The ASEAN-EU Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Days will take place between 21-23 January 2014 in Bangkok, Thailand.  As a part of the conference EU BON is  going to hold a workshop called "Integration of biodiversity data recording and information management systems for environmental sustainability: a call for EU-ASEAN collaboration" (22nd January).

The agenda of the EU BON workshop includes:

• Review and compare the situation regarding relevant biodiversity and Earth observation data and information sources/providers in EU and ASEAN;

• Examine linkages between regional/national ASEAN and EU efforts with international / global biodiversity information systems (in particular GBIF, GEO BON);

• Assess and discuss national vs. regional level priorities and needs with regard to integrated biodiversity information in ASEAN and Europe;

• Identify common challenges and needs towards further integration of different types, levels, and scopes of available data and information systems;

• To address how S&T cooperation between Europe and ASEAN in the area of biodiversity and Earth observation could be further developed to better serve policy needs (especially in light of IPBES), and to contribute to common goals towards sustainable economic development

The ASEAN-EU Science, Technology and Innovation Days serve as a visible forum for cooperation activities between the two regions in the field of STI. The event addresses researchers from most thematic areas – with a focus on the societal challenges with relevance to both regions – as well policy makers, research conducting companies and innovation managers. It takes place annually, alternating between an ASEAN and a European country. High-level policy makers as well as many research projects and companies seize the chance to network, discuss, exchange and inform themselves.

The Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE, Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France), in its Research Group "Macroecology and Biogeography of Global Change (MacroBio)" has a 36-months PhD position open for applications. The position is funded by the European Commission through the FP7 Research Project OPERAs and affiliated to the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS).

The topic is the broad-scale spatial mapping and quantification of ecosystem service trade-offs following from management of agro-ecosystems in the Mediterranean basin. The context of the research includes the environment (climate, land use) as well as trends in societal demands for services. Based on scientific literature, spatial databases and the outputs from a process-based ecosystem model, the candidate will analyze, quantify and map ecosystem service trade-offs. Service valuation and indicator representation methods will be developed with the IMBE team. The approach is pan-Mediterranean: a significant part of the work will therefore consist of helping to reduce gaps in data and knowledge for the sum of countries around the Mediterranean basin. 

The research group works in close interaction with international programs such as Future Earth (through its project ecoSERVICES) and science-policy interfaces such as IPBES.

The successful candidate will have completed a Masters degree (or equivalent) in one of the environmental sciences, have experience in the handling of spatial data from databases, literature and models, have knowledge of existing concepts of ecosystem services, and be able to place results in the context of the Mediterranean basin (this includes the European, as well as North African and Eastern countries). The working language is English, appropriate skills in French or another of the Mediterranean languages will be an advantage.

The position will be filled when a suitable candidate has been identified. To apply for this position, please send a letter of application, demonstrating your ability to understand the task, and your CV as soon as possible, but before the 31st of January 2013, by e-mail to Ms. Gabriela Boéri (Gabriela.Boeri@imbe.fr). For any questions about the task, working conditions, or the OPERAs project, please contact Professor Wolfgang Cramer (Wolfgang.Cramer@imbe.fr).

On the 17 Jan in Geneva, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) received unanimous endorsement to unleash the power of open data for a second decade. There was agreement to continue building on the organization’s first 10 years of pioneering environmental advances, which are designed to improve the quality of life of people everywhere. Fueled by open data, GEO’s efforts are now evident in most regions of the world. GEO is comprised of 90 member nations, the European Commission and 77 Participating Organizations.

"GEO is successfully meeting its mandate, which is to make data and other information open, accessible and easy to discover for decision makers around the world," said Mr. Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for the Environment. "GEO’s vision is now operational, a proven force for putting sound science to work across nine essential areas: agriculture, biodiversity, climate, disasters, ecosystems, energy, health, water and weather."

GEO’s mandate is to drive the interoperability of the many thousands of space-based, airborne and in situ Earth observations around the globe. Without concerted efforts to coordinate across diverse observations, these separate systems often yield just snapshot assessments, leading to gaps in scientific understanding and hampering data fusion in support of better decision making for society. GEO aims to fill such gaps by providing a comprehensive, more integrated picture of our changing Earth. GEO is accomplishing this by establishing a Global Earth Observation System of Systems, known as GEOSS, and a Portal through which data and other information can be easily accessed at little or no cost.

"Rather than snapshot assessments, GEO gives us moving pictures of a changing planet," said Mr. Cao Jianlin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. "Our world does not work just in the sea, on land, in the atmosphere or in space, and our policies cannot reflect individual domains either."  China, for example, is partnering with 46 other GEO-member nations and several of GEO’s Participating Organizations to ensure that unprecedented data will be available to measure the effects of human activities and natural processes on the carbon cycle, the first such coordinated effort at the global level.

In South Africa, 22 nations and 5 GEO Participating Organizations recently launched AfriGEOSS with the goal of strengthening that continent’s capabilities to produce, manage and use earth observations. "This new initiative gives us the necessary framework to support informed decisions about a range of priorities, including food security, access to clean water and sanitation, natural resources, and coastal and disaster management," said Derek Hannekom, Minister of Science and Technology, South Africa.

By increasing the utility of open data about the Earth, GEO is helping to mitigate disasters, develop water-management strategies, support citizen observatories, and strengthen food security. GEO is driving the development of new tools, such as a cholera early warning system, as well as painting fuller pictures of complex environmental processes, including through global observations of ocean acidification at the global scale and observations of atmospheric greenhouse gases from space. GEO participants are also studying the footprint of mining practices, with the aim of minimizing future impacts on nearby communities and natural habitat, and focusing on links between air quality and health. There is also focus on the far-reaching consequences of melting glaciers and other serious cold-region concerns.

