As a part of the celebrations of  a 25th Anniversary, GRID-Warsaw is holding an international conference Science, Business and Environment. The conference will take place on 15 Sep 206 and is organized in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 

The main objective is to present the state, changes and threats (hot issues) for the pan-European continent, identified in the latest UNEP report, released as part of the Global Environment Outlook series. The "GEO-6 Assessment for the pan-European region" report was published in June 2016, and first time presented at a conference of Environment Ministers on June 8, 2016 in Batumi. The conference in Warsaw will be the first event during which the report will be presented to the broader community, as well as become the subject of discussion of experts representing different backgrounds and different countries.

EU BON is partner of the conference - the conference is also connected to relevant issues of EU BON, namely collecting, sharing, and utilizing data and geoinformation tools for environmental investigations and biodiversity assessments. These topics will fill the most of a special panel session dedicated to biodiversity and be also present at the plenary opening session Environmental changes in the pan-European region - current trends and challenges. Using environmental data in science, business and administration. 

For further information about the event: agenda, invited panelists, descriptions of sessions, registration form etc. please visit www.gridw.pl/geo6. 

Are protected areas working when it comes to promoting biodivesity? A new study, published in Nature Communications, shows that local biodiversity is actually higher within, rather than outside protected areas.

Abstract: 

Protected areas are widely considered essential for biodiversity conservation. However, few global studies have demonstrated that protection benefits a broad range of species. Here, using a new global biodiversity database with unprecedented geographic and taxonomic coverage, we compare four biodiversity measures at sites sampled in multiple land uses inside and outside protected areas. Globally, species richness is 10.6% higher and abundance 14.5% higher in samples taken inside protected areas compared with samples taken outside, but neither rarefaction-based richness nor endemicity differ significantly. Importantly, we show that the positive effects of protection are mostly attributable to differences in land use between protected and unprotected sites. Nonetheless, even within some human-dominated land uses, species richness and abundance are higher in protected sites. Our results reinforce the global importance of protected areas but suggest that protection does not consistently benefit species with small ranges or increase the variety of ecological niches.

Original Source:

The original article is openly accessible at:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12306

Key in ensuring the effectiveness of conservation efforts and maintaining ecosystem health, measuring biodiversity can benefit greatly when remote sensing data comes into the equation. A new EU BON related paper, published in the journal Ecological Indicators, proposes open source solutions for measuring the important Rao's Q index, when it comes to remote sensing data.

Abstract: 

Measuring biodiversity is a key issue in ecology to guarantee effective indicators of ecosystem health at different spatial and time scales. However, estimating biodiversity from field observations might present difficulties related to costs and time needed. Moreover, a continuous data update for biodiversity monitoring purposes might be prohibitive. From this point of view, remote sensing represents a powerful tool since it allows to cover wide areas in a relatively low amount of time. One of the most common indicators of biodiversity is Shannon's entropy H′, which is strictly related to environmental heterogeneity, and thus to species diversity. However, Shannon's entropy might show drawbacks once applied to remote sensing data, since it considers relative abundances but it does not explicitly account for distances among pixels’ numerical values. In this paper we propose the use of Rao's Q applied to remotely sensed data, providing a straightforward R-package function to calculate it in 2D systems. We will introduce the theoretical rationale behind Rao's index and then provide applied examples based on the proposed R function.

Original Source: 

Rocchini, D., Marcantonio, M., Ricotta, C. (2017). Measuring Rao's Q diversity index rom remote sensing: an open source solution. Ecological Indicators, 72: 234-238. [5years-IF: 3.649] DOI:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.07.039

Being voluntary, citizen science work is often automatically assumed to also be openly available. Contrary to the expectations, however, a recent study of the datasets available from volunteers on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) prove to be among the most restrictive in how they can be used.

There is a high demand for biodiversity observation data to inform conservation and environmental policy, and citizen scientists generate the vast majority of terrestrial biodiversity observations. The analysis on GBIF showed that citizen science datasets comprise 10% of datasets on GBIF, but actually account for the impressive 60% of all observations.

Invaluable as a resource for conservationists and biodiversity scientists, however, these resources unfortunately often come with restrictions for re-use. Although the vast majority of citizen science datasets did not include a license statement, as a whole, they ranked low on the openness of their data.

The assumption that voluntary data collection leads to data sharing is not only not reflecting the real situation, but also does not recognize the wishes and motivations of those who collect data, nor does it respects the crucial contributions of these data to long-term monitoring of biodiversity trends.

In a recent commentary paper, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, EU BON partners suggest ways to improve data openness. According to the researchers citizen scientists should be recognised in ways that correspond with their motivations, in addition its is advisable that organisations that manage these data should make their data sharing policies open and explicit.

