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Jalen Hurts is clear on the injury report to play for Philadelphia at the Dallas Cowboys after coach Nick Sirianni revealed Friday his quarterback is dealing with an ankle issue.

A jury awarded more than $12 million Friday to a woman who lost her job at a Michigan insurance company after declining to get a COVID-19 vaccination.

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The World Health Organization said mpox cases in the region of Congo where a new and more infectious variant was first detected appear to be "plateauing," even as the virus continues to increase in other regions of the country, as well as in Burundi and Uganda.

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At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals and residents were urged to shelter in place after an apparent explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business on Tuesday.

British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday with "Orbital," a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International Space Station.

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The EU BON project which is coordinated by the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin/Germany has started on 1 December and will continue for 4.5 years. The EU BON Kickoff Meeting will be held in Berlin from 13 to 15 February 2013.

With respect to EU BON’s objectives the International Symposium "Nature and Governance – Biodiversity Data, Science, and the Policy Interface" will be held prior to the EU BON Kickoff Meeting from 11 to 12 February in Berlin with high-ranking speakers. You are most welcome to attend the Symposium.

The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is pleased to host this international symposium and will bring together high-ranking speakers and guests from worldwide to talk and discuss about these

Major Topics:

• What (data) policy needs
• The future of biodiversity information: new ways for generating, managing, and integrating biodiversity data
• How new approaches / models can link scales and disciplines
• Broadening the base and opening up: new ways to engage the public and stakeholders in biodiversity monitoring and assessments
• Résumé / conclusions

For more details, please have a look at the programme page.

The 1st day of the Symposium and the reception will be held "under the dinosaurs" in the central exhibition hall of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.

The 2nd day will be held in the Seminaris Conference Center in the quiet south-west of Berlin. The closing of the Symposium will be celebrated as "Come together & Ice-Breaker for EU BON Kickoff Meeting" in the nearby beautiful Large Green House of the Botanic Garden Berlin.

If you want to take part, please register at the registration page.

The EU BON project is pleased to announce the International Symposium "Nature and Governance – Biodiversity Data, Science, and the Policy Interface", which was held in Berlin from 11 to 12 February. The symposium aimed at clarifying and popularizing EU BON's objectives prior to the official EU BON Kick-off Meeting held from 13 to 15 February 2013.

The symposium was hosted by the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and brought together high-ranking speakers and guests from across the world to talk and discuss the different aspects of the EU BON Project. Among the main issues covered was the future of biodiversity information, the challenges in front of new data policies, new approaches in collecting information, and ways to engage the public in biodiversity monitoring and assessments.

The EU BON project was started on 1 December, 2012, and will continue for 4.5 years. The aim of EU BON is to build a substantial part and contribute to the Group on Earth Observation's Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), through an innovative approach of integration of biodiversity information systems. The project, built as an answer to the need of a new integrated biodiversity data, will facilitate access to this knowledge and will effectively improve the work in the field of biodiversity observation in general.

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For more information on the symposium and the events planned, please visit our programme page.

All interested parties are most welcome to attend the symposium or to follow it on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

Additional information

EU BON (2012) stands for "Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network" and is a European research project, financed by the 7th EU framework programme for research and development (FP7). EU BON seeks ways to better integrate biodiversity information and implement into policy and decision-making of biodiversity monitoring and management in the EU.

GEO BON stands for "Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network". It coordinates activities relating to the Societal Benefit Area (SBA) on Biodiversity of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Some 100 governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations are collaborating through GEO BON to organise 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. Moreover, GEO BON has been recognized by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. More information at: http://www.earthobservations.org/geobon.shtml.

The news about the International Symposium "Nature and Governance – Biodiversity Data, Science, and the Policy Interface" and the official EU BON Kickoff Meeting has been reflected in the January newsletter of the The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

GBIF only features high end biodiversity news and major projects. EU BON project summary is placed in the collaborations section of the newsletter and the two events are included in the Upcoming Events, pointed out to the readers' attention.

To view the GBIF newsletter for January, please go to: http://www.gbif.org/communications/resources/newsletters/, or see the newsletter PDF attached below.