"The Obama Administration continues to work to catalyze the emergence of new businesses, products and services powered by the U.S. Government's open data. Increasing access to data and data sharing, both nationally and internationally, is crucial for unleashing innovation across our data-driven economy," said Dr. Patrick Gallagher, performing the duties of the Deputy Secretary of Commerce." GEO's collaborative work to integrate open data about the Earth continues to drive the development of new tools, services and scientific insights that are used around the world to support sound decision making."

The second plenary of the Platform met in December 2013 and agreed an ambitious work programme for 2014-2018: Details of the agreed work programme are available in the advanced meeting report of the Plenary.

The IPBES Secretariat have now issued a call for experts to help scope, advise on and deliver the work programme. Governments and relevant stakeholders can put forward nominations, from which the Multidisciplinary Expert Panel of IPBES will select a maximum of 20% of experts from the stakeholder nominations, and the rest from the government nominations.

The UK expects IPBES to make use of the best scientists/experts from all relevant disciplines - natural science, social science, economics, data and modelling and traditional knowledge, and to achieve a geographical and gender balance among those experts in the delivery of the IPBES work programme.

More information of the required topics to be covered by experts, alongside the nomination forms and how to nominate can be found in the attachments below.

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)

A joint EU BON WP3-WP4 meeting took place on 25-27 November 2013 in Solsona, Spain. The main aim of the meeting was to officially kick off WP3 and provide forum for discussion of the planned work. The two work packages were presented with their main aims, scope and objectives. The place of the two work packages in the broader framework of EU BON, and the cross-links between the two, were also discussed.

In the following interview Hannu Saarenmaa and Klaus Henle share insights from the meeting:

1) WP3 ‘Improving tools and methods for data analysis and interface’ and WP 4 ‘Link environment to biodiversity: analyses of patterns, processes and trends’ are two of the core work packages in EU BON that are expected to accumulate a lot of genuine data and develop new tools for data analysis and interface. Can you explain in short what will your main activities involve?

HS: I can contribute to the project and these WPs a large-scale modelling technology from the BioVeL project that can process hundreds of species. This would be an engine to compute the first real Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV).

KH: Our main activities will involve an analysis how available effort is best allocated in time and space to optimize results from monitoring. We will further assess how different sources of uncertainty influence conclusions derived from the analysis of monitroing data

2) What were the main results of the meeting in terms of the planned work and WP management?

HS: It was proposed to set up an EBV Task Force across the EU BON project.  If we can do that, it would really give a thrust for the project. If we could pick up the Database of Monitoring Schemes from the EUMON project, as discussed, that would give us access to some large datasets.

KH: One main result was the identification of the concrete responsibilities (e.g. data provision, data analysis for terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity) within the workpackage and to identify explicitly links to other workpackages.

3) What novelty will the work in these two work packages bring and what will the major results be?

HS: If they can create a new Ecological Niche Modelling algorithm that can also deal with spatial patterns, that would be interesting.  Such a model actually exists in MigClim, but it is not yet widely used.

KH: We will get recommendations how monitoring can be optimized and a more comprehensive understanding of changes in biodiversity and their underlying causes

4) What are the immediate planned activities and when can the first results be expected?

KH: The most immediate planned activities it the screening of potentially available data needed for the analysis

5) How will the WP3/4 interact with GEO BON?

HS: The proposed EBV Task Force would need to interface very closely with GEO BON.

KH: We are engaged directly with key members of GEO-BON; e.g. we have regular meetings with Henrique Perreira.

The official kick-off of the EU BON project WP6 Stakeholder engagement and science-policy dialogue and WP7 Implementation of GEO BON: strategies and solutions at European and global levels took place on 18-19 February 2014 in Leipzig, Germany. The two work packages are a crucial part of the project outlining the future actions towards ensuring the integration of the project with its global counterpart GEO BON, as well as paving the road towards successful stakeholder and policy engagement.

As a result of this first meeting further short-term and long-term steps were outlined for WP6 and WP7 towards the achievement of main project objectives. These steps include shaping the future EU BON GEO BON interactions and EU BON’s approach towards stakeholder engagement.

In the following interview Ilse Geijzendorffer gives an insight on the outcomes from the meeting.

This image shows the discussions during the WP6/WP7 kick-off meeting. Credit: Eugenie Regan

1) What are the project’s main stakeholders that you are planning to approach and interact with in the future?

EU BON aims to develop a blue print for a data infrastructure for data handling, storage, indicator computation and transfer of knowledge via a data portal available to knowledge seekers. This data infrastructure thus has to be useful to data holders who want their data to be used (e.g. citizen scientists, nature associations, scientists) and to those that seek knowledge (e.g. reporting bodies). EU BON reaches out to these stakeholders and to bodies that would be interested to host or have such a data infrastructure themselves. Our first stakeholder round table focused on European knowledge seekers and existing data portals. Our second stakeholder round table planned for this summer will focus on citizen scientists and the organisations that currently handle the citizen science data, to receive input on what these two stakeholder groups would like to see in such a data infrastructure blue print.