Original Research:

Groom, Q., Weatherdon, L. & Geijzendorffer, I. (2016) Is citizen science an open science in the case of biodiversity observations? Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12767

A new editorial, published in the Journal of Apllied Ecology looks at modelling and monitoring as methods for adaptive biodiversity management in the 21st century.

Abstract: 

With increasing threats on biodiversity, informed conservation decisions need to be based on currently observed and future predicted trends of biodiversity (Pereira, Navarro & Martins 2012; Guisan et al. 2013). In this regard, two essential components supporting informed biodiversity conservation decisions are good monitoring data to assess recent and ongoing trends (Collen et al. 2013; Pereira et al. 2013) and robust models to anticipate possible future trends (Pereira et al. 2010a; Akc
akaya et al. 2016). Models benefit from robust monitoring data sets, that is repeated observations of biodiversity, as they need data to be fitted or validated, but models can also help assess data representativeness (e.g. by highlighting any bias), support proper data collection (e.g. covering the relevant gradients) or be used to make more effective use of biodiversity observations (Guisan et al. 2006, 2013; Ferrier 2011).

Read more in the open access paper.

Recently published the GEO Handbook on Biodiversity Observation Networks presents a powerful resource that will provide valuable guidance to those committed to protecting, sustaining and preserving biodiversity across the planet. The practical experience which GEO BON has accumulated through its own actions, and through the efforts of its network partners, is a valuable resource to biodiversity information systems everywhere—from those just starting out in places where there has previously been little information, to large operations holding vii enormous amounts of data and wishing to know how better to use it. 

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is a voluntary international partnership of 102 governments and 92 participating organisations which share a vision of a future in which decisions and actions for the benefit of humankind are informed by coordinated, comprehensive and sustained Earth observations. GEO achieves its mission largely through self-organising communities focused on important Earth observation domains where decision-making will benefit from data that is shared broadly and openly. These communities form connected systems and networks, creating a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

During its first ten-year implementation period, 2005–2015, GEO identified biodiversity as a key ‘Societal Benefit Area’, resulting in the formation of the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network, GEO BON. As GEO moves into its second, ten-year implementation period, GEO BON is recognised as one of its strongest communities. It has helped to mobilise and coordinate the data and information needed for an effective response to the global threats faced by organisms, species and ecosystems. In collaboration with international treaty bodies such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, GEO BON has worked with national conservation agencies and non-governmental organisations at scales from regional to global. These efforts have revealed both the benefits of working together and the challenges of such a complex, but urgent task, not least of which is filling the remaining large gaps in data and information. 

The 4th EU BON roundtable took place on 17 November 2016 in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. Focused on the topic "Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure" the 35 participants discussed key questions with regards to the sustainability of the EU BON network and products, and shared their rich expertise, coming from different backgrounds ranging from science to policy.

The Roundtable brought together key European users and stakeholders, such as the European Environment Agency, UNEP GRID, and the GEO secretariat, including 27 different institutions and organisations, as well as European funded projects, infrastructures and networks that share the EU BON objectives of assembling biodiversity and ecosystem-related data and knowledge, such as Lifewatch, the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), ECOPOTENTIAL, EKLIPSE and others.

Credit: Florian Wetzel

In her welcome address, Katrin Vohland, head of the Science Programme "Public Engagement with Science" and task lead for stakeholder engagement in EU BON explained that key lessons learnt are that:

1. stakeholder identification may yield unexpected results as in the case of EU BON where next to scientifically based organisation less practitioners but more citizen scientists seem to become stakeholder;

2. early and continuous connections are necessary, as for example to other EU initiatives and projects;

3. target group specific communication avoiding acronyms helps; and

4. the idea of teal organisations may support overcoming the limitations to  make networks economically sustainable - which are important but non-monetary assets.  

While former Roundtables addressed European policy, citizen science and the link to practitioners, this final EU BON Stakeholder event discussed the future and sustainability of the European biodiversity observation network and its products and tools.

Key questions for the participants were:

• How can the many different EU BON products be sustained and further developed after the project ends in May 2017?

• Which institutions will host the products in the future and what key products could be further developed by EU BON to meet European and global policy and research needs (e.g. for monitoring, reporting)?

• How can a European Biodiversity Network as a whole be sustained in order to serve as a central infrastructure and pool of expertise for generating biodiversity data and information on a European scale?

Ideas and plans were developed to secure the sustainability and long term re-use of EU BON products. More information on the outcomes of the meeting can be found below in the minutes and the presentations given during the day.