Zur Unterstützung der Beteiligung des MfN an EU BON ist am Museum für Naturkunde Berlin zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt eine vorerst auf 2 Jahre befristete (mit der Option der Verlängerung)
Position eines/einer Wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiters/in mit 75% der regelmäßigen wöchentlichen Arbeitszeit Entgeltgruppe E13 TV-L Berlin zu besetzen
Aufgabengebiete:
Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeit und eigenständige Durchführung spezifischer Aufgaben innerhalb des EU BON Projektes, vor allem innerhalb der Arbeitspakete 1 (Datenquellen) und 2 (Datenintegration), i.b.
- Datenrecherche und Erstellung von Übersichten für EU BON relevanter Daten- und Informationsquellen;
- Bewertung und Lückenanalyse bestehender Datenbanken und Informationssysteme zur Biodiversität;
- Harmonisierung, Aktualisierung und Koordinierung taxonomischer Referenz-Datenbanken i.b. für Europa;
- Unterstützung der Einführung und Verbesserung von Datenstandards zur Verbesserung der Integration und Interoperabilität unterschiedlicher Datenebenen
- Mitwirkung bei Erprobung neuer Datenerhebungsansätze und –verfahren, auch im Gelände
- Planung und Durchführung von Projekttreffen und -veranstaltungen
- Erstellung von Ergebnisberichten und wissenschaftlichen Präsentationen / Veröffentlichungen.

Monographs are fundamental for progress in systematic  botany. They are the vehicles for circumscribing and naming taxa, determining distributions and ecology,  assessing  relationships for formal classification, and interpreting long-term  and short-term  dimensions of the evolutionary process. Despite their importance, fewer monographs are now being prepared by the newer generation  of systematic  botanists, who are understandably involved principally with DNA data and analysis, especially for answering  phylogenetic, biogeographic, and population  genetic questions.  As monographs provide  hypotheses regarding species  boundaries and plant relationships, new insights  in many plant groups  are urgently  needed.  Increasing  pressures  on biodiversity, especially in tropical and developing regions of the world, emphasize this point. The results from a workshop (with 21 participants) reaffirm  the central role that monographs play in systematic  botany. But, rather than advocating abbreviated models  for monographic products,  we recommend a full presentation of relevant  information. Electronic  publication offers numerous  means of illustration of taxa, habitats, characters, and statistical and phylogenetic analyses, which previously  would have been prohibitively costly. Open Access and semantically enhanced  linked electronic  publications provide instant access to content from anywhere  in the world, and at the same time link this content to all underlying data and digital resources  used in the work.  Resources  in support  of monography, especially  databases  and widely  and easily  accessible  digital  literature and specimens, are now more powerful  than ever before, but interfacing and interoperability of databases  are much needed. Priorities  for new resources  to be developed  include an index of type collections and an online global chromosome database. Funding  for sabbaticals for monographers to work uninterrupted on major projects  is strongly  encouraged. We recommend that doctoral  students  be assigned  smaller  genera,  or natural  portions  of larger  ones (subgenera, sections,  etc.), to gain the necessary expertise for producing a monograph, including training in a broad array of data collection (e.g., morphology, anatomy, palynology, cytogenetics, DNA techniques, ecology, biogeography), data analysis (e.g., statistics,  phylogenetics, models), and nomenclature. Training programs, supported by institutes, associations, and agencies, provide means for passing on procedures and perspectives of challenging botanical  monography to the next generation  of young systematists.

The official Kickoff meeting of the Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) project, organized by the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, took place on 13-15 February 2013 to formally mark the beginning of the project and to set goals and objectives for the future. Among the hottest issues discussed was the integration of EU BON's framework with the Global Earth Biodiversity Observation Network project GEO BON and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Another intention set for the future is the enhanced communication and synchronization between the various partners and work packages.

The main objective set for EU BON is to facilitate with its contributions, and thus build a substantial part of GEO BON. EU BON Advisory Board, comprising ten leading experts in data management, biodiversity conservation and earth observation realms has been set up. Dr. Wouter Los - Chairman of the Expert centre for Taxonomic Identification (ETI), and 2nd Vice Chair of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility Governing Board (GBIF) was elected as a chair of the EU BON Advisory Board. It has been decided, with the directions and help of the EU BON's Advisory Board, to achieve that a substantial amount of work should be done towards a more comprehensive vision of the relationship between the two projects and the place EU BON takes as a major contributor.