At the same time we reach out to ongoing platforms that consist of networks of knowledge and that have needs regarding their data flow. A very important partner in the data infrastructure development is GEO BON. The coordination of GEO BON has just changed and EU BON will reinforce the ties with GEO BON during the General Assembly in Crete coming in April.

2) Science-policy dialogue proves to be a crucial part for the success of large scale projects like EU BON, how are you tackle this challenge?

The objective of EU BON is a moving target in the sense that the blue print for data infrastructure will need to suit the needs for current and future monitoring. Additionally, the actual implementation, funding and hosting of such an infrastructure could be within a structure that may not yet exist in that form today. Changes in mission, coordination and targets occur constantly. To profit from lessons learned, we are in close contact with the Biodiversity Knowledge Project; a project that has already gained experience in the last four years in identifying the most important elements for handling data requests from knowledge seekers and in developing a suitable management plan.

For EU BON to achieve and reach its moving target, we keep in touch with the changes within the biodiversity knowledge landscape (e.g. progress in IPBES, CBD reporting, European targets ad evaluations); we explore multiple scenarios for the data infrastructure, the business plan and the implementation options; and we collaborate with a large range of stakeholders to include not only their ideas and needs, but also the transitions that they go through.

Issue 72 of the CBD Technical Series is now out focusing on "EARTH OBSERVATION FOR BIODIVERSITY MONITORING : A review of current approaches and future opportunities for tracking progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets". The issue shows how earth observation technologies can and should fit into systems for biodiversity monitoring, as well as demonstrates how these approaches could further improve relevant indicators for the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. It illustrates a clear track from observations done by remote sensing platforms through Essential Biodiversity Variables to biodiversity indicators and ultimately to the assessment of progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and ultimately in support of evidence-based decision making. EU BON is also featured in this report.

The goal of the CBD Technical Series is to contribute to the dissemination of up-to-date and accurate information on selected topics that are important for the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the equitable sharing of its benefits. A large and growing body of evidence has clearly established the need to disseminate synthesis publications relevant to CBD objectives and selected reports presented at CBD meetings.

The CBD Technical Series is intended to:

• Foster scientific and technical cooperation;
• Improve communication between the Convention and the scientific community;
• Increase awareness of current biodiversity-related problems and concerns; and
• Facilitate widespread and effective use of the growing body of scientific and technical information on conserving and using biological diversity.

The full report is available here.

Researchers and the public can now have immediate access to data underlying discovery of new species of life on Earth, under a new streamlined system linking taxonomic research with open data publication.

The partnership paves the way for unlocking and preserving a wealth of 'small data' backing up research conclusions, which often become lost within a few years of an article's publication in an academic journal.

In the first example of the new collaboration in action, the Biodiversity Data Journal carries a peer-reviewed description of a new species of spider discovered during a field course in Borneo just one month ago. At the same time, the data showing location of the spider's occurrence in nature are automatically harvested by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), and richer data such as images and the species description are exported to the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL).

This contrasts with an average 'shelf life' of twenty-one years between field discovery of a new species and its formal description and naming, according to a recent study in Current Biology.

A group of scientists and students discovered the new species of spider during a field course in Borneo, supervised by Jeremy Miller and Menno Schilthuizen from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, based in Leiden, the Netherlands. The species was described and submitted online from the field to the Biodiversity Data Journal through a satellite internet connection, along with the underlying data . The manuscript was peer-reviewed and published within two weeks of submission. On the day of publication, GBIF and EOL have harvested and included the data in their respective platforms.

The new workflow established between GBIF, EOL and Pensoft Publishers' Biodiversity Data Journal, with the support of the Swiss NGO Plazi, automatically exports treatment and occurrence data into a Darwin Core Archive, a standard format used by GBIF and other networks to share data from many different sources. This means GBIF can extract these data on the day of the article's publication, making them immediately available to science and the public through its portal and web services, further enriching the biodiversity data already freely accessible through the GBIF network. Similarly, the information and multimedia resources become accessible via EOL's species pages.

One of the main purposes of the partnership is to ensure that such data remain accessible for future use in research. A recent study published in Current Biology found that 80 % of scientific data are lost in less than 10 years following their creation.

Donald Hobern, GBIF's Executive Secretary, commented: "A great volume of extremely important information about the world's species is effectively inaccessible, scattered across thousands of small datasets carefully curated by taxonomic researchers. I find it very exciting that this new workflow will help preserve these 'small data' and make them immediately available for re-use through our networks."

"Re-use of data published on paper or in PDF format is a huge challenge in all branches of science", said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, managing director of Pensoft and founder of the Biodiversity Data Journal. "This problem has been tackled firstly by our partners from Plazi who created a workflow to extract data from legacy literature and submit it to GBIF. The workflow currently launched by GBIF, EOL and the Biodiversity Data Journal radically shortens the way from publication of data to their sharing and re-use and makes the whole process cost efficient", added Prof. Penev.

The elaboration of the workflow from BDJ and Plazi to GBIF through Darwin Core Archive was supported by the EU-funded project EU BON (Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network, grant No 308454). The basic concept has been initially discussed and outlined in the course of the pro-iBiosphere project (Coordination and policy development in preparation for a European Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System, addressing Acquisition, Curation, Synthesis, Interoperability and Dissemination, grant No 312848).