The report form the meeting was officially published in RIO Journal as a part of the dedicated EU BON outputs collection:

Wetzel F, Despot Belmonte K, Bingham H, Underwood E, Hoffmann A, Häuser C, Mikolajczyk P, Vohland K (2017) 4th European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) Stakeholder Roundtable: Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure. Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e11875. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e11875

For further information please contact:

Dr. Katrin Vohland, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin,  Email: katrin.vohland@mfn-berlin.de

Dr. Florian Wetzel, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin,  Email: florian.wetzel@mfn-berlin.de

Presentations from the meeting: 

1. EU BON_RT_Katrin Vohland

2. Key achievements _ Christoph Häuser

3.1 EUBON Products_ Lauren Weatherdon

3.2 EU BON products and stakeholders_David Rose

4. EU BON and modelling tools_Bill Kunin

5. CS and EU BON tools_Bernat Claramunt

6. Businessplan_Sustainability_Dirk Schmeller

7 .EKLIPSE_EUBON_Carsten Nesshöfer-Dirk Schmeller

8. EEA - EEA_EU BON_Beate Werner

9. LifeWatch_Wouter Los_Christos Arvanitidis

10. Thoughts on Sustainability_Gary Geller

11. Biodiversity data, gaps and effors_Florian_Wetzel

12. EUBON-portal_Tim Robertson

A new report has been added to the dedicated EU BON Outputs Collection in the innovative RIO journal. The paper reviews biodiversity related citizen science in Europe, specifically the data mobilization aspect and gives an overview of citizen science related activities in the project EU BON.

In addition, recommendations for a Pan-European citizen science gateway and data mobilization efforts will be given, with the aim of filling in existing biodiversity data gaps. Also the EU BON citizen science gateway is described, which is a part of the European Biodiversity Portal (http://biodiversity.eubon.eu) with citizen science related products. 

Citizen science is a vital element for EU BON with regards to biodiversity information sources that provide data for research and policy-making. CS data are used by many research institutes, public organisations and local data portals. CS data offer volumes of field data, which would otherwise not be possible to collect with the limited resources of research institutes and agencies. Thus one of the main targets for EU BON is to make CS data available through various efforts, for example through networking and by using new technologies for data mobilisation. Overall, one of the main goals of a common EU citizen science Gateway is to integrate CS data for European biodiversity research. EU BON also seeks to develop a strategy for achieving this goal and encourages educational aspects of citizen science through networking and the development of tools.

Original Source:

Runnel V, Wetzel F, Groom Q, Koch W, Pe’er I, Valland N, Panteri E, Kõljalg U (2016) Summary report and strategy recommendations for EU citizen science gateway for biodiversity data. Research Ideas and Outcomes 2: e11563. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.2.e11563

The Final EU BON Meeting is scheduled to take place from 14-16 March 2017 at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels and at the stunning backdrop of Botanic Garden in Meise.

EU BON invites all interested parties to mark the dates in their diaries and come to learn about the project’s results and outputs some of which are presented in this newsletter and some are yet to come.

More information is available on the Conference website: http://symposium.eubon.eu

Published just recently, a new open access EU BON article discusses the need for additional research efforts beyond standard biodiversity monitoring to reconstruct the impacts of major anthropogenic pressures and to identify meaningful temporal baselines for biodiversity.

The article, published in Scientific Reports, reports on the temporal baselines that could be drawn from biodiversity monitoring schemes in Europe and compares those with the rise of important anthropogenic pressures.

With most biodiversity monitoring schemes initiated late in the 20th century, well after anthropogenic pressures had already reached half of their current magnitude, the team of scientists found that setting temporal baselines from biodiversity monitoring data would underestimate the full range of impacts of major anthropogenic pressures.

The authors stress that these limitations need to be explicitly acknowledged when designing management strategies and policies as they seriously constrain our ability to identify relevant conservation targets aimed at restoring or reversing biodiversity losses.

Find out more in the original research paper:

Mihoub J B, Henle K, Titeux N, Brotons L, Brummitt N A, Schmeller D S (2017) Setting temporal baselines for biodiversity: the limits of available monitoring data for capturing the full impact of anthropogenic pressures. Scientific Reports. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep41591

While development and implementation of data publishing and sharing practices and tools have long been among the core activities of the academic publisher Pensoft, it is well-understood that as part of scholarly publishing, open data practices are also currently in transition, and hence, require a lot of collaborative and consistent efforts to establish.

Based on Pensoft's experience, and elaborated and updated during the Framework Program 7 EU BON project, a new paper published in the EU BON dedicated collection in the open science journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), outlines policies and guidelines for scholarly publishing of biodiversity and biodiversity-related data. Newly accumulated knowledge from large-scale international efforts, such as FORCE11 (Future of Research Communication and e-Scholarship), CODATA (The Committee on Data for Science and Technology), RDA (Research Data Alliance) and others, is also included in the Guidelines.