Another aim delineated is working towards collaboration between the currently fragmented biodiversity data sources in Europe in an attempt to create an integrated network and framework for the benefit of the project objective itself, and GEO BON eventually. Dialogue and association with similar or relevant biodiversity projects and initiatives, on European and Global levels, are also encouraged. Organizing a conference is on the project's to do list.

Enhanced communication between the different partners and work packages has been outlined as the engine for achieving of the projects main objectives. A second official meeting has been already assigned for 2014 to measure the progress of EU BON and to set further goals. Meanwhile partners are already organizing workshops to work towards reflecting the directions for development currently set.

A new "LinkOut" feature introduced by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) NCBI’s allows the easy linking to content on PubMed and GenBank.  Dryad has already introduced the feature benefitting from easy and fast linking of associated content to the two resources.

PubMed and GenBank, from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), are hugely popular resources for searching and retrieving article abstracts and nucleotide sequence data, respectively.  PubMed indexes the vast majority of the biomedical literature, and deposition of nucleotide sequences in GenBank or one of the other INSDC databases is a near universal requirement for publication in a scientific journal. LinkOut allows the data from an article to be distributed among repositories without compromising its discoverability.

Dryad, intends to expand on this feature in a couple of ways. First, it is planned to make Dryad content searchable via the PubMed and GenBank identifiers, which because of their wide use will provide a convenient gateway for other biomedical databases to link out to Dryad.  Second, open web standards will be used to expose relationships between content in Dryad and other repositories, not just NCBI.

Original source: Dryad news and views

The newest newsletter of the BioVel project is now available, offering a range of biodiversity related news, including brief coverage of the EU BON Kick-off and International Symposium Workshop in February, 2013. Among the other stories covered are:

•  Letter from Alex Hardisty, Project Coordinator
• Running Workflows Just Got a Whole Lot Simpler
• Friends of BioVeL: Friendships and collaborations are also blooming! (featuring news about: LifeWatch-BioVeL cooperation;; i4Life project; Micro B3 and GENSC are now friends of BioVeL.

The newsletter also contains information about the upcoming workflows and research within the project, as well about events planned for the future.

To read the article and find out more about the news stories covered click here.

From 16^th to the 18^th of July, a European stakeholder consultation for the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES) took place in Leipzig (Germany). The consultation was organized by three European Biodiversity Platforms: Network-Forum Biodiversity Research Germany (NeFo), the Belgian Biodiversity Platform, and the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) (further information on the conference: www.biodiversity.de/index.php/de/ipbes/nefo-aktivitaeten-zu-ipbes/workshops/pan-european-stakeholder-consultation).

IPBES will greatly influence future biodiversity policy and research, and EU BON is expected to provide a European contribution to IPBES. IPBES will be in particular of high interest, because it will need tools to integrate and analyse different data sources, to develop relevant infrastructure and to do assessments of state and trends of biodiversity at multiple scales.

EU BON was represented by several partners at the meeting and we acted as facilitators in the round-tables, gathered input for the project, participated in discussions and exchanged ideas with many representatives and colleagues. We provide you with a short summary of the meeting below.

The aims of the pan-European stakeholder consultation meeting in Leipzig were:

1. To reach out to stakeholders to inform people and institutes and to raise awareness of the dynamics in IPBES.
2. To discuss and obtain feedback on several IPBES-related documents that are currently being drafted. In their final form these documents will be submitted to the Panel for the IPBES 2 plenary session in 9-14 December 2013.

The meeting in Leipzig was organized around round table discussions of several draft documents of importance for stakeholders: the draft work programme, the stakeholder engagement strategy draft and the draft "Vision for pan-European IPBES support perspective". If you are interested these documents, currently for review, can be found here:  http://www.ipbes.net/intersessional-process/current-review-documents-ipbes2.html .

There were several opportunities for EU BON partners to flag the potential biodiversity data and analysis requirements for the future IPBES work program in separate discussions and to give recommendations as to what should be additionally integrated in the draft work programme.

We also brainstormed on a potential EU BON side event at the second IPBES meeting, which will be held in 9-14 December in Antalya, Turkey. Topics discussed by national delegates in that plenary will amongst other topics comprise: the first work programme, budget, stakeholder engagement, the position of observers, technical requirements and a list of thematic priorities for IPBES assessments.

