The 11th European Projects GEO Workshop took place between 19-21 June 2017, in Helsinki, Finland, bringing together European stakeholders interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS).

Alongside the plenary (see presentations here), the conference featured 20 sessions looking at various aspects GEOSS, its objectives and their implementation.

Among those EU BON took part in a dedicated session titled ‘How Ecosystem and Biodiversity data and knowledge can support the GEO objectives’, alongside fellow projects and initiatives, and associated partners ECOPOTENTIAL, LTER-Europe, GLOBIS-B, EKLIPSE and ENEON.

Credit: F. Wetzel

The session aimed to inform about recent developments of relevant projects that focus on Ecosystems and Biodiversity and also outline how the generated data and knowledge can support the GEO objectives and inform relevant policies on a European and global scale.  

.@ft_wetzel explaining the @EUBON1 approach to mobilising linked and standardised data #EGW2017 #citizenscience #harmonisation #biodiversity pic.twitter.com/jJJ5jADAzG

— Scent (@SCENT_EU) June 20, 2017

EU BON, as a now completed project, opened the session by presenting its major products in particular the European Biodiversity Portal and how current and future projects can build on the outcomes achieved.

Overall, the session gave the opportunity to learn about the different approaches of selected EU-projects that address the mobilization, integration and analysis of biodiversity and ecosystem data, their current achievements and existing barriers. Here are some of the Key Messages that emerged from the session: 

• For biodiversity and ecosystem approaches, European level efforts are needed to achieve comprehensive data coverage and full open access, especially for in situ data integration.
• Existing European-level data portals and information platforms need to be sustained and considered as integration points for national and local data hubs. 
• Systematic approaches for biodiversity are needed, which means linking biotic and abiotic data and improving harmonization efforts for the whole data cycle/ workflows from data collection, analysis and dissemination for different disciplines (SBAs). 
• Essential (Biodiversity) Variables (EBVs) are a key concept / framework especially for monitoring / long-term observations that should be applied for all available biodiversity/ecosystem data fields.
• Use examples from existing projects and networks as successful blueprints for bottom-up/user-driven approaches in GEOSS that relate to knowledge and user needs at the local scale. 

The ECOPOTENTIAL H2020 project, focusing its activities on blending Earth Observations from remote sensing, field measurements, data analysis and modeling of current and future ecosystem conditions and services, is organizing this workshop in Brussels on the 10th of January 2018, from 9.00 to 17:30. 

The main objective of the workshop is to prospect the state-of-the-art of Remote Sensing as a Sentinel tool to monitor, characterize and understand the state, ongoing changes and effectiveness of conservation and management actions of natural landscapes and to facilitate an open debate among scientists and the involved Institutions. This workshop is part of the multiple events organized by the ECOPOTENTIAL Project on the week of 9th-12th of January 2018, starting on Jan 9th with the opening of the photo-exhibition with the same title, on display at the European Parliament. 

Registration: http://ves.cat/emIm

Agenda: http://www.ecopotential-project.eu/images/ecopotential/img_news/Spaced-workshop-AGENDA-Jan-10-2018.pdf

Event's website: http://www.ecopotential-project.eu/2015-08-19-15-19-05/2015-10-16-13-48-29/205-spaced-using-earth-observations-to-protect-natural-landscapes.html

Just accepted, a new paper in Conservation Letters looks at the barriers and solutions to the use of conservation science in policy. The main data used in the paper are from a global multi-lingual survey filled in by 758 research scientists, practitioners, or people in policy positions, executed as part of the EU BON project.

"The most interesting result from our study is that there is agreement (perhaps surprisingly!) between research scientists, practitioners, and people in policy positions about the main barriers preventing the use of conservation science in policy. Although barriers such as lack of policy relevant science, lack of understanding of science on the part of policy-makers, and limited awareness of policy processes from researchers, featured in the top-ten barriers included in the online survey, they were not the most highly ranked," shares lead author David C. Rose in a dedicated post on his blog Academic Optimism.