The present paper discusses some general concepts, including a definition of datasets, incentives to publish data and licences for data publishing. Furthermore, it defines and compares several routes for data publishing, namely: providing supplementary files to research articles; uploading them on specialised open data repositories, where they are linked to the research article; publishing standalone data papers; or making use of integrated narrative and data publishing through online import/download of data into/from manuscripts, such as the workflow provided by the Biodiversity Data Journal. Among the guidelines, there are also comprehensive instructions on preparation and peer review of data intended for publication.

Although currently available for journals using the developed by Pensoft journal publishing platform ARPHA, these strategies and guidelines could be of use for anyone interested in biodiversity data publishing.

Apart from paving the way for a whole new approach in data publishing, the present paper is also a fine example of science done in the open, having been published along with its two pre-submission public peer reviews. The reviews by Drs. Robert Mesibov and Florian Wetzel are both citable via their own Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs).

###

Original source:

Penev L, Mietchen D, Chavan V, Hagedorn G, Smith V, Shotton D, Ó Tuama É, Senderov V, Georgiev T, Stoev P, Groom Q, Remsen D, Edmunds S (2017) Strategies and guidelines for scholarly publishing of biodiversity data. Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e12431. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e12431

Europe’s regions are facing rising sea levels and more extreme weather, such as more frequent and more intense heatwaves, flooding, droughts and storms due to climate change, according to the latest European Environment Agency report published on 25 Jan 2017. The report assesses the latest trends and projections on climate change and its impacts across Europe and finds that better and more flexible adaptation strategies, policies and measures will be crucial to lessen these impacts.

Find a summary of the report's Key Findings, or download the full report.

​SeaLifeBase in CA server (www.sealifebase.ca) has been updated to date.

Taking place from 14 to 16 March 2017, the Final EU BON Meeting served as a platform to present key outputs from the FP7 EU-funded project EU BON " Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network" which aims to advance biodiversity knowledge by building a European gateway for biodiversity information and by integrating and harmonising a wide range of biodiversity data.

Hosted by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels and at the stunning backdrop of Botanic Garden in Meise, EU BON partners met with stakeholders from research, European policy and citizen science to learn about the project's results and outputs and to discuss the future of a European Biodiversity Observation Network.

Credit: Donat Agosti

EU BON represents a joint effort of 31 partners from 15 European countries, Israel, the Philippines, Brazil and more than 30 associated partners. The project worked on the establishment and adoption of new data standards, the development of tools, the integration of advanced techniques for data analysis and the development of new approaches and strategies for future biodiversity monitoring and assessment.

Group Photo; Credit: D. Schmeller

At the Final Meeting participants had the opportunity to learn about and test products and services developed by project members during the period 2012-2017. These include a range of tools for data analysis, such as GeoCAT -- a tool that performs rapid geospatial analysis to ease the process of Red Listing taxa and AquaMaps -- a toolkit that models the distribution and makes predictions of where aquatic species occur naturally. Another group of tools -- the GBIF Integrated Toolkit and ARPHA-BioDiv facilitates the process of data sharing, integration and publishing.

Among the services presented, worthy of special mention is the EU BON Unified Taxonomic Information Service (UTIS) that allows the running of a federated search on multiple European taxonomic checklists by scientific name or vernacular name strings. These include the Pan-European Species directories Infrastructure (EU-Nomen), the European Nature Information System (EUNIS), the Catalogue of Life, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), the GBIF Checklist Bank and the Plazi Treatment Bank.

All these web applications are bound together under the umbrella of the EU BON European Biodiversity Portal, with highly relevant contributions to the aims of the Group on Earth Observation's Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON). Besides applied tools and software, the portal also serves as an online library for manuals, guidelines, factsheets, case studies, policy recommendations and other documents.

Learn more about these tools in our Final Brochure.

For live updates, follow EU BON on Twitter, or like us on Facebook. See the live Tweet feed from the meeting at #eubongm.

A recent story, featured on CORDIS News, focuses on EU BON and its achievements. Based on a recent project's publication in ‘Nature – Scientific Reports’ and information from the project, the new item discusses important project outcomes, including the European Biodiversity Portal, and their contribution to drawing a more accurate picture of current biodiversity to aid efforts for sustainable governance of natural resources.

Here is a snippet from the news feature on CORDIS: 

A recent article published in the journal ‘Scientific Reports’ states, ‘Monitoring schemes provide an important source of information on biodiversity change, guiding further research, conservation assessment and planning.’ The article cites The European Biodiversity Portal, designed and implemented by the EU-funded EU BON project that offers researchers, policy-makers, and others interested in biodiversity, easy access to insights on trends and modelling techniques.