Although the meeting was a success in terms of the number and diversity of participants, the consultation felt for many participants as a top down exercise. However, the importance of being involved at this stage was felt and the hope for stakeholder empowerment in the future was often voiced.

The 2014 SCIENCE POLICY SYMPOSIUM to support the implementation of the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive will be held between 29-30 Jan 2014 in the Museum of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Brussels. The symposium is jointly organised by the EU FP7 funded projects BioFresh and REFRESH.

Numerous EU biodiversity and water related policies have been designed to protect freshwater ecosystems and ensure their sustainable use. However, major challenges still persist in the implementation of these policies. Freshwater ecosystems support 10% of all animal species on Earth and provide a diverse array of functions and services that contribute to human well-being. In recent decades global freshwater biodiversity has declined at a greater rate compared to terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

The Science Policy Symposium for Freshwater Life is organised with the aim of bringing together policy makers and stakeholders from the water, energy and conservation sector, NGOs, the scientific community and selected experts to discuss challenges to implementing the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive.

Contact: waterlives.commitee@freshwaterbiodiversity.eu

By http://www.eea.europa.eu/

Grassland butterflies have declined dramatically between 1990 and 2011. This has been caused by intensifying agriculture and a failure to properly manage grassland ecosystems, according to a report from the European Environment Agency (EEA).

The final EUBrazilOpenBio newsletter for November 2013 is now available. The  newsletter presents the final press release showcasing the main results of 2 year collaborative work, namely: the innovative, web-based working environment designed to serve biodiversity scenarios; the new version of the Catalogue of Life cross-mapping tool developed in the i4Life project; the provision of the Ecological Niche Modelling tool as a service through the openModeller extended web service, and its application in collaboration with BioVeL; the EUBrazilOpenBio Joint Action Plan.

This newsletter highlights:

• EUBrazilOpenBio Joint Action Plan - drawing on policy strategies, analysing  current progress in contributing to international targets and defining actions for future collaborative research. It defines common actions with the aim of contributing to relevant Aichi Targets in the years ahead.
• EGI federatec use case on ecology - Over the last two years, BioVeL and EUBrazilOpenBio have joined forces to make openModeller ready for cloud deployment. Work within the EGI Federated Cloud Task Force has led to considerable success in enabling the openModeller service on the EGI Federated Cloud.
• EUBrazilOpenBio results - EUBrazilOpenBio Technical developments, training materials and sessions, publications and papers, media spotlights and policy results all collected in one page.
• A vision from the Experts - "The Crossmapper itself is a great tool, and an ideal way to identify errors and updates". Dr Christina Flann is one of the experts providing their vision on EUBrazilOpenBio story.

You can find an online version of the final EUBrazilOpenBio newsletter here.

The 2013 International Conference on Open Data in Biodiversity and Ecological Research took place between 20 - 22 Nov 2013, hosted by Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. With the aim to promote open data in science twelve foreign speakers introduced relevant projects and initiatives in the sphere of biodiversity informatics: AP-BON, DataONE, Ecological Research, EU-BON, Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Japan Biodiversity Information Facility (JBIF), linked open data, National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), Pensoft, and Thomson Reuters.

Dirk Schmeller (UFZ) and Lyubomir Penev (Pensoft), who presented EU BON at the conference, share their experience in a recent interview:

What are the aims and main outcomes from this meeting?

LP: Taiwan has an impressive national policy with regard to data management in biodiversity sciences. The meeting summarised years of effort of Taiwanese scientists and especially of Academia Sinica to integrate data and make them publicly available. It is sufficient to mention that Taiwan has established four national nodes of the largest international biodiversity platforms, that is TaiBIF (of GBIF), TaiCOL (of Catalogue of Lige), TaiEOL (of EOL) and TaiBOL (of Barcode of Life).

Were there any biodiversity data integration models presented at the meeting that can be adopted and implemented in EUBON?

LP: Perhaps not directly, however the impressive amount and quality of work and the accumulated experience of the Taiwanese and Japanese colleagues would certainly be of value for EU BON. In addition, there are well established contacts already between the FP7 project SCALES and the National University of Taiwan which could serve as a stepping stone as well, because two of the SCALES partners participate in EU BON and at the meeting (UFZ and Pensoft).

The interest to the EU BON presentation by Dirk was great. An indicator for that was that more  than 120  EU BON leaflets have been picked up by the participants from the information desk.