Original source:

Miller J, Schilthuizen M, Burmester J, van der Graaf L, Merckx V, Jocqué M, Kessler P, Fayle T, Breeschoten T, Broeren R, Bouman R, Chua W, Feijen F, Fermont T, Groen K, Groen M, Kil N, de Laat H, Moerland M, Moncoquet C, Panjang E, Philip A, Roca-Eriksen R, Rooduijn B, van Santen M, Swakman V, Evans M, Evans L, Love K, Joscelyne S, Tober A, Wilson H, Ambu L, Goossens B (2014) Dispatch from the field: ecology of micro web-building spiders with description of a new species. Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e1076. DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e1076

The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.  ESA is an international organisation with 20 Member States.

How is EU BON connected to space research? As a speaker at the EU BON General Meeting, which took place on Crete between 30 March - 3 April 2014, Marc Paganini of the European Space Agency explains the collaboration between ESA and GEO BON, and how EU BON is involved.

In the following interview he continues the topic:

Marc Paganini (left) and Dirk Schmeller (right) at the EU BON General Meeting 2014

1) For most of the general public space and biodiversity research hardly have anything to do with each other, can you explain how the European Space Agency (ESA) and the idea of remote sensing communities make these two meet?

It is widely recognized that in-situ observations available on biological diversity are very scarce for most of the Earth’s ecosystems and are often insufficient for determining precisely the global status and trends of biodiversity worldwide. In most cases, satellite Earth Observations do not provide a direct measurement of biodiversity but, if properly used with ground collection of biodiversity data and species and habitat modeling, remote sensing can become an important and essential component of biodiversity monitoring systems. There are multiple cases where remote sensing is often the only instrument that can offer large scale monitoring, as for example in highly variable ecosystems such as wetlands or in remote areas that can hardly be monitored by field campaigns.

The recent and future evolution of the portfolio of EO satellites offers huge potential for increasing the use of EO products into biodiversity monitoring systems. The lack of data continuity has always been a barrier for the biodiversity community to invest in EO technology.  A commitment from Space Agencies to provide sustained observations on the long term is a strong incentive for the biodiversity community to invest in Space. The Sentinel series of the European Copernicus program, together with the freely available data from other space agencies such as the Landsat family of the US Geological Survey, will bring unprecedented long-term continuity of observations for the biodiversity community. In that context, free and open data policy to taxpayer-funded satellite remote sensing imagery is becoming a "de facto" standard amongst Space Agencies and a unique opportunity for the biodiversity community to use widely EO products to monitor biodiversity trends.

2) How is the ESA involved with the aims of EU BON, where do the two initiatives intersect?

ESA and many other Space Agencies are becoming more and more committed in helping the biodiversity community at large, in improving their capacity to use remote sensing data for monitoring biodiversity trends.

First there is a coordinated action from all Space Agencies through the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and its involvement in the Group of Earth Observation (GEO). The GEO is a voluntary partnership of governments and international organizations who engaged jointly in developing a comprehensive, coordinated and sustained system of observations of the Earth with the ultimate objective to enhance scientifically-sound decision making. Biodiversity is one of the primary societal benefit areas of GEO and is addressed by the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON). CEOS is actively involved in GEO BON, principally through the participation to its steering committee of the European, US and German Space Agencies, namely ESA, NASA and DLR. Since EU BON is the principal European contribution to GEO BON, and has, amongst its objectives, the aim to integrate biodiversity data from ground observations to remote sensing information, ESA is directly concerned by the EU BON development in using remote sensing for terrestrial, freshwater and marine realms.

Second, ESA has its own EO application development programs, and funds a wide range of Research & Development projects for biodiversity and ecosystem services. In that context, ESA has established close relationships with the European Environment Agency (EEA) but also with the secretariats and scientific bodies of major Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Ramsar Convention on wetlands. The findings of the ESA-funded EO projects on biodiversity and ecosystem services are highly relevant to EU BON. It is therefore expected that the ESA and EU BON activities in relation to the use of RS for biodiversity monitoring will offer some convergence of evidence showcases for the whole biodiversity community.

3) How do you see the future of collaboration with EU BON?

The high potential for satellite Earth Observations to support biodiversity monitoring is growing but is yet to be fully realised. The recent efforts of GEO BON, supported by the GEO Plenary and the CBD Conference of the Parties, to define a set of minimum essential observational requirements to monitor biodiversity trends will give considerable impetus for space agencies and for the remote sensing community to focus their work on a small set of well defined EO products that will serve the needs of the biodiversity community at large. In that context ESA is firmly engaged in supporting the development of these emerging Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs). EU BON together with ESA can be pioneers in the early development and demonstration.

The "Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network" EU BON General Meeting took place between 30 March - 3 April 2014 in Heraklion on Crete, to present major project results and set objectives for the future. The meeting was preceeded by a review paper recently published in the open access journal Nature Conservation, to point out EU BON researchh interests and objectives for the future of biodiversity protection.

This is a group photo of the participants in the recent EU BON General Meeting in Crete, Greece.

The 2014 General Meeting brought together keynote speakers Jörg Freyhof (GEO BON, Executive Director), Marc Paganini (European Space Agency), Jerry Harrison (UNEP-WCMC) with the entire EU BON consortium to discuss collaborations between the project and other important initiatives in the areas of earth observation, particularly in remote sensing and in situ approaches to biodiversity data collection, as well as in the use and analysis of biodiversity data for forecasting and scenario building, and environmental policy.