Read more in the blog post: https://academicoptimism.wordpress.com/2018/04/22/overcoming-the-barriers-to-the-use-of-conservation-science-in-policy-time-for-action/

The original research is available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12564

Abstract: 

Conservation policy decisions can suffer from a lack of evidence, hindering effective decision‐making. In nature conservation, studies investigating why policy is often not evidence‐informed have tended to focus on Western democracies, with relatively small samples. To understand global variation and challenges better, we established a global survey aimed at identifying top barriers and solutions to the use of conservation science in policy. This obtained the views of 758 people in policy, practice, and research positions from 68 countries across six languages. Here we show that, contrary to popular belief, there is agreement about how to incorporate conservation science into policy, and there is thus room for optimism. Barriers related to the low priority of conservation were considered to be important, while mainstreaming conservation was proposed as a key solution. Therefore, priorities should include the elaboration of public policy pathways with education initiatives that promote the importance of long‐term conservation‐compatible policies.

Biodiversity data are sparse, biased and collected at many resolutions. So techniques are needed to combine these data and provide some clarity. This is where downscaling comes in. Downscaling predicts the occupancy of a species in a given area. That is, the number of grid squares a species is predicted to occupy in a standard grid of equally sized squares. Downscaling uses the intrinsic patterns in the spatial organization of an organism’s distributions to predict what the occupancy would be, given the occupancy at a coarser resolution.

Groom et al. (2018) tests different downscaling models on birds and plants in four countries and in different landscapes and shows which models work best. The results show that all models work similarly, irrespective of the type of organism and landscape. However, some models were biased, either under- or overestimating occupancy. However, a few models were both reliable and unbiased. This means we can automate calculation of species occupancy. Workflows can harvest data from many sources and calculate species metrics in a timely manner, potentially delivering warnings so that interventions can be made.

Species invasions, habitat degradation and mass extinctions are not a future threat, they are happening now. Understanding how we should react, and what policies we need should be underpinned by solid evidence. Imagine if we had systems where we could monitor biodiversity just like we monitor the climate in easy to understand numbers that are both accurate and sensitive to change.

In 2013, the University of Vienna will host the Annual Conference of the Society for Tropical Ecology (Gesellschaft für Tropenökologie, gtö), focusing on Tropical Ecology in a Changing World. The conference will run from April 02 to 05, 2013 in Vienna, Austria. The conference aims at maximizing interactions among scientists of all disciplines and backgrounds who are interested in tropical ecology and biodiversity.
Ongoing global change processes along the inter-twined dimensions of climate and land-use pose tremendous challenges for maintaining ecosystem functions. Traditionally, ecological research on climate change had its focus on high altitude and latitude biomes that severely and rapidly suffer from warming. Yet, effects of climate change on tropical ecosystems and organisms can be equally strong. In addition, changes in land-use exert ever increasing pressures especially on tropical biota. Understanding these processes is crucial to allow for predicting and mitigating adverse effects of forthcoming changes on tropical biodiversity and its role in ecosystem functioning. The annual conference of the Society for Tropical Ecology (gtö) will provide an interdisciplinary platform for discussion, particularly on the following topics:
- Climate change effects on tropical biota
- Influence of land-use changes on tropical biota
- Tropical biodiversity and ecosystem functioning under Global Change

Further Information: http://www.gtoe-conference.de/

A conference marking the start of the Natural History Museum’s Biodiversity Initiative has been announced to take place on 3-4 June, 2013 in the NHM, London.  A workshop of the Genomic Observatories Network will be also hosted during the conference

The conference will focus on how inter-disciplinary, genomic approaches can be developed to accelerate the study of biodiversity and function of tropical ecosystems.

More information on the conference can be found here.

The IALE 2013 European Congress "Changing European Landscapes: Landscape ecology, local to global" will take place on 9-12 September 2013, in Manchester, UK. This major international event, organised by IALE UK and IALE Europe, will examine how and why European landscapes are changing and how landscape ecology can help us to plan for the future at local to global scales. It will consider local projects alongside international programmes and provide many opportunities for researchers, policy makers and practitioners to interact. The congress will have a European focus but we look forward to welcoming participants from around the world.

More information and how to register find here.

In 2013, the University of Potsdam will host the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The meeting (www.gfoe-2013.de) will take place from September 9 to 13, 2013 in Potsdam, Germany.

The guiding theme of the 43rd Annual Meeting is "Building bridges in ecology - linking systems, scales and disciplines".
Along the lines of this guiding theme, we will stimulate scientific discussions about all aspects in basic and applied ecological research contributing to better connect.