Did you discuss any opportunities for partnership with organizations and initiatives from Asia and America, which deal with biodiversity data integration and accessibility?

LP: Yes, there were a lot of discussions how to mobilize and publish biodiversity data and most probably several data publishing projects will appear as a result of the discussions. These pilots could be used for the EU BON goals.

US National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) has activities similar to those planned by WP4 Link environment to biodiversity: analyses of patterns, processes and trends. Is there something that EU BON can learn from the experience of its American colleagues?

DS: It is important to keep a close link with Brian Wee and NEON, as they have a head start in comparison to EU BON. I am sure that a collaboration would benefit EU BON to work efficiently.

What is your prognosis for the successful establishment of the data publishing model in scholarly literature, and more specifically in spheres such as Ecology, Genetics, Physiology and Paleontology?

DS: Most research is financed by taxpayer money and should become publicly available once the analyses a researchers has intended are completed. I see a huge potential to publish this data in scholarly literature. I, however, see also quite some difficulties to recombine relevant datasets across different sources for further going analyses. I also see difficulties in the willingness of researchers to share data, as in many cases they see these as their own.

Linked Open Data (LOD) is a new and prominent technology to publish and share data on the web. Could you please explain what exactly hides behind this concept, and how could EU BON benefit from it?

LP: The meeting in Taiwan was impressive also in the wide representation of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) technologies in integration of biodiversity data, especially from a group from the National Museum of Japan and the University of Tokyo. RDF and the OWL Web Ontology Language are definitely the way to go if we want to make diverse data sets interoperable; the implementation of RDF in a pilot phase would be of primary importance for the success of EU BON.

EU BON site data management workshop and Memorandum of Understanding

A joint workshop of the Sierra Nevada LTER site and EU BON was held on 29-31 January 2014 in Granada, Spain and was hosted by the University of Granada. The aim of this meeting was to bring together the Spanish members of the Sierra Nevada LTER site and test site partners from EU BON (WP1, WP2 and WP5) to discuss and develop a closer relationship in exchanging datasets and experiences in site management, long-term monitoring activities and technical requirements for data management.

During the first day of the workshop, 19 participants from EU BON, the Sierra Nevada LTER site (e.g. Regino Zamora Rodriguez and Francisco Bonet) and guests from the remote sensing EU project BIO_SOS and GBIF Spain gave an overview of their activities to obtain information on their projects and to point out likely synergies and linkages. First, the Sierra Nevada LTER site was introduced, particularly the methodologies to monitor and evaluate biodiversity and the structure of the information system Linaria was shown. Thereafter EU BON testing sites (Doñana, Rhine-Main, Amvrakikos) outlined their current activities regarding data collection, data processing and data integration, in addition to that the results of a recently conducted gap analysis of the test sites were presented. In the afternoon session of the meeting, the planned information architecture of EU BON was explained and ways outlined of how biodiversity data could be integrated.

At the second day, the participants visited a highly monitored area located in the southern part of Sierra Nevada (Alpujarras) that is covered mainly by Quercus pyrenaica forests. The field trip included stops at a meteorological station, a traditional hydrological system was visited to show former human impact in the area and the functionality of a field NDVI camera was shown. This site-trip was also used to officially hand-over the Memorandum of Understanding, signed between the University of Granada and EU BON, to strengthen the cooperation between the Sierra Nevada LTER and the EU BON test sites. Anke Hoffmann on behalf of EU BON handed the MoU to Professor Regino Zamora Rodriguez, the scientific coordinator of the Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory. The University of Granada is now a new associate partner of EU BON, a consortium with currently 30 partners from 18 countries.

At the last day local scientists gave an overview of the research conducted in Sierra Nevada. After that session, the workshop aimed to discuss the functionality of the envisaged MetaCat (dataprovider for Metadata) approach for the EU BON test sites and the advantages of self-developed information system Linaria of the Sierra Nevada LTER site.

EU BON will further intensify the dialogue with the University of Granada and the Sierra Nevada LTER site. It is scheduled to have a further meeting at the upcoming General Meeting of EU BON (Greece, 30 March-2 April 2014) to strengthen the partnership with the LTER test site.