"The high potential for satellite Earth Observations to support biodiversity monitoring is growing but is yet to be fully realised. The recent efforts of GEO BON, supported by the GEO Plenary and the CBD Conference of the Parties, to define a set of minimum essential observational requirements to monitor biodiversity trends will give considerable impetus for space agencies and for the remote sensing community to focus their work on a small set of well defined earth observations products that will serve the needs of the biodiversity community at large. In that context ESA is firmly engaged in supporting the development of these emerging Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs). EU BON together with ESA can be pioneers in the early development and demonstration." comments Marc Paganini, European Space Agency, on the future collaboration between the two initiatives.

The world's biodiversity is in an ongoing dramatic decline that despite conservation efforts remains unprecedented in its speed and predicted effects on global ecosystem functioning and services. The lack of available integrated biodiversity information for decisions in sectors other than nature conservation has been recognized as a main obstacle and the need to provide readily accessible data to support political decisions has been integrated into the CBD's "Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020" and the Aichi targets. The recently published EU BON review paper points out how the project will use its potential to improve the interaction between citizens, science and policy for a better future of biodiversity protection.

EU BON aims to enable decision makers at various levels to make use of integrated and relevant biodiversity information adapted to their specific requirements and scales. Disparate and unconnected databases and online information sources will be integrated to allow improved monitoring and evaluation of biodiversity and measures planned or taken at different spatial and temporal scales. This requires strong efforts not only with regard to technical harmonization between databases, models, and visualization tools, but also to improve the dialogue between scientific, political, and social networks, spanning across several scientific disciplines as well as a variety of civil science organizations and stakeholder groups.

The project is focusing mainly on the European continent but contributes at the same time to the globally oriented Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), which itself contributes to the Group of Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). EU BON will build on existing information infrastructures such as GBIF, LifeWatch and national biodiversity data centres in Europe, and will integrate relevant biodiversity data from on-ground observations to remote sensing information, covering terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats.

Original Source:

Hoffmann A, Penner J, Vohland K, Cramer W, Doubleday R, Henle K, Kõljalg U, Kühn I, Kunin WE, Negro JJ, Penev L, Rodríguez C, Saarenmaa H, Schmeller DS, Stoev P, Sutherland WJ, Ó Tuama É, Wetzel FT, Häuser CL (2014) Improved access to integrated biodiversity data for science, practice, and policy - the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON). Nature Conservation 6: 49–65. doi: 10.3897/natureconservation.6.6498

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2014) doi: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0190

Assessing and predicting ecosystem responses to global environmental change and its impacts on human well-being are high priority targets for the scientific community. The potential for synergies between remote sensing science and ecology, especially satellite remote sensing and conservation biology, has been highlighted by many in the past. Yet, the two research communities have only recently begun to coordinate their agendas. Such synchronization is the key to improving the potential for satellite data effectively to support future environmental management decision-making processes. With this themed issue, we aim to illustrate how integrating remote sensing into ecological research promotes a better understanding of the mechanisms shaping current changes in biodiversity patterns and improves conservation efforts. Added benefits include fostering innovation, generating new research directions in both disciplines and the development of new satellite remote sensing products.

Temperature is a main driver for most ecological processes, and temperature time series provide key environmental indicators for various applications and research fields. High spatial and temporal resolutions are crucial for detailed analyses in various fields of research. A disadvantage of temperature data obtained by satellites is the occurrence of gaps that must be reconstructed. Here, we present a new method to reconstruct high-resolution land surface temperature (LST) time series at the continental scale gaining 250-m spatial resolution and four daily values per pixel. Our method constitutes a unique new combination of weighted temporal averaging with statistical modeling and spatial interpolation. This newly developed reconstruction method has been applied to greater Europe, resulting in complete daily coverage for eleven years. To our knowledge, this new reconstructed LST time series exceeds the level of detail of comparable reconstructed LST datasets by several orders of magnitude. Studies on emerging diseases, parasite risk assessment and temperature anomalies can now be performed on the continental scale, maintaining high spatial and temporal detail. We illustrate a series of applications in this paper. Our dataset is available online for download as time aggregated derivatives for direct usage in GIS-based applications (Reconstructed MODIS Land Surface Temperature Dataset - http://gis.cri.fmach.it/eurolst/).

Source: Metz M, Rocchini D, Neteler M. (2014) Surface Temperatures at the Continental Scale: Tracking Changes with Remote Sensing at Unprecedented Detail.Remote Sensing 6(5): 3822-3840. doi: 10.3390/rs6053822

To read more about the courses and to register, visit the official DEST webpage: http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/modern-taxonomy-course-programme-2013-2014

The classical treatise "Flora of Northumberland and Durham" by Nathaniel John Winch is re-published through the innovative Advanced Books platform as an example of combining modern information technology together with historical scholarship to create a new sort of resource and data re-use. This publication will be supporting ongoing research on the botany of the region, which can be seen as a model for other regions in Europe.

The on-line semantically enriched re-publication marries the meticulous detail of old books with the interconnectedness of the internet bringing advantages of the digitization and markup efforts such as data extraction and collation, distribution and re-use of content, archiving of different data elements in relevant repositories and so on.

"Historic biodiversity literature is not just of cultural interest, it can be used to chart biogeographic change and help us understand the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity. Even if we are trying to predict future scenarios for biodiversity, understanding the changes of the past will help understand the changes we should expect in the future" said Dr Quentin Groom from the Meise Botanical Garden, Belgium, who initiated the project and marked up the original text.

The North-east of England has seen many changes since the publication of Winch's Flora. In the 19th Century the area was a powerhouse of the industrial revolution. It was an important coal mining area and significant for the production of iron and steel. It was also a centre for industries such as shipbuilding and engineering. In contrast the uplands in the west of the region were some of the most isolated areas in England, covered in blanket bog and rarely visited.