The project worked on the establishment and adoption of new data standards, the development of tools to enable collaborative research and the encouragement of citizen-scientists. As a result, EU BON, by building the European Biodiversity Observation Network, has created advanced techniques for data analysis along with new approaches for modelling and strategies for future biodiversity monitoring.

Read the full publication here.

Coming to an end, after 4.5 years of hard work and dedicated research, the FP7-funded project EU BON leaves behind a basket of results to support the Group of Earth Observations (GEO) and assist researchers in their future studies.

The EU BON website will continue to exist and host relevant information for at least the next 5 years to ensure project results are easy to access and reuse, not only by EU BON researchers, but for anyone interested in the project or working in the field.

Among the major outcomes of the project, the biodiversity portal is now complete and will be hosted for the next years by CSIC. All EU BON’s tools, products, services and the Citizen Science gateway can be found there.

Additionally, about 15 of our tools will soon be included in the GEO BON’s BON-in-a-Box to ensure sustainability and exploitation of results.

All EU BON related publications are available via the project’s website. Moreover,  important documents are also in a dedicated piloting RIO Open Science collection, demonstrating how next-generation publishing can ensure sustainability of results coming from along the research cycle, including data, guidelines, infographics and more.

EU BON’s success could not be possible without the professional and friendly team of consortium partners and 33 associated partners, who’ve worked hard together and have contributed in various ways and with different efforts.

Credit: Dirk Schmeller

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. 

A new EU BON derived paper looks at the dynamics of science - policy dialogue, offering tips for improving the uptake of scientific knowledge.

Scientific knowledge is considered to be an important factor (alongside others) in environmental policy-making. However, the opportunity for environmentalists to influence policy can often occur within short, discrete time windows. Therefore, a piece of research may have a negligible or transformative policy influence depending on when it is presented.

These ‘policy windows’ are sometimes predictable, such as those dealing with conventions or legislation with a defined renewal period, but are often hard to anticipate. We describe four ways that environmentalists can respond to policy windows and increase the likelihood of knowledge uptake: 1) foresee (and create) emergent windows, 2) respond quickly to opening windows, 3) frame research in line with appropriate windows, and 4) persevere in closed windows. These categories are closely linked; efforts to enhance the incorporation of scientific knowledge into policy need to harness mechanisms within each.

In their new reseach the authors illustrate the main points with reference to nature conservation, but the principles are widely applicable. The open access paper is available here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901117302095

Read also the article published on it by the British Ecological Society: http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/windows-opportunity-influence-policy-four-tips-improve-uptake-scientific-knowledge/

EKLIPSE is an EU-funded project that aims to develop a mechanism for supporting better informed decisions about our environment based on the best available knowledge. This short video (4 minute) explains the EKLIPSE process and you can find out more about our science-policy activities on the EKLIPSE website. The project now invites you to describe your views on how to improve the science-policy interface related to biodiversity and ecosystem services and potential ways in which you, or your background organization, would like to contribute to the EKLIPSE mechanism.

Have your say here!

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.

The EU BON project which is coordinated by the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin/Germany has started on 1 December and will continue for 4.5 years. The EU BON Kickoff Meeting will be held in Berlin from 13 to 15 February 2013.
With respect to EU BON’s objectives the International Symposium "Nature and Governance – Biodiversity Data, Science, and the Policy Interface" will be held prior to the EU BON Kickoff Meeting from 11 to 12 February in Berlin with high-ranking speakers. You are most welcome to attend the Symposium.
The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is pleased to host this international symposium and will bring together high-ranking speakers and guests from worldwide to talk and discuss about these
Major Topics:
- What (data) policy needs
- The future of biodiversity information: new ways for generating, managing, and integrating biodiversity data
- How new approaches / models can link scales and disciplines
- Broadening the base and opening up: new ways to engage the public and stakeholders in biodiversity monitoring and assessments
- Résumé / conclusions
For more details, please have a look at the programme page.
The 1^st day of the Symposium and the reception will be held "under the dinosaurs" in the central exhibition hall of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.
The 2^nd day will be held in the Seminaris Conference Center in the quiet south-west of Berlin. The closing of the Symposium will be celebrated as "Come together & Ice-Breaker for EU BON Kickoff Meeting" in the nearby beautiful Large Green House of the Botanic Garden Berlin.
If you want to take part, please register at the registration page.

