactions for the computation of net climate effects, and ecosystem services. One focus is on the representation of diverse agricultural management systems, cropland abandonment/afforestation and forest management, in order to develop ways to account for their effects on biochemical cycles and biophysics.

A new report "A world that counts - Mobilising the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development" was recently published. The document points out the need for globally available and freely accessible data to monitor progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to hold governments accountable and foster sustainable development. This issue needs to be solved in a timely manner, as the gaps between developed and developing countries, between information-rich and information-poor people are increasing. Furthermore, better integrated, timely and validated information can lead to better decision-making and real-time feedback to the citizens. However, still some challenges remain, and the report points out recommendations to overcome existing limitations (countries have poor data, data arrives too late, many issues are barely covered), e.g. through a global "Network of Data Innovation Networks" that connects both organizations and experts. 

The report was written by UN-IAEG, which is the United Nations Secretary-General’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development and is available online here: http://www.undatarevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/A-World-That-Counts.pdf

The third plenary of Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will be held from the 12.-17. January 2015 in Bonn, Germany where also EU BON partners will attend. The IPBES secretariat already released some information notes and documents for participants that plan to join the sessions. In addition to that, some working documents for IPBES-3 are released in the meantime, like the provisional agenda and others. There are also reports being published that are relevant for the work of biodiversity networks like EU BON. Interesting reports are for example the draft of the assessment on biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe and Central Asia (where EU BON is mentioned as a relevant research network) and other working documents for the plenary.

Please find the documents under the following link that will guide you to the specific IPBES webpage: http://ipbes.net/plenary/ipbes-3.html#three

A new EU BON acknowledged paper "Advancing species diversity estimate by remotely sensed proxies: A conceptual review" has been recently published in the journal Ecological Informatics.

Abstract: 

Many geospatial tools have been advocated in spatial ecology to estimate biodiversity and its changes over space and time. Such information is essential in designing effective strategies for biodiversity conservation and management. Remote sensing is one of the most powerful approaches to identify biodiversity hotspots and predict changes in species composition in reduced time and costs. This is because, with respect to field-based methods, it allows to derive complete spatial coverages of the Earth surface under study in a short period of time. Furthermore, remote sensing provides repeated coverages of field sites, thus making studies of temporal changes in biodiversity possible. In this paper we discuss, from a conceptual point of view, the potential of remote sensing in estimating biodiversity using various diversity indices, including alpha- and beta-diversity measurements.

Original Source: 

Rocchini D, Hernández-Stefanoni J L, He KS (2014) Advancing species diversity estimate by remotely sensed proxies: A conceptual review. Ecological Informatics. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2014.10.006

For the first time, a composite map of the world’s ecosystem assets has been produced, covering both marine and terrestrial realms. A report for the UNEP Division of Early Warning and Assessment by UNEP-WCMC presents global maps of assets such as biodiversity, freshwater resources and soil quality.

Natural capital is fundamental to human well-being. According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, at least 40 per cent of the world’s economy and 80 per cent of the needs of the poor are derived from biological resources. We are now facing a problem where natural capital has been harvested and degraded at a rate that threatens to undermine our well-being and future economic growth.

In their latest report UNEP-WCMC have combined information about key ecosystem assets into global maps covering terrestrial and marine realms. The assets included are freshwater resources, soil quality, organic carbon, terrestrial and marine biodiversity, and global fish catch (as a proxy for marine fish stocks). The report builds on a considerable body of work in the fields of natural capital accounting and the mapping of ecosystem services.

To read more and download the full report, please follow the link: http://www.unep-wcmc.org/news/towards-a-global-map-of-natural-capital

The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in Tervuren (Belgium) is part of the FishBase Consortium and responsible for the information on the fresh- and brackish water fishes of Africa. Through an agreement with the Belgian Development Cooperation and as part of the FishBase program, the RMCA has five grants available for a 3-month training program in the use of FishBase and the taxonomy of African fishes.

The training includes three subsets:

1. A detailed explanation of FishBase in all its aspects;
2. A training in the taxonomy of African fishes;
3. A case study based on data from FishBase or on taxa for which taxonomic problems have been encountered.

This course has been offered annually since 2005 and is held at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Leuvensesteenweg 13, B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium). To apply for traineeship and for more information, please click HERE or HERE. Please note that for 2015, this course will be given in English only.

Questions? Contact Dimitri Geelhand de Merxem (dimitri.geelhand@africamuseum.be).

Data sharing tools developed by an EU project are helping scientists worldwide understand more about the planet’s millions of species. A new article published on CORDIS and DAE looks into the benefits of the FP7 funded project VIBRANT.

High-quality biodiversity data is essential for answering key questions on biodiversity in Europe, for example regarding the state and trends of species or for evaluating ecosystem services and functions on various scales. A new EU BON report "Gap analysis and priorities for filling identified gaps in data coverage and quality" evaluates the state of available biodiversity information and points out gaps of available biodiversity information sources.

The report aims to assess relevant data sources on biodiversity on a European and global scale. The assessment particularly evaluates the gaps of available biodiversity information sources and, after outlining the most important ones, identifies priorities for improving the data availability and gives recommendations of how they can be closed.

The report is divided into three main sections, starting first with an overall overview of gaps and limitations of biodiversity datasets. After outlining some general limitations of biodiversity data in Europe, the key findings from the specific analyses are summarized along with recommendations of how existing gaps can be closed. The last part presents a chapter containing the specific gap analysis for a selection of several main global and European datasets. The datasets represent some main sources for biodiversity data, either for specific realms (terrestrial, marine, freshwater), taxonomic groups, thematic fields (taxonomy, genetic databases) or networks of European test sites.

An innovative workflow reveals new research potential of the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD). A recently published article in the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ) used specimen records downloaded from BOLD in tabular format and imported these into a human-readable text developed in manuscript within the Pensoft Writting Tool (PWT). Data were used to study the species distributions of ten Nearctic species of braconid wasps from the Microgastrinae subfamily.

BOLD is originally designed to support the generation and application of DNA barcode data. However, the repository also holds unexplored treasures of additional data that provide unique potential for many other research uses.

Currently almost 4 million sequences (over 3.4 million of them DNA barcodes) are stored in BOLD, including coverage for more than 143K animal species, 53K plant species, and 16K fungi and other species, and this impressive storage of information is continuing to grow every day.

A team of researchers, led by Dr Jose Fernandez-Triana from the University of Guelph, Canada, have now explored how the unique amount of data stored on the BOLD platform can be utilised for new research purposes. Choosing tiny parasitic wasps for their case study they selected a sample of 630 specimens and 10 North American species. Data stored on BOLD were then used to uncover a significant number of new records of locality, provinces, territories and states.

The research was then secured a fast publication via BDJ, a community peer-reviewed, open-access, comprehensive online platform, designed to accelerate publishing, dissemination and sharing of biodiversity-related data of any kind.

"Import of structured data into human-readable text is important but it does not represent the whole story. More importantly, the data can be downloaded straight from the article text by anyone for further re-use, or be automatically exported to data aggregators, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). In this way, data platforms could get more peer-reviewed content from scholarly publications and scientists will be properly credited for their efforts" said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, founder of Pensoft Publishers.

Original Source:

Fernandez-Triana J, Penev L, Ratnasingham S, Smith M, Sones J, Telfer A, deWaard J, Hebert P (2014) Streamlining the use of BOLD specimen data to record species distributions: a case study with ten Nearctic species of Microgastrinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e4153. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e4153

Additional information:

The workflow is part of the Data Publishing Toolkit elaborated within the EU FP7 funded project EU BON (Grant agreement No 308454).