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6th GBIF European Nodes Meeting

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is holding its 6th GBIF Eropean Nodes Meeting,  organized by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform. The event will take place in Brussels, 8-10 April 2014.

GBIF is an international open data infrastructure, funded by governments.It allows anyone, anywhere to access data about all types of life on Earth, shared across national boundaries via the Internet.

By encouraging and helping institutions to publish data according to common standards, GBIF enables research not possible before, and informs better decisions to conserve and sustainably use the biological resources of the planet.

More information is available on the event website.





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pro-iBiosphere Final Event in Meise (Brussels) - June 10-12, 2014

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 10th to Thursday the 12th of June 2014 at the Bouchout Castle (Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium).

 

Tuesday June 10 (PM)

Workshop on Model Evaluation

Wednesday June 11 (all day)

  • Poster session

Thursday June 12 (all day)

  • 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

 





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Open Science Conference - Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER)

The Integrated Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) Project will convene an Open Science Conference from 23-27 June 2014 in Bergen, Norway, with the goals of:

  • highlighting research results from the IMBER project and activities,
  • promoting integrated syntheses of IMBER-relevant research, and
  • developing a new global research agenda for marine biogeochemistry and ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

The list of contributed sessions and workshops is available here.

The Call for Abstracts is open!  Deadline for abstract submission: 31 January 2014. Contributions are welcome from all marine research communities.





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Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST) Course: Philosophy of Biological Systematics

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

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

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

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

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

 





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21st GBIF Governing Board meeting (GB21)

The 21st GBIF Governing Board meeting (GB21) and related events will take place in New Delhi, India, in the week of 15-19 September 2014. More information and a link to the registration website will be available closer to the meeting dates.

 





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DINA Technical Workshop - Alpha version of mobilization system

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

Preliminary agenda:

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

Workshop Program.

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

Welcome to register for the workshop here:

DINA - Technical Workshop 16-18 September, Stockholm

The workshop is an activity within WP 1 Task 1.4





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Biodiversity today for tomorrow

The International BION conference 2014 "Biodiversity today for tomorrow" will take placefrom September 17th to 19th in Bonn, Germany.

It will be organized by the BION office and its network partners and the following subthemes have already been proposed:

1: Basic research in biodiversity
2: Monitoring, assessment, prediction – biodiversity in space and time
3: Biodiversity and Human Development
4: Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture / Bioeconomy
5: Ethical aspects of biodiversity
6: Societal (social, cultural, political) impact
7: Capacity Building
8: Interdisciplinary approaches

More information is available on the BION website: http://www.bion-bonn.org/de/de/bion-kongress-2014

Please, see conference programme for details and use the possibility for online registration.

 





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International Seminar on Participatory Monitoring for the Management of Biodiversity and Natural Resources

 Recognizing the important role of innovation and benchmark the various initiatives of participatory monitoring in the world, the Ministry of Environment of Brazil, ARPA, the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, Mangrove Project in Brazil, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Society, Ecological Research Institute and Nordisk Fond og Miljø is Udvikling, with the support of the Convention on Biological Diversity are organizing the International Seminar on Participatory Monitoring for the Management of Biodiversity and Natural Resources to take place in Manaus, Brazil between 22 and 26 September 2014.
 
Worldwide there is a growing demand for information on the state of conservation of biodiversity as a key tool to support the management of natural resources and depending on the investment strategies of many countries in the protection of nature and sustainable resource use tool. Several initiatives for monitoring biodiversity and natural resources have emerged around the world in an attempt to meet this need. Many of these initiatives rely on the involvement of persons residing, use natural resources or participate in the management of the areas where they develop the monitoring, often from traditional populations.

The community involvement of these populations may happen for several reasons and through different mechanisms, increasing both related to biodiversity conservation as the empowerment of local communities results. Although varied, the role of populations has intensified and generating a wide range of initiatives generically called participatory monitoring. By understanding the enormous potential contribution to biodiversity conservation and local development, research organizations, non-governmental conservation organizations and governments huddled and development to enhance and disseminate participatory monitoring initiatives worldwide.
 
Find out more about participation and the agenda of the seminar in the attached document.




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Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12)

The Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12) will take place from 6 to 17 October 2014 in the Alpensia Convention Center, Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea.
 
The theme of the conference will be "Biodiversity for Sustainable Development":
- To raise international awareness about the essential role of biodiversity and its contribution to sustainable development.
- To put strong emphasis on biodiversity at the discussions of Post-2015 Development Agenda and setting of Sustainable
   Development Goals (SDGs).
 
Mor einformation is available on the conference website: http://www.cbdcop12.kr/eng/sub/conference/conference01_2.php




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Biodiversity and Food Security – From Trade-offs to Synergies

3rd International Conference on Biodiversity and the UN Millennium Development Goals - October 29-31, 2014, Aix-en-Provence, France
 
This international conference is the third in a series, organized by the French CNRSInstitut Ecologie et Environnement (InEE) and the German Leibniz Association (WGL).

The goal is to identify science-based solutions for global sustainability focusing on the issues of biodiversity and food security. Current ecological, economic and societal challenges for development require a holistic understanding of food security and environmental management: from this perspective, biodiversity can be seen as key to overcome trade-offs and to develop synergies between the food system and the conservation of landscapes, ecosystems, and species. The conference seeks to attract scientists from basic and applied research. It involves policy makers and other stakeholders concerned with biodiversity and food security themes who are interested in developing new solutions and strategies. It will connect researchers and stakeholders from natural sciences, social sciences, economics, humanities, technology and related fields.

http://biodiv2014.sciencesconf.org/

 





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SciDataCon 2014: International conference on data sharing and integration for global sustainability

The SciDataCon 2014 will take place on 2–5 November 2014 in New Delhi, India and will be hosted by the Indian National Science Academy. With high-level keynotes, a mix of plenary and parallel sessions, and a stimulating poster session, SciDataCon is conceived as a focussed—yet inclusive—conference to address the issues most important to the global scientific and research community as they pertain to data and information. The International Scientific Programme Committee will play a key role in implementing the scientific programme with innovative online consultation and input from research and data science communities worldwide.