Indicators in Environmental Monitoring: Standardization, Assessment and Policy
16 September - 19 September 2013, Trier University, Campus II, Trier, Germany
The high diversity of methods and practices currently used to collect and evaluate environmental data reduces significantly comparisons of results and observations. This international conference of Environmental Indicators will contribute to a harmonization of standards to optimize diagnoses and to improve acceptance.
The use of indicators to monitor our environment and to inform and diagnose environmental hazards and their impacts remains a challenge. Standardization of these monitoring efforts is of great importance in order to get reliable data for an accurate assessment of the current state of the environment and to thus form the basis for policy. This international conference will bring together experts from government departments, consultancies, and academia to meet this challenge.

Further Information: http://www.icei2013.com/

Introduction to using BioVeL workflows for taxonomic refinement, biogeographic analysis, and species distribution modelling

The training workshop will teach the attendees in using the informatic tools and services developed by the BioVeL project to address research topics such as historical analyses, invasive species distribution modelling, endangered species distribution modelling, and dynamic modelling of ecologically related species. In particular, there will be  introductions to the BioVeL e-infrastructure, Taxonomic data cleaning, Taxonomic name resolution and synonym expansion, Ecological niche modelling, model testing, statistical analysis of GIS data, invasive and endangered species distribution modelling, historical comparison biodiversity from museum collections. more ...

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST) is organizing a course in Philosophy of Biological Systematics targeted at MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers,  professional systematists/taxonomists and anyone who is interested in the philosophy of Biological Systematics. The course has a duration of one week and will take place between 8-12 September 2014.

Deadline for registration: 16 June 2014, extended until Friday 20 June 2014. To register and to learn more about the course visit the official webpage: http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/philosophy-biological-systematics

Approaching the subject from the perspective of the philosophical foundations of scientific inquiry, this course offers critical examinations of the principles required to judge the scientific merits of systematic/taxonomic procedures by way of the following topics:

• The goal of science
• The goal of biological systematics
• Causal relationships in systematics
• The nature of why-questions
• Three forms of reasoning: deduction, induction, abduction
• The uses of deduction, induction, and abduction in science
• Evidence and reasoning
• Fact, theory & hypothesis
• Theory & hypothesis testing
• Systematics involves abductive reasoning
• Inferences of systematics hypotheses, i.e. taxa
• Implications for ‘phylogenetic’ methods
• Causal explanations, not ‘trees’ or cladograms
• Parsimony, likelihood, Bayesianism: are they relevant to abductive reasoning, thus phylogenetic inference?
• The requirement of total evidence
• The errors of cladogram comparisons & character mapping
• Homology, homogeny & homoplasy
• Character coding
• Mechanics of hypothesis testing: implications for cladograms
• Character data cannot test phylogenetic hypotheses
• The nature evidential support
• The proper testing of phylogenetic hypotheses
• The myths of bootstrap, jack-knife & Bremer ‘support’
• Implications for nomenclature
• Defining biodiversity and conservation

Participants will be provided reprints covering the topics in the course, as well as a PDF file with all course slides (>800) and associated notes.

Target group: programmers, developers and system engineers. The workshop is also open to anybody who might be interested to learn more about the DINA-system.

Preliminary agenda:

• Presentations from all DINA-partners
• APIs, service oriented architecture and road map for distributed development guidelines and principles on how to build a module and join the DINA-system
• Case studies
• Delivery options: creating installations from hosted environment, virtual machines down to code.

Workshop Program.

There will be a SETF-meeting for DINA consortium members on the 15th of September.

Welcome to register for the workshop here:

DINA - Technical Workshop 16-18 September, Stockholm

The workshop is an activity within WP 1 Task 1.4

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST) is organizing a Zoological Nomenclature training course targeted at MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers,  professional systematists/taxonomists and anyone who is interested in the philosophy of Biological Systematics. The course has a duration of one 5 days and will take place between 22-26 September 2014 at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, France.

Deadline for registration: 16 June 2014, extended until Friday 20 June 2014. To register and to learn more about the course visit the official webpage: http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/zoological-nomenclature-3

Course description:
Taxonomists need a common language worldwide. This is provided by the international codes of nomenclature. Although several codes exist, according to the organisms at stake, they all follow a similar mode of allocation of names to taxa (through "types") and of establishment of the valid name for a taxon (priority, first-reviser, usage). As biological nomenclature is rarely taught in academic formations, many taxonomists have difficulties mastering it. This training will provide an overview of the history and epistemology of biological nomenclature, and a discussion of the relationships between phylogeny, taxonomy and nomenclature. The zoological code will be presented in detail, the other codes (including the botanical one) more briefly. The recent problems and projects of nomenclature, including alternative systems, will be discussed.