Since that time heavy industry and mining have declined, but the population has continued to grow. Agriculture and forestry have become mechanized changing the countryside perhaps beyond the recognition of Winch. Many of the plants and localities he mentions have disappeared and a large number of new species have been introduced. The local botanists are still very active in the region. With GPS systems and modern maps they are mapping the region's flora in ever more detail.

The extensive efforts of Quentin Groom from the Botanic Garden Meise and editor of this re-publication combined with the cutting-edge technologies for semantic enhancements used by Pensoft's Advanced Books platform, have resulted in additional details including links to the original citations and coordinates of the mentioned localities. In some cases the habitat that Winch described for a locality differs dramatically from what can be found in the same location nowadays.

The flora, for example, frequently mentions Prestwick Carr, an area of lowland bog, once full of rare species. Sadly it was largely drained just thirty years after the publication of the flora. Yet in recent years the Northumberland Wildlife Trust has been working to restore the bog to its former glory. "When reading Winch's flora, it is easy to see what has been lost, but more importantly what remains to be conserved", comments Groom.

The re-publication of Winch's flora is just one step towards fully understanding all the impacts on wild plants of all the environmental changes that have occurred since the 19th century. Nevertheless, digitization of this flora not only tells us about plants but also about the history of science. Between the lines of this flora one can see a rudimentary understanding of ecology and the beginnings of research on phytogeography.

Consider that in 1831 Charles Darwin set sail on the Beagle, collecting and cataloguing biodiversity around the world, much as Winch had done in North-east England over the preceding 30 years. Field botany at the time was not just a hobby, but a serious pursuit that led to many new discoveries.

Understanding the causes of biodiversity change is only possible if you have data over a long period. The North-east England has an enviable botanical history dating back to William Turner (1508-1568), the so-called, Father of English Botany, who came from Morpeth in Northumberland. Yet he was only the first in a long list of North-eastern botanists, including John Wallis (1714-1793), Nathaniel John Winch (1769-1838), John Gilbert Baker (1834-1920), George Ralph Tate (1805-1871), Gordon Graham and George Swan (1917). Their publications and the works of many others have contributed to a large corpus of literature on the region's flora.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed between EU BON and Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA). The hand over took place at the 21st GBIF Governing Board (GB21) in New Delhi (India) on 16-18 September 2014 between EU BON project co-ordinator Christoph Häuser and Roald Vang (Head of Department on Information technology) and Frank Hanssen from NINA.

IMAGE: At the handover: EU BON co-ordinator Christoph Häuser and Roald Vang (Head of Department on Information technology) and Frank Hanssen from NINA.

The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) is Norway’s leading institution for applied ecological research, with broad-based expertise on the genetic, population, species, ecosystem and landscape level, in terrestrial, freshwater and coastal marine environments. The core activities encompass strategic ecological research integrated with long-term monitoring, as well as a variety of environmental assessments and development of methodologies. Most work is aimed at improving the understanding of biodiversity, ecosystem services, ecological processes and their main drivers to facilitate better management of ecosystem services and resources. NINA addresses a wide variety of interdisciplinary issues involving both ecologists and social scientists, and plays an important role in European and other international research cooperation.

Full article available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-12-S15-S1 

Abstract: In an effort to increase conservation effectiveness through the use of Earth observation technologies, a group of remote sensing scientists affiliated with government and academic institutions and conservation organizations identified 10 questions in conservation for which the potential to be answered would be greatly increased by use of remotely sensed data and analyses of those data. Our goals were to increase conservation practitioners’ use of remote sensing to support their work, increase collaboration between the conservation science and remote sensing communities, identify and develop new and innovative uses of remote sensing for advancing conservation science, provide guidance to space agencies on how future satellite missions can support conservation science, and generate support from the public and private sector in the use of remote sensing data to address the 10 conservation questions. We identified a broad initial list of questions on the basis of an email chain-referral survey. We then used a workshop-based iterative and collaborative approach to whittle the list down to these final questions (which represent 10 major themes in conservation): How can global Earth observation data be used to model species distributions and abundances? How can remote sensing improve the understanding of animal movements? How can remotely sensed ecosystem variables be used to understand, monitor, and predict ecosystem response and resilience to multiple stressors? How can remote sensing be used to monitor the effects of climate on ecosystems? How can near real-time ecosystem monitoring catalyze threat reduction, governance and regulation compliance, and resource management decisions? How can remote sensing inform configuration of protected area networks at spatial extents relevant to populations of target species and ecosystem services? How can remote sensing-derived products be used to value and monitor changes in ecosystem services? How can remote sensing be used to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of conservation efforts? How does the expansion and intensification of agriculture and aquaculture alter ecosystems and the services they provide? How can remote sensing be used to determine the degree to which ecosystems are being disturbed or degraded and the effects of these changes on species and ecosystem functions?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original Source:

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

Additional information:

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

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

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

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

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

The training includes three subsets:

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

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

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

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

Abstract: 

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

Original Source: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image: Participants at the meeting;  Credit: Dirk Schmeller

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

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

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

Results of the recently published study show:

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

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

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

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

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

###

Original Source:

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

Additional information:

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

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.

###

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).

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

Mapping opportunities and challenges for rewilding in Europe

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

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

DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12534

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presentations from the meeting will be uploaded shortly.