For further questions please contact Anke Hoffmann or Florian Wetzel

Presentations from the meeting:

Day 1

1. Zamora - Ramos - Sierra Nevada global change obs
2. Bonet - The Linaria information system
3. Hoffmann - Häuser - Introduction to EU BON
4. Juan Negro  - CSIC-EBD
4. Juan Negro Donana 2
4. Juan Negro Donana 3
5. Stoll - test site Rhein - Main
6. Dailianis - test site Amvrakikos
7. Wetzel - Gap analysis
8. Palma Blonda - BIO_SOS and remote sensing
9. Pando - EU BON GBIF Granada 2014
10. Kunin- EU BON Work package 3

Day 3

1. Megia - Mendenez - Climate Change andd elevational range shifts
2. Gomez - Hybridization
3. Villar - Argaiz  Long time series in high mountain lakes
4. Moreno - Vegetation changes during Holocene

Workshop Agenda

Workshop Minutes

Workshop Photos (Google+ | Facebook)

An international conference Adaptation Strategies to Global Environmental Change in the Mediterranean City and the Role of Global Earth Observations will take place between 10-11 June 2014 in Athens, Greece. The conference will explore the potential of earth observations and thrust climate information transfer from the science to the stakeholder application realm, in order to develop suitable adaptation measures at national and regional levels.

It will identify best adaptation programs and approaches to global environmental change in Mediterranean-climate cities. The aim is to enhance and strengthen European and international cooperation in the context of the activities within the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), and promote tools and options for adaptation strategies. The Conference will help local and regional authorities and stakeholders to gain insight on the role of EO-based services in adapting to climate chance impacts in urban hot-spot areas.

The eighth annual series of GEO European Projects Workshops will be consequently held on 12-13 June as a follow-up of the conference. The worksops are intended to bring all those interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS) from all over Europe together, in order to present their work and discuss how Europe can contribute to this international effort, especially in the wake of the launch of the new EU Framework Programme for Research, Horizon 2020, and the renewal of the mandate of GEO for another 10 years through the endorsement of the 2014.

Registrations opens: 16 February 2014

Information and registration: www.mariolopoulosfoundation.gr/medcity2014

First Announcement (pdf flie)

The SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN project aiming at establishing a more sustainable and integrated research and innovation cooperation between the EU and the ASEAN region in the areas of climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials has now published its first project newsletter.

This first issue of the SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN Newsletter contains information about the outcomes from the first project Networking and Cluster Session that took place on 23 January 2014 in Bangkok, Thailand, as well as features a news item about the forthcoming sessions scheduled for 28 Match 2014 in Brussels, Belgium. More can be found in the Newsletter available here.

The SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN coordinating action will focus on climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials issues and will aim to enhance collaboration between researchers in the EU and the ASEAN region. Addressing these issues in a coherent way is vital for sustainable development that leads to economic prosperity, social cohesion and environmental integrity. Both regions have developed innovative ideas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to adapt to climate change, improve resource efficiency and manage raw materials.

EU BON is pleased to welcome a new associated partner Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) Europe to its family!

Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) is an essential component of world-wide efforts to better understand ecosystems. This comprises their structure, functions, and long-term response to environmental, societal and economic drivers. LTER contributes to the knowledge base informing policy and to the development of management options in response to the Grand Challenges under Global Change.

From the beginning (around 2003) the design of LTER-Europe has focussed on the integration of natural sciences and ecosystem research approaches, including the human dimension. LTER-Europe was heavily involved in conceptualizing socio-ecological research (LTSER). As well as LTER Sites, LTER-Europe features LTSER Platforms, acting as test infrastructures for a new generation of ecosystem research across European environmental and socio-economic gradients.

The third issue of the EU BON newsletter is now out.

This issue contains information about our new associated partners, alongside news from the project, interviews and articles from international and project meetings, as well as announcements for future events of interest.

To download the newsletter, please click on the image below.

It is also available for download in the project’s Media Center alongside the previous 2 issues.

Context:

The Earth's rapidly changing environment is putting critical ecosystem services at risk. There are many challenges involved in understanding global environmental changes, and in providing societies with the policy-relevant knowledge base to deal with them. These challenges will reach across many aspects of scientific endeavour. Indeed, the research community requires state-of-the-art research infrastructures (RIs) to have the capability to explain and predict global environmental changes. In this context the Experimentation in Ecosystem Research conference will provide a platform for discussions on cutting-edge technological tools, large-scale integrative experimental design, technical constraints, data access and last but not least ecosystem modelling. The conference will attract speakers and delegates from around the world and will offer opportunities to reinforce global cooperation.  