Lecture topics:

• What is taxonomy? What is nomenclature? Name, taxon, nomenclatural rank, taxonomic category. Species and supraspecific taxa. The relationships between phylogeny, taxonomy and nomenclature
• History and epistemology of the international codes of nomenclature
• The international code of zoological nomenclature
• The other international codes (plants and fungi, bacteria, viruses, cultivated plants)
• The alternative nomenclatural systems

Seminar topics:

• Nomenclature of higher taxa in zoology
• The Phylocode and other phylogenetic nomenclatural systems
• Zoobank and electronic publications

Practical experiences will include: exercises in zoological nomenclature and transforming phylogenetic data into a taxonomy and a nomenclature.

The final SCARCE International Conference "River Conservation under Water Scarcity: Integration of water quantity and quality in Iberian Rivers under global change" will take place on 20 - 21 October 2014 in Terragona, Spain.

SCARCE is a multipurpose project that aims to describe and predict the relevance of global change impacts on water availability, water quality and ecosystem services in Mediterranean river basins of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as their impacts on the human society and economy. The project has assembled a multidisciplinary team of leading scientists in the fields of hydrology, geomorphology, chemistry, ecology, ecotoxicology, economy, engineering and modelling, in an unknown effort in the CONSOLIDER framework. The topics of the Final SCARCE International Conference are:

•  Integrating the effects of chemical quality with environmental stressors on biodiversity and human risks
•  Linking chemical exposure and biological effects
•  Integrated assessment of water quantity and quality and Global Change
•  Integrating results to predict global change impacts on freshwater ecosystem services
•  Global change and adaptation and mitigation measures
• Prediction of future threats and mitigation proposals in the light of the analysis of the economic and social impacts
•  Water scarcity, freshwater ecosystem services and integration in RBMPs
•  Integrating science and policy

The Conference is planned in form of oral talks, posters and discussions, where experts from different fields can share their knowledge.

The conference invites to anyone working on water sustainability to share knowledge to face a changing world in water resources management.

The final conference programme is available an attachment below.

The British Ecological Society and the French Ecology Society are pleased to invite you to Lille for a joint conference which will bring together for the first time ecologists of our two countries. The aim of the conference will promote exchanges and debates on major advances in scientific ecology, and strengthen cooperation between the French and British researchers of tomorrow. The meeting will be held on 9 – 12 December at the Grand Palais, Lille, France.

The British Ecological Society and French Ecological Society invite proposals for symposia sessions at their 2014 Annual Meeting. Symposia sessions at the Annual Meeting highlight some of the most important and timely science in ecology.  They provide the overarching structure and scientific focal point to the meeting.

The topics provide a showcase and forum for the discussion of key ecological questions, vision for the future and encourage integration among disciplines. As ever, timely and well organised submissions from across the breadth of ecology are welcome; however, building on the bi-national meeting and the introduction of the EU Horizon 2020 programme of research funding, we particularly encourage submissions that highlight international and EU focused topics:

•    Agro-ecology and the CAP
•    Biodiversity and ecosystem services
•    Evolutionary ecology and disease
•    Marine ecology and the EU Marine Directive
•    Freshwater ecology and the EU Water Directive
•    Horizon 2020 Tackling Societal Challenges: http://bit.ly/193Fbo3

The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2014.

The three full days of science can accommodate 18 half day symposia sessions.  Symposia proposals should include one keynote speaker allocated a 30 minute presentation and then five invited speakers, each allocated 15 minute slots.  Time devoted to synthesis and discussion is possible, but at the discretion of the organisers.  In exceptional circumstances, we will consider a full day session.

Proposers are responsible for the speakers submitting their abstracts and registrations on time.

- See more at: http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/events/current_future_meetings/2014-annual-meeting/

Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST) is organizing a Botanical Nomenclature training course targeted at MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers,  professional systematists/taxonomists and anyone who is interested in the philosophy of Biological Systematics. The course has a duration of one week and will take place between 26-30 January 2015 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK.