PRESENTATIONS:

AGENDA - EU BON 3rd General Assembly

Keynote speakers: 

W.Sutherland - Biodiversity science and policy

G.Geller - GEO / GEOSS / GEOBON

J.Peterseil - Linking ecosystem research and earth observation

Other projects:

B.Wilson - DataONE

C.Flann - Species 2000 Catalogue of Life

C.Marangi - Ecopotential

W.Los - Globis-B

EU BON presentations:

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

U.Koljalg - Data mobilization strategy and show case

H.Saarenmaa - European biodiversity portal

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

E.Regan - Stakeholder requirements

I.Geijzendorffer - Context of EU BON

Selection of pictures from the meeting:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A new EU BON acknowledging special issue "Earth Observation for Ecosystems Monitoring in Space and Time: A Special Issue in Remote Sensing" published in the open access journal Remote Sensing provides a collection of  important researchers in the field, as well as the most challenging aspects of the application of remote sensing to study ecosystems. 

The 2016 GEO BON Open Science Conference: "Biodiversity and ecosystem Services Monitoring for the 2020 Targets and beyond. Building on observations for user needs" will take place from 4 to 9 July 2016 in Leipzig, Germany. 

Biodiversity Science is facing enormous challenges as the pressures upon the earth’s biotic systems are rapidly intensifying and we are unlikely to reach the CBD 2020 Aichi Targets. But how far or close are we to reach the targets? The GEO BON Open Science Conference on "Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Monitoring for the 2020 Targets and beyond" will assess this question. The conference is open to the wide scientific public and is sponsored and co-organized by iDiv, UFZ, SASCAL (others to come).

For more information please visit: http://conf2016.geobon.org

A new EU BON derived open access paper looking into Earth Observations (EO) and the Aichi Targets was recently published  in the journal Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation.

The paper reviews the ABTs and EBVs against direct and indirect, operational and emerging, EO data products. The review was conducted by consulting expert opinion and categorically rating the Targets based on the adequacy of currently available EO technology to build indicators per target. The potential RS-EBVs were also matched with their respective EO data products.

To summarize this information a monitoring framework is proposed where RS-EBVs are used to harmonize observations prior to the indicator stage. Potential obstacles to implementing this framework and challenges to its adoption by the wider science and policy community are discussed. Finally, upcoming satellite missions which could offer potential for assessing global biodiversity status and trends beyond the 2020 timeframe of the CBD's current Strategic Plan for Biodiversity are discussed.

Original Source: 

O'Connor B. et. al. (2015) Earth observation as a tool for tracking progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation. DOI: 10.1002/rse2.4

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

We are happy to announce that earlier this summer EU BON has been selected to be featured as a successful EU-funded project. The DG Research & Innovation communication team has interviewed our project co-ordinator Christoph Häuser and the resulting article - Combining citizen and satellite biodiversity data - is now a fact!

The news item focuses on EU BON's efforts to bring together biodiversity and Earth observation data, that are accumulated from data sources ranging from the individual citizen scientist, researchers to the most technologically advanced satellites in one EU-wide initiative. 

"Information on life on Earth is crucial to addressing global and local challenges, from environmental pressures and societal needs, to ecology and biodiversity research questions," commented Christoph Häuser in his interview.

View the full story on the Horizon 2020 site.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which sets out common objectives and areas of cooperation in the field of Earth observation and the environment over the coming years, announces a news item published on the EEA website.

Satellite data, such as that provided by the ESA, is a key component of environmental knowledge. The broader view satellite measurements offer of a particular subject at a particular time have improved environmental monitoring, leading to more evidence based policy and, ultimately, better environmental management.

The Memorandum of Understanding sets objectives for the exchange of scientific expertise and technical information between the agencies, providing the basis for mutual access to data and the promotion of joint activities.

Read more in the original news item here.

The 2016 European Space Agency Living Planet Symposiumwill be held in Prague, Czech Republic from 9-13 May 2016 and is organised with the support of the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. The event follows previous successful symposia held in Edinburgh (2013), Bergen (2010), Montreux (2007) and Salzburg (2004).

The first announcement has been now released, with a deadline for abstract submission on 16 October 2015.

All received abstracts will be reviewed by a Scientific Committee, notification of acceptance will be provided in early February 2016. Registration to attend the event (free of charge) will be opened in February 2016, after the publication of the preliminary programme.

The objectives of the ESA Living Planet Symposium are to:

• Present  the  progress  and  plans for the implementation of ESA Earth Observation strategy and the relevance of ESA's EO Programme to societal challenges, science and economy.
• Provide an international forum to scientists, researchers and users to present and share state of the art results based on ESA's Earth Observation and third-party mission data.
• Review the development of Earth Observation applications.
• Present the Copernicus space component and operational services.
• Report on ESA’s Exploitation Programmes (i.e. Climate Change Initiative, SEOM, DUE, VAE, STSE).
• Introduce the current and future planned Earth Observation missions.
• Outline ESA’s international cooperation in the field of Earth Observation.
• Provide dedicated thematic tutorials and demonstrations.

For more information, please visit: http://lps16.esa.int 

Biodiversity Observation Networks (BONs) have recently become a hot topic on the scene of natural sciences. But what is their role in advancing our knowledge of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services?

A new paper in the Biodiversity journal uses the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) as an example, to explain how they can fill in gaps and address existing barriers in knowledge through implementing an integrated biodiversity information framework.

Biodiversity supports essential ecosystem services that are key to human well-being. The ongoing global biodiversity decline is a threat to humans, particularly in developing countries.