Main topics:

• Grand challenges: With the current set of Experimental Research infrastructures in ecosystem science, do we have the capacity to tackle the grand challenges of today and tomorrow?
• In vitro and in natura : How realistic are they, and how they can be better linked?
• Technologies: Which emerging technologies could enhance (or are needed for) the performance and services offered by our RIs?
• Data: Towards an e-infrastructure for ecosystem research - challenges and opportunities
• Modelling:  How accurate is our capacity to forecast and upscale, and what is missing? How can we communicate uncertainty? How do we strike the right balance between modelling and experiments?

The conference is organized under the framework of the European FP7 project ExpeER ( www.expeeronline.eu )

Find out more in the flyer attached below or on the event's website: https://colloque6.inra.fr/expeer-conference

The 4th Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO 4) was officially launched on 6 Oct 2014, during the opening day of the Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12) in Pyeongchang, Korea. Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO) is the flagship publication of the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is a periodic report that summarizes the latest data on the status and trends of biodiversity and draws conclusions relevant to the further implementation of the Convention.

GBO 4 is a comprehensive report that serves as a mid-term analysis towards the 20 "Aichi Biodiversity Targets". The report states significant progress towards meeting some components of the majority of the Aichi  Biodiversity Targets. Some target components, such as conserving at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and  inland water areas, are on track to be met. However, in most cases this progress is seen as not sufficient to achieve the targets set for 2020, and additional action is required to keep the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 on course. 

The full report can be accessed here: http://www.cbd.int/gbo4/

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

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. 

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.

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

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).

One of our recent associated partners, the EU project GLOBIS-B has published its first paper: "Towards global interoperability for supporting biodiversity research on essential biodiversity variables (EBVs)". You can find the article here.

Abstract: 

Essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) have been proposed by the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) to identify a minimum set of essential measurements that are required for studying, monitoring and reporting biodiversity and ecosystem change. Despite the initial conceptualisation, however, the practical implementation of EBVs remains challenging. There is much discussion about the concept and implementation of EBVs: which variables are meaningful; which data are needed and available; at which spatial, temporal and topical scales can EBVs be calculated; and how sensitive are EBVs to variations in underlying data? To advance scientific progress in implementing EBVs we propose that both scientists and research infrastructure operators need to cooperate globally to serve and process the essential large datasets for calculating EBVs. We introduce GLOBIS-B (GLOBal Infrastructures for Supporting Biodiversity research), a global cooperation funded by the Horizon 2020 research and innovation framework programme of the European Commission. The main aim of GLOBIS-B is to bring together biodiversity scientists, global research infrastructure operators and legal interoperability experts to identify the research needs and infrastructure services underpinning the concept of EBVs. The project will facilitate the multi-lateral cooperation of biodiversity research infrastructures worldwide and identify the required primary data, analysis tools, methodologies and legal and technical bottlenecks to develop an agenda for research and infrastructure development to compute EBVs. This requires development of standards, protocols and workflows that are ‘self-documenting’ and openly shared to allow the discovery and analysis of data across large spatial extents and different temporal resolutions. The interoperability of existing biodiversity research infrastructures will be crucial for integrating the necessary biodiversity data to calculate EBVs, and to advance our ability to assess progress towards the Aichi targets for 2020 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Original Source:

W. Daniel Kissling et. al. (2015) Towards global interoperability for supporting biodiversity research on essential biodiversity variables (EBVs). Biodiversity. DOI: 10.1080/14888386.2015.1068709

ecoSERVICES is seeking a new host institution to establish its international project office from 2016. Expressions of interest will be examined with the scientific steering committee on the week of 30 November 2015.

Currently hosted at the Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie (IMBE) in France, ecoSERVICES is seeking a new host for its international project office from 2016

The ideal host institution works on scientific issues related to biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being, at various scales from local or national to global; and meets a few practical specifications via direct funding or in-kind support for establishment of a fully operational office.

Expressions of interest need to be sent to Karine Payet-Lebourges by email with subject "ecoSERVICES IPO – Offer".