Deadline for registrationis 10 October 2014. Participants will receive notification by 24 October 2014 whether accepted to the course. To register and to learn more about the course visit the official webpage: http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/botanical-nomenclature-3

Course description
This in-depth course will teach the principles of plant nomenclature according to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN) so that participants can apply good nomenclatural practice when undertaking taxonomic revisions, compiling checklists etc. This will be achieved by lectures illustrated with examples from the ICN, workshop sessions applying what has been learned to "real life" cases, and by encouraging participants to discuss nomenclatural problems they have encountered.

Participants will have time to pursue their own research interests using the collections at Kew, with the emphasis on identifying and solving nomenclatural problems.
Short seminars will give participants the opportunity to present nomenclatural problems relevant to their own research.

From 22 to 24 March 2015, the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) will host an international conference at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, entitled, Africa Rising: Mobilising Biodiversity Data for Sustainable Development. The event is being organised in partnership with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the United Nations Environment Programme – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). It aims to:

1. Accelerate regional understanding of the biodiversity data-science-policy value chain and draw attention to the opportunities and solutions that biodiversity data presents for sustainable development in Africa;
2. Strengthen regional engagement, learning networks, and collaborative synergies with a view to streamlining the data-science-policy value chain; and
3. Galvanise political commitment to mobilising Africa’s biodiversity data.

The event emanates from the project, Mobilising Africa’s Biodiversity Data, which is generously supported by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation and entails developing a strategy for capturing, digitising and publishing Africa’s policy-relevant biodiversity data whilst strengthening regional capacity and collaboration in biodiversity information management.

More information is available at: http://www.sanbi.org/news/sanbi-host-africa-rising-mobilising-biodiversity-data-sustainable-development-conference

The "Open Science at the Global Scale: Sharing e-Infrastructures, Sharing Knowledge, Sharing Progress" conference will take place on March 31, 2015 in Brussels, Belgium. The conference is organized under the aegis of the European Commission (DG CONNECT) to bring together policy and research stakeholders from all the regions targeted by the project (Asia, Africa, Arabia, India, Europe and Latin America) to discuss major developments and perspectives in the field of global e-Infrastructures for Research and Education.

The main outcomes of the CHAIN-REDS project will be also presented on this occasion:

• The development of a Distributed Computing Infrastructure interoperation model between Europe and other regions
• The promotion of international standards and technical guidelines for interoperability of cloud services across continents
• One of the largest existing e-Infrastructure-related digital information systems, the CHAIN-REDS Knowledge Base
• A complete methodology for better sharing and using scientific data
• The CHAIN-REDS Science Gateway: a single portal for accessing remote computing and data services anywhere in the world
• The support of the creation of Identity Federations to make Authentification and Authorisation easier for users and service providers worldwide
• The main outcomes of the six awareness-raising workshops organised by CHAIN-REDS in Asia, Africa, Arabia, and Latin America

For Registration and more information, please visit the oficial conference webpage: https://agenda.ct.infn.it/event/1110/

• reviewing extensively the status of existing essential variables in different Societal Benefits Areas (SBA) of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO);
• assessing their observational needs and readiness (in terms of temporal frequency, spatial resolution, accuracy, etc.);
• describing the monitoring networks currently operational;
• capturing gaps and requirements for EV operational definition (mainly in terms of integration of all types of Earth Observations);
• identifying the process underlying EV definition in support to less mature domains and the elaboration of new variables.

The 13th European Ecological Federation (EEF) and 25th Italian Society of Ecology’s (S.It.E.) joint conference will take place in Rome from 21st - 25th September 2015.  

"Ecology at the Interface" focuses on interactions at all biological levels, from membrane exchanges to food web dynamics, in addition to physical ecotones, from deep sediment-bottom water to land-atmosphere, and disciplinary ecotones linking ecology to sociology, economics, law, technology and other fields of knowledge concerning daily human life.

For 5 full days the conference expects about 1500 participants from all over Europe, proposing a rich programme articulated in a number of plenary and contributed sessions, symposia, workshops andround tables.      

Deadlines for symposia and workshop proposals and abstract submission are available here and the first circular here.  

The proposed venue is the Congress Centre of Rome - EUR.

You can download the full brochure here.

For more information visit the official conference website.

The official Governing Board meeting, including the GBIF symposium, will take place on 8-10 October in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Prior to that there will be Training sessions for Nodes on 4-5 October, followed by the Global Nodes Meeting on 6-7 October. Committee meetings will take place on 6 October.