The German working group on vegetation databases is dedicated to building, maintaining, linking and analysing electronic archives of vegetation plot data and provides the national repository "VegetWeb", hosted by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). The 12th workshop will be hosted by the new German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig, Germany. The central mission of iDiv is to promote theory-driven experiments and synthesis as well as data-driven theory. The concept of iDiv encompasses the detection of biodiversity, understanding its emergence, exploring its consequences for ecosystem functions and services, and developing strategies to safeguard biodiversity under global change. In this context, the combined synthesis of species abundance and distribution data together with information on species characteristics is seen as a high potential to advance our understanding of community assembly and plant diversity patterns. For this reason, important databases have already become part of iDiv's data research platforms, such as the German Vegetation Reference Database (GVRD), the plant trait databases TRY and BIOLFLOR and the Chorology Database Halle (CDH) on plant distribution data. In this workshop, we seek to explore the potentials of such databases for future research, with a specific focus on vegetation databases.
Further Information: http://www.botanik.uni-greifswald.de/idiv_meeting_2013.html

The Research Infrastructures Unit of DG RTD and the infrastructure project LifeWatch invites you to a 1 and ½ day workshop : "Towards a Roadmap for Research Infrastructures on Biodiversity and Ecosystem research in Europe". The workshop will take place Brussels on 19 and 20 March 2013.
The overall objective of this workshop is to develop synergies between ESFRI research infrastructures (RI), existing research infrastructures implemented as Integrating Activities (IA), Integrated Projects (IP) and Joint Programming Initiatives (JPI) which are relevant to Biodiversity and Ecosystem research.
The following topics will be discussed:
1. Synergy between the biodiversity components of different initiatives, also in view of the supporting role of the European research infrastructures in this area.
2. A strategy for the development of biodiversity research infrastructures in the next ten years in view of emerging scientific and technical challenges.

Further information: EuroMarine

In 2013, Doñana Biological Reserve will host the first meeting of WP5 EU BON testing and validation of concepts, tools, and services, focusing on the organization and planning of the forthcoming WP5 tasks. The meeting will take place in Palacio de Doñana, Huelva, Spain, from 2 to 4 April 2013.
The aim of the meeting is to bring together the experts in charge of the implementation of the WP5 tasks with the people responsible for the data architecture (WP2), the tools developers (WP3, 4) and the policy and dialogue responsible partners (WP6, 7, 8). The meeting aims at providing a precise definition of the responsibilities of the partners involved and discussing the organization of the work process.

iMarine e-Infrastructure for data driven decision making and research
iMarine  is organising an invitation-only workshop to discuss data driven decision making and research on 14th & 15th May 2013 at DG Connect, Avenue de Beaulieu 33 (BU33), Room 0/54, Brussels, Belgium.
The goal of iMarine is to facilitate policy makers in addressing the global challenges impacting on the marine ecosystem, the fisheries sector, local economies and communities and to demonstrate that science based policy making can benefit from a large and distributed e-Infrastructure for cross-disciplinary data collection, harmonization and analysis necessary for the management and conservation of marine living resources.

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.

Тhe first meeting of the Freshwater Steering Group to be held in Uppsala, Sweden, on 10–12 June, 2013. The meeting is kindly supported by the Swedish EPA.

Please register for the workshop by sending an e-mail to Willem.Goedkoop@slu.se no later than 13 May.

The iEvoBio Meeting, 2013, will take place in Snowbird, Utah between June 25-26, in conjunction with Evolution 2013. It aims to bring together biologists working in evolution, systematics and biodiversity, with software developers, and mathematicians.
The keynote speakers for iEvoBio 2013 will be Dr. Heather Piwowar and Dr. Holly Bik.
Submissions for participation in the conference are now open. There are three ways to participate:
- Lightning Talk: present for 5 min on a method, idea, or software product about bioinformatics.
- Software Bazaar: Demo your open-source software product.
- Birds of a Feather: Suggest or participate in an informal group of folks with a common interest. Suggestions will be considered both before and during the meeting.

Find out the whole Program here.
More details about registration can be found here.

SPOT-VEGETATION turns 15 in May 2013!
After a long and successful career as Europe's first truly operational system for global monitoring of vegetation, the mission is now nearing the end of its life cycle.
But the story continues! The role of SPOT-VEGETATION will be taken over by ESA's technologically advanced PROBA-V mission from the summer of 2013 onwards.
To celebrate with us the operational and scientific achievements of SPOT-VEGETATION and to look forward to the intriguing perspectives that will offered to the user's community by PROBA-V, BELSPO and VITO are delighted to invite you to the conference "PROBING VEGETATION"  in Antwerp.