Applications will be examined with the scientific steering committee on the week of 30 November 2015.

More information here.

The 1st GLOBAQUA International Conference will be held on 11-12 January 2016 in Freising, Germany. The interdisciplinary conference will go under the motto "Managing The Effects Of Multiple Stressors On Aquatic Ecosystems Under Water Scarcity".

The conference will serve as a platform for exchange and discus­sion of innovative scientific findings and methods in aquatic ecosys­tems research. It will focus on novel methods of environmental monitor­ing and modeling of various scopes, scales and structural complexity to improve process understanding the interconnectivity and feedback mechanisms of climate (regional), land use (regional), economy, hydrol­ogy and hydraulics (catchment and river), water quality (river), biology and aquatic ecosystems (reach scale). Further, the conference builds the bridge to the scientific assessment of implications on policy and management.

The deadine for submitting an abstract for the conference has been now extended until 7 Nov 2015.

More information on the conference, registration, abstract submitting is available on the GLOBAQUA website.

Post-doctoral scientist position is open for the project "Towards an integrated prediction of Land & Sea Responses to global change in the Mediterranean Basin" (LaSeR-Med), which focusses on integrated socio-ecological modelling. The duration of the contract is initially one year, with a possible extension for a second year, depending on the initial results. The post-doc will be based within the Mediterranean Institute of marine and terrestrial Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE) in Aix-en-Provence, France. The project is part of the Labex OT-Med (http://www.otmed.fr/).

Applicants should hold a doctoral degree in physics, chemistry, microbiology, geosciences, environmental sciences or a related field of science. They should be familiar with modelling biogeochemical interactions between ecosystems and capable to further develop existing numerical ecosystem models. Programming skills (C) and modelling experience are therefore mandatory. Knowledge of R and of Unix/Linux environment will be an advantage. The candidate should have good written and oral communication skills. For work, good skills in the English language will be essential.

The project:

Terrestrial and marine ecosystems are connected through groundwater, river discharge and nutrient outflows (especially N and P). River catchments in the Mediterranean are N-intensive regions, mostly due to intensive agriculture in the North and to crop N2 fixation or food & feed import in the South. The fraction of nutrient reaching the sea constitutes significant anthropogenic forcing of many marine biological processes. For simulating the dynamics of the first levels of the marine food web (from nutrients to jellyfishes), the ocean biogeochemical model, Eco3M-MED, used and developed by the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography (MIO) within OT-Med, currently uses N and P measurements at river mouths, e.g. for the Rhône.

In order to estimate the impacts of global change on the functioning of marine ecosystems, the project aims at modeling the dependency of N and P outflows to the Mediterreanean sea toward land management. Land management is modelled as part of the agro-ecosystem model LPJmL (Bondeau et al., 2007), that has been especially adapted to the Mediterranean cropping systems (Fader et al., 2015). Among others, LPJmL simulates the daily carbon and water cycles, and the river discharges to the sea. Following existing approaches in the scientific literature, the post-doc will implement the nutrient N and P transfer in LPJmL, covering the net nutrient inputs to the river catchments by accounting for the processes occurring at the agro-ecosystem level (N2 biological fixation, fertilization, atmospheric deposition) and the net food and feed imports. Since only a minor fraction of the net nutrient inputs from Mediterranean basins reaches the sea, the retention along the nutrient cascade will have to be added to the LPJmL river routing scheme, similarly to the method used by the Riverstrahler model. Once the nutrient transfers have been introduced into LPJmL, simulations will be validated using current climate and land use forcing for comparisons with the existing observations from river outlets. Finally, future conditions will be assessed by using the model with scenarios of changing regional climate and land use / land management.

Your application:

Applications should contain a suitable motivation letter describing your anticipated role in the project, a CV, a list of scientific publications and the names of at least two scientists that can be contacted for references. They must be sent to Ms. Gabriela Boéri (gabriela.boeri@imbe.fr). Please prepare your application as a single file in pdf-format.

Questions about the project or the position can be directed to Dr. Alberte Bondeau (alberte.bondeau@imbe.fr). The position will be filled as soon as a suitable candidate has been found – work should start soon after that date. The salary and contract conditions will be determined according to standards set by Aix-Marseille University – questions in this regard can be directed to Sophie Pekar (pekar@otmed.fr).