A special symposium will be hosted on 7 October where all delegates are invited to attend. After the Governing Board meeting, on 11 October, there is a possibility to visit the Andasibe National Park.  

The International Symposium "What can Remote Sensing do for the Conservation of Wetlands?" will take place on 23 October 2015 in parallel with the XVI Congreso de la Asociación Española de Teledetección (XVI Meeting of the Spanish Remote Sensing Association) in Seville, Spain.

The Symposium aims to become an interdisciplinary meeting for wetland managers and scientists interested in remote sensing as well as remote sensing experts doing research in wetlands.

Wetlands are fragile and dynamic ecosystems sensitive to changes in climate and land-use, and rich in biodiversity. For centuries they were considered to have little or no value, and most have been drained or transformed. In 1971 the first international convention for the protection of Wetlands, the Ramsar Convention, was signed to promote their conservation and sustainable use. Now it is recognized that wetlands provide fundamental ecosystem services, such as water regulation, filtering and purification, as well as scientific, cultural, and recreational values. Wetlands constitute an extensive array of ecosystems ranging from lakes and rivers to marshes and tidal flats. An increasing number of wetlands have some kind of legal protection, and many wetlands are monitored and actively managed.

For more information on the symposium, please visit the official webpage: http://wetlandssymposium.com/

SBSTTA 19 - Nineteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice will take place from 2 to 5 November 2015 in Montreal, Canada.

DINA Technical Comittee will have a workshop in Copenhagen with updates on ongoing module developments and coding sessions.

http://www.dina-project.net/wiki/Physical_TC_meeting_2015

The 5th International EcoSummit Congress, EcoSummit 2016 - Ecological Sustainability: Engineering Change, will take place at The Corum Convention Centre, Montpellier from 29 August – 1 September 2016.

This conference series was founded in 1996 in Copenhagen, as a forum to meet the demands of scientists working in several new ecological disciplines, and who required a better understanding of the concepts and methods for a holistic use of ecology in environmental management. Since 1996, EcoSummit has been taken around the world (Canada and China), with EcoSummit 2012 hosting 1600 participants from 75 countries in Columbus, Ohio, USA.

EcoSummit 2016 will centre on the ecology of terrestrial ecosystems and all habitats that are integrated within those ecosystems, including river networks, wetlands and coastlines. 

More information: http://www.ecosummit2016.org/

The 3rd edition of the DEST course "Philosophy of Biological Systematics" is co-organised with the Scandinavian Research School in Biosystematics (ForBio) and will take place from 10 to 14 October 2016.

Target Audience

MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers, professional systematists/taxonomists and anyone who is interested in the philosophy of Biological Systematics.

Criteria for selection will be scientific merit, motivation and usefulness of the training course for the applicant's career.

For more information and to register, please go to: http://taxonomytraining.eu/content/philosophy-biological-systematics-1

The 5th edition of the DEST course "Basics of Taxonomy" is co-organised with the Scandinavian Research School in Biosystematics (ForBio). The course will take place from 10 to 21 October 2016 at the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences, Kristineberg.

Course topics covered: DELTA, digital drawing, scientific illustration, scientific writing and communication, Scratchpads.

For more infromation and to register, please go to: http://taxonomytraining.eu/content/basics-taxonomy-describing-illustrating-and-communicating-biodiversity-0

Sfécologie2016, the 2016 International Conference of the French Ecological Society, will take place  in Marseille (France), from 24-28 October 2016. Local organizer is the 'Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie' (IMBE).

Following the former successful events (Ecologie 2010 in Montpellier and Joint Meeting British Ecological Society/Sfé 2014 in Lille), Sfécologie 2016 will promote and support exchanges around the latest developments in research and the most exciting challenges raised from the different disciplines of ecology, sharing scientific evidences, confronting experiences, developing collaborations around the Mediterranean Sea, across Europe, across the world.

The 4-days programme will be extensive, including 5 plenary speakers, thematic sessions and 14 symposia as well as inviting social events (conference outline here). 

For more information visit the official event's page.

The 10th  International Conference on Ecological Informatics 'Facing Global Change by Sharing Data and Models' wil take place on 24‐28 October 2016 in Dubrovnik, Croatia  

The 4th EU BON roundtable will take place on Thursday, 17 November 2016 at the premises of the Museum fuer Naturkunde in Berlin with the motto "Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure".  