The biennial International Congress for Conservation Biology is recognized as the most important global meeting for conservation professionals and students. The congress features a dynamic scientific program with more than 100 cutting edge symposia, workshops, posters, and focus groups; countless networking opportunities, fantastic field trips, and world-renowned speakers.
The 26th ICCB takes place in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  Chesapeake Bay is the world's most productive estuary and the region is rich in cultural and historical heritage and conservation challenges and success stories.
Event web page: ICCB 2013

Biodiversity Informatics Horizons 2013 (BIH2013) is part of a continuing process that helps to structure and organise the biodiversity informatics community at the European level and beyond. BIH2013 will take place over 3 full days, from lunchtime on Tuesday 3rd September to lunchtime Friday 6th. The venue will be in Rome but is still awaiting final confirmation.

To respond to the challenges and priorities of the next decade in biodiversity and ecosystems research, structuring bottom-up and top-down interactions on informatics and cooperating across the community is now an essential activity. Cooperation avoids unnecessary duplication of activity. It helps to maximise and focus effort on building the information resources, tools and infrastructure the scientists and policymakers need. We all know the importance of this as we face environmental, societal and human health challenges on global scale. Science in support of policy to mitigate biodiversity loss due to climate and other man-made changes, to assure food security, and to combat invasive species (to give just a few examples) can only be achieved by full integration of the biodiversity research community through a commonly-shared, sustainable e-infrastructure across all sub-disciplines that reliably serves science and society alike. Hence, the need to coordinate.

Invited speakers will review challenging areas and promising technologies in biodiversity informatics, pathways to sustainable implementation and changing the community culture. A panel discussion with experts from regions of the world beyond Europe will explore opportunities for international cooperation that lead towards a sustainable global infrastructure. Demonstration and training activities, provided by some of the FP7 projects associated with the conference will allow delegates to see first-hand some of the new and exciting infrastructure building blocks that will come together to deliver the LifeWatch vision.

To read more and register for the conference, please click here.

For early registration conference fee, please register before 31 July.

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/

The FP7 Coordination action BiodiversityKnowledge on "designing a network of knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services to inform decision-making in Europe" is organizing its second international conference on September 24th to 26th in Berlin.
The objective of this second conference is to discuss and finalize the recommended design of a future Network of Knowledge (NoK) on biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe.
Considering the importance of this future Network of Knowledge, representatives of the biodiversity and ecosystem service knowledge community - from practitioners, researchers to policy makers - are warmly invited to actively participate in this conference and to contribute to the design process of a European Network of Knowledge during 2013.
Event web page: Biodiversity Knowledge 2nd Conference

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 ...

The FP7 projects BioFresh and WaterDiss2.0 are pleased to announce the E-seminar "Data Exchange for Biodiversity Conservation in Freshwater Ecosystems: Introducing the BioFresh Platform and Data Portal". The E-seminar will take place on Thursday, November 28 from 14:00 to 15:00 CET.

It will be hosted on the seminar website (http://waterdiss.eu/eseminar-biofresh) where a link will be available for it.

The E-seminar will introduce the audience to the usage of the BioFresh Platform and Data Portal, in order to ensure a better understanding of the different components. Aaike De Wever, Science Officer of BioFresh, will explain which data and information are integrated and for which contributions BioFresh is looking. Participants are encouraged to join in for a live discussion via "Citrix go to Webinar".

If you want to participate in the e-seminar, you only need to send an email to evelyn.lukat@ecologic.eu. You will receive further information via mail. If you decide on participating later, you can also simply join the seminar by following the link provided on November 28^th on this website.

A few important notes:

• The e-seminar will be conducted in English
• The video and the questions asked during the session will be available on the websites of the BioFresh data portal and this website.

Technical details on the E-seminar:

• When clicking on the link, the application Citrix Go To Webinar will be downloaded. Nothing will be installed on your computer. However, please make sure that your computer is able to run java applications.
• Please make sure that the sound system on your computer works. If your sound system does not work properly, you can also dial in via phone. Please check the dial-in number for your country on this website by November 28^th.

The course is a two-day hands-on training event. The course will accommodate 10-15 researchers. The program consists of introductory lectures, practical computer work, and discussions. Researchers will be contacted upon admission in order to consider their own research objectives for the course. more ...

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

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

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

On the 1st of April, between 9:30 and 16:30, the BiodiversityKnowledge project organises a conference where outcomes will be presented and widely discussed with policy makers, science and other stakeholders at the European parliament in Brussels. As final result, BiodiversityKnowledge will present a stakeholder’s document outlining a recommended design on how such a Network of Knowledge could operate and produce added value.

EU BON will be also presented at the confernce as one of the knowledge providers of the Network of Knowledge.

To counteract biodiversity loss, efforts have considerably increased over the past years to strengthen the science-policy-society interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services. There is indeed an active landscape of projects, institutions, organisations and individuals in Europe involved in this interface, all aiming to improve the knowledge flow so that decisions at different policy levels (from European, to national and local levels) are based on the best available knowledge.