The Aichi biodiversity targets of the United Nations' Strategic Plan for Biodiversity set ambitious goals for protecting biodiversity from further decline, but gaps in knowledge still sit in the way of monitoring progress, hindering the assessment of the current status and future trends of biodiversity.

There is an urgent need for a paradigm shift with regards to how biodiversity data are collected, stored, shared and streamlined in order to tackle many sustainable development challenges ahead.

Solving issues of biodiversity knowledge gaps and data reuse are a main focus of the EU BON project and provide a European contribution to GEO (Group on Earth Observations) and the wider Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

The EU BON project aims at addressing the need for a shift towards an integrative biodiversity information framework, starting from collection to the final interpretation and packaging of data.

At the centre of the EU BON's efforts is promoting and adopting existing standards of good practice and integrating data within a single biodiversity portal in order to make it discoverable, accessible and digestible. The aim of the portal is to collect and standardize existing data sources, as well as to work towards translating and visualizing the collected raw data to show trends and prognoses useful to policy and society.

"Biodiversity data, information and knowledge are diverse, dispersed and disparate. It is hard for a non-specialist to make sense of raw data and often separate data sets and gaps in data prevent effective policy reporting. This is why progress towards the Aichi targets is often hard to calculate, and where BONs can play a central role by working towards standardization to achieve true interoperability of data sets." explains the lead author Dr. Florian T. Wetzel,Museum für Naturkunde (MfN), Berlin.

"For advancing with the biodiversity challenge and the Aichi Targets globally, regional BONs are needed, and this is where EU BON attempts to make a difference for Europe" adds Dr. Christoph L. Häuser, EU BON coordinator and Deputy Director General at MfN, Berlin.

###

Original Source:

Florian T. Wetzel, Hannu Saarenmaa, Eugenie Regan, Corinne S. Martin, Patricia Mergen, Larissa Smirnova, Éamonn Ó Tuama, Francisco A. García Camacho, Anke Hoffmann, Katrin Vohland & Christoph L. Häuser (2015): The roles and contributions of Biodiversity Observation Networks (BONs) in better tracking progress to 2020 biodiversity targets: a European case study, Biodiversity, DOI: 10.1080/14888386.2015.1075902

Looked down on with scepticism by many taxonomists, handling big data efficiently is a huge challenge that can only be met with thorough and multi-layered efforts from both scientists and technological developers. Projects like the Pan-European Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI), started in 2009, prove that harmonised taxonomic reference systems and high-quality data sets are possible through dynamic, expertly created and managed online tools. The methods, results and future prospects of PESI are available in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal.

With environmental changes occurring at an unprecedented rate around the world, biological communication needs to be left off the pace at no point. Phenomena such as species' migration, extinction, intrusion; ecosystem stability; decline of pollinators and pest invasion have to be monitored closely and identified momentarily. In order to do so, proper identification based on reliable and easily accessible data is crucial.

Therefore, the three key objectives of PESI include standardisation in taxonomic reference systems, enhancement of the quality and completeness of taxonomic data sets and creation of integrated access to taxonomic information. The five pillars of biological community networks, Zoology, Botany, Marine Biota, Mycology and Phycology, have been integrated in five infrastructural components: knowledge, consensus, standards, data and dissemination.

As a result, PESI did not only merge data from a range of sources and published a total of nearly 450,000 scientific names online. It also maintains networks of outstanding experts and national focal points, so that it makes sure that the taxonomic information, it relies on, is always at its finest, while simultaneously takes care about delivering persistent standards and easily accessible up-to-date biodiversity data.

PESI results will also feed as an essential part for the advancement of relevant EU projects, such as Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON). In the EU BON project, the PESI Backbone will be advanced to satisfy the needs of the GEO BON / GEOSS system, also serving as a taxonomic backbone for the projected EU BON Biodiversity Portal.

Aiming at standardisation and integration of taxonomic data across platforms PESI also works in close collaboration with other relevant projects including GBIF, LifeWatch, the Catalogue of Life, the Encyclopedia of Life, the Global Names Architecture, GÉANT, ViBRANT, OpenUp!,BioVeL, iMarine , EU BON and BiodiversityKnowledge .

"Scientific names are key carriers of biodiversity information. Therefore, for the efficient exploring and integration of biodiversity data, the development of a functional taxonomic resolution system, including the establishment of a shared taxonomic standard (as a core component), is essential for all sorts of biodiversity assessments. PESI provides such an infrastructure for Europe, integrating the relevant technical (informatics) and social (knowledge & users) networks into a common work program, serving a wide community of biodiversity workers," says Dr. Yde de Jong, coordinator of the Pan-European Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI) project.

"The PESI Taxonomic Backbone serves as a taxonomic data standard resource, facilitating and optimising the integration and sharing of European biodiversity data, supporting a wide range of European services, major biodiversity programs and stakeholders on nature conservation and biodiversity management," conclude their results the scientists.

Original Source:

de Jong Y, et al. (2015) PESI - a taxonomic backbone for Europe. Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e5848.doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e5848

Additional Information:

The Pan-European Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI) provides standardised and authoritative taxonomic information by integrating and securing Europe's taxonomically authoritative species name registers and nomenclators (name databases) and associated expert(ise) networks that underpin the management of biodiversity in Europe. PESI kicked-off as an EC-FP7 project, running from 2009 to 2011.

PESI proceeded from the EC-FP6 Networks of Excellence EDIT, on developing a European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy, and MarBEF, on Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning.

Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) 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.