One of the key questions will be how to achieve sustainability for the many different products of EU BON, such as tools, software, models and infrastructure after the project ends. It should be discussed how a European Biodiversity Observation Network and its essential components could be sustained after the project will end in May 2017, by which institutions or networks and how the products can be used in the best way for European policy and research needs.  

The 13th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will take place from 4 to 17 December 2016 - Cancun, Mexico.

More information to follow here: https://www.cbd.int/doc/?meeting=cop-13

The "European Conference of Tropical Ecology" - the annual scientific meeting of the Society for Tropical Ecology (Gesellschaft für Tropenökologie, gtö) - will be organized in 2017 in Brussels, Belgium, by three Universities and three research-museum institutions. It will take place from Monday 6 to Friday 10 February 2017, on the campus "Etterbeek" from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a location easily reached from the city centre by public transport. 

The overarching topic will be "(re)connecting tropical biodiversity in space and time". It highlights both the importance of integrating fundamental sciences inferring past processes (e.g. paleoecology, evolution, social history…) to understand current patterns of biodiversity, and the urgent need to reconnect patches of fragmented landscapes if we wish to conserve tropical biodiversity and ecological services of tropical ecosystems for future generations.

For more information and to register, please visit the official event's page: http://www.soctropecol-2017.eu/  

Republican Donald Trump won North Carolina, capturing one of the seven heavily contested battlegrounds while votes in six other swing states are still being counted

The post The Latest: Trump wins North Carolina and GOP wins Senate control appeared first on Boston.com.

Hernández, who hit 33 homers to earn an All-Star nod, helped the Dodgers win the World Series in 2024.

The post Red Sox reportedly interested in Teoscar Hernández for a second straight offseason appeared first on Boston.com.

Crochet, 25, was one of the top starting pitchers in the American League last season, posting a 3.58 ERA.

The post Red Sox viewed as a top candidate to land Garrett Crochet by pair of insiders appeared first on Boston.com.

Until Tuesday, abortion rights advocates had prevailed on all seven measures that have appeared on statewide ballots since the fall of Roe.

The post Abortion rights advocates win in 7 states and clear way to overturn Missouri ban but lose in 3 appeared first on Boston.com.

The Trump administration is expected to pull back Biden's controversial directive that requires emergency rooms to provide abortions when necessary to stabilize a woman's health or life.

The post Anti-abortion advocates press Trump for more restrictions as abortion pill sales spike appeared first on Boston.com.

The post Can You Name These Latin American Composers? Take the Quiz! appeared first on CMUSE.

No hints; just portraits. How many of these 10 famous composers can you identify? No hints; just portraits. How many of these 10 famous composers ... Read more

The post QUIZ: Can You Identify These 10 Famous Composers From Their Photos? appeared first on CMUSE.

The post Which Classical Instrument Are You? Take the Quiz! appeared first on CMUSE.

The post Which Musical Era Do You Belong In? Take the Quiz! appeared first on CMUSE.

Classic FM has posted what it believes to be the hardest classical music quiz online, allowing you to test out your knowledge and brag about ... Read more

The post Feel like testing your classical music knowledge? Take this quiz appeared first on CMUSE.

The post Can You Name These Classical Composers? Take the Quiz! appeared first on CMUSE.

"They never really called out Russell on certain things, but Bill would call Tom out on everything," Bennett said, comparing the Seahawks and Patriots in the 2010s.

The post Michael Bennett recalled how Bill Belichick treated Tom Brady as harshly as other Patriots appeared first on Boston.com.

"He puts himself in some bad situations, which he needs to learn from those. But we just love how combative he is."

The post Are the Bruins making the right call sending Matt Poitras to Providence? appeared first on Boston.com.

“We're snatched and loving it,” actress and Dorchester native Ayo Edebiri told E!

The post Quinta Brunson, Ayo Edebiri, and Rhea Seehorn light up the Emmy Awards silver carpet appeared first on Boston.com.

Bianca Betancourt, digital culture editor for Harper's Bazaar, called Cyrus' look the “type of over-the-top camp we love and want from the Grammys.”

The post Victoria Monét, Dua Lipa, Miley Cyrus stun on the wild-and-wacky Grammys red carpet appeared first on Boston.com.

Betts said the two have grown even closer in recent years.

The post ‘Love you, big bro’: A call from David Ortiz helped Mookie Betts break out of a playoff slump appeared first on Boston.com.