With the 7th Environmental Action Programme and the start of Horizon2020 and its focus on innovative solutions for society, the need for more concerted activities in this context become even more important.

In this context, BiodiversityKnowledge (FP7 KNEU), an EU-funded coordination action has been set up to help to map, mobilise and organise this landscape focusing on the knowledge holders’ community. For this the project has been developing and testing a prototype Network of Knowledge since 2011 with more than 300 active participations of representatives of the biodiversity and ecosystems services knowledge community. Stakeholders involved ranged from practitioners and researchers to policy-makers.

Please find the conference agenda attached below.

The First EU BON Training Event will be held on April 3rd 2014, following the General Meeting of EU BON in Crete. Information regarding logistics (location, accommodation) can be found here: http://www.symposium.eubon.eu/general-meeting-2014.

The First EU BON Training Event aims to provide a basic understanding and shared vocabulary on Information architecture and Data standards used by EU BON. It will provide a forum for discussion, amongst experts from EU BON and from related Networks of Biodiversity Information.

Topics that will be covered:

1. Integrating biodiversity networks through Software Oriented Architecture -  Antonio Garcia, CSIC

2. Data standards: publishing sample-based data- Eamonn O Tuama, GBIF

3. Information architecture - GEOSS perspective – Lorenzo Bigagli

4. Data sharing and repositories in GBIF network  - Tim Robertson

5. Data flow and modelling in virtual laboratory - Hannu Saarenmaa, BioVeL

6. Data sharing and repositories in DataONE – Bruce E. Wilson

More information about the training event is available at: http://eubon.cybertaxonomy.africamuseum.be/page/eu-bon_training_events

The first Group on Earth Observations GEO Appathon 2014, an exciting new worldwide data science competition, is announced to be be launched on 7 May 2014. 

he GEO Appathon is a global applications (App) development competition that aims to develop new, exciting and - most importantly - useful Apps using Earth observation data from the open and expansive Earth Observation data sets in the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI). See www.geoportal.org

The Appathon kicks off on 7 May 2014 and runs until 31 August 2014. Participation is open to any non-commercial entity, individual or team from any background in any country. Apps can be created for any of the main operating systems, and can be designed for any type of portable device. All Apps will be judged and the top three winners will receive a cash prize and a year-long GEO network endorsement and publicity for the App. 

Visit our GEO Appathon website (www.geoappathon.org) for more rules, details of how to register and information about how you can help us unleash the power of Earth observation data.

For further questions, please do not hesitate to email Dan Williams at: dan@geoappathon.org

Digital applications in nature conservation have rapidly gained prominence and now span a range of areas, including:

• Digital public engagement, learning, citizen science, crowd-sourcing
• e-learning and e-gaming
• Novel monitoring tools
• Database connectivity and access
• Online decision-making support systems

Building on the optimistic view that digital technology has a huge potential to aid nature conservation, this  conference will also critically address the multidisciplinary dimensions of the impacts of digital applications on this societally important field.

Digital Conservation seeks to establish a new research agenda, by fostering the exchange of ideas, insights and experiences between scientists and practitioners in a field that will increasingly shape human interactions with nature.

Event Flyer

Agentschap Plententuin Meise (Botanic Garden Meise), Bouchout Castle – Meise (Brussels), Belgium

The pro-iBiosphere project supported by the European Commission (DG CONNECT) through its FP7 research funding programme has the pleasure to invite you to join its Final Event.

The project has the vision of implementing an Open Knowledge Biodiversity Management System (OBKMS), i.e. an integration platform that will allow to produce Biotas (i.e. Floras, Faunas, Mycotas and other revisionary taxonomic literature) of the future in a flexible semantically-driven online environment.

During its two year duration, pro-iBiosphere contributed to making fundamental biodiversity data digital, open and re-usable. The achievements of the project will be presented in a series of activities (Event Flyer) detailed below that will take place from Tuesday the 10^th to Thursday the 12^th of June 2014 at the Bouchout Castle (Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium).

Tuesday June 10 (PM)

Workshop on Model Evaluation

Wednesday June 11 (all day)

• Demonstrations on pro-iBiosphere pilots

• Demonstrations on outcomes of pro-iBiosphere Data Enrichment Hackathon

• Workshop on Biodiversity Catalogue

• Training on WikiMedia

• Poster session

Thursday June 12 (all day)

• Final Conference 

• Networking Cocktail

For more information on the Final Event (agenda, logistics,…), visit the dedicated wiki page.

Registration is free of charge but compulsory due to room capacity constraints. You can register by filling out the online registration form at http://tiny.cc/pib-final-event.

In case you are interested in giving a presentation during the Final Event activities or in submitting a poster in the poster session, please contact us at final-event@pro-ibiosphere.eu