The sustainability challenges facing society today cannot be solved without multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on global sustainability that requires the use, sharing and integration of data across scientific disciplines and domains and from international sources. The effectiveness and credibility of this research will rely on the availability to the scientific and research community of quality-assessed and interoperable datasets.

To facilitate the work of international research undertakings—including the Future Earth international research programme on global sustainability launched by ICSU and its partners in 2014—and amplify the message of like-minded global data initiatives promoting data sharing and interoperability—including the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the recently established Research Data Alliance (RDA)—SciDataCon 2014 will highlight the theme of Data Sharing and Integration for Global Sustainability.

Applications for expert members of the International Scientific Programme Committee are invited. Please submit applications no later than 14 February 2014 using the online form available here.

 





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BioVeL: In Practice and in Future

BioVel is organizing a one-day workshop "BioVeL: In Practice and in Future". The event will take place on 13 Nov 2014 in Institut Océanographique, Paris, France. It aims at sharing BioVel experience obtained during the project's efforts to build a virtual laboratory for biodiversity research. Plans for the future of BioVel will be also presented.
 
The event will be structured around the 3 key goals that encapsulate the BIH2013 initiative.
 
1) Integration: Making better use of existing data and tools.
2) Cooperation: Working together towards a global biosphere model.
3) Promotion: Informatics leadership to serve the needs of science and policy.
 
Your registration by September 15 is your RSVP. To register, click here.
Hotel information, close to meeting venue, here.

 

 





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International Biogeography Society: 7th Biennial Conference

The University of Bayreuth welcomes the International Biogeography Society for its 7th international conference, taking place on 8-12 January 2015. This modern research university has a major focus on ecological research housed in the Bayreuth Center for Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER). Novel concepts for research and teaching are established such as the Ecological-Botanical Gardens and the Global Change Ecology study program.

The surroundings of Bayreuth are characterized by outstanding geological and climatic heterogeneity. Isolated fragments of natural ecosystems occur within a highly diverse cultural landscape. It was in the district of Bayreuth where Alexander von Humboldt, a leader in the early history of biogeography, gained his first experience in fieldwork after he finished his studies. At the end of the 18th century, before travelling the world, he worked as director of mining for the regional administration. Various places close to Bayreuth are linked to his scientific development.

The conference will be marked by four plenary symposia, keynote lectures by the awardees of the society’s Alfred Russel Wallace Award and the MacArthur and Wilson Award, contributed paper sessions, and dynamic poster sessions over the lunch and evening. Topical focus sessions will span the breadth of biogeography, from watersheds to the global scale, from Paleozoic to the Anthropocene, and from microbes to megafauna.   

Essential details about the conference, and about the surrounding area, are available via the links above. Information will be updated as details become available in the coming months, so please check back occasionally or stay informed via Facebook and Twitter.

Symposium: PS-2 Tracking Changes from Space: Advances of Remote Sensing in Biogeography

A key problem that biogeographers and ecologists have strived to understand is the spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of the biota. In this age of climatic and land use changes and rapid rates of species extinctions, such knowledge has become an essential component for management and conservation. The synoptic view provided by earth-imaging sensors constitutes an important source of information on the distribution of habitats and biodiversity patterns at different spatial and temporal scales. The traditional approach to using these data has involved the classification of discrete land cover types which are then related to species distributions. A critical limitation of this approach is that many important dynamics are obscured as the variance is lost within arbitrary land cover classes. In recent years, novel analytical techniques and open source software have been developed that more fully exploit the spatial, spectral and temporal information content of remotely sensed imagery in order to quantify a broader range of ecosystem characteristics. This symposium features advances in the synoptic assessment of species distributions and biodiversity patterns including the development of methodologies for assessment, monitoring, and modeling, as well as their implications for management and conservation.

More about the program and speakers available on the conference webpage: http://www.bayceer.uni-bayreuth.de/ibs2015/





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Horizon 2020 ICT-16 Big Data networking day

The aim of the event is to inform and guide prospective applicants preparing project proposals, to facilitate sharing of ideas and experiences. It will give participants the chance to network and to find partners for their projects.

ICT-16 is part of Horizon 2020's ICT work programme 2014-2015

The activities supported under this topic contribute to the Big Data challenge by addressing the fundamental research problems related to the scalability and responsiveness of analytics capabilities (such as privacy-aware machine learning, language understanding, data mining and visualization). Special focus is on industry-validated, user-defined challenges like predictions, and rigorous processes for monitoring and measurement.

The current outline of the draft agenda can be found HERE

Registration

The registration to the event is now open and is on the first-come-first-serve basis. Click HERE to register. The closing date is 8 January 2015.

After the registration you will have the possibility to upload a presentation for the ICT-16 networking and partner finding session which will take place in the afternoon (max 3 slides for 3 minutes presentation).

In parallel to the ICT-16 networking session a workshop on multilingual data value chains will be organised. Therefore, you should pay attention to which part of the event you enrol.

Please note that bilateral meetings with EC Project Officers to discuss proposal ideas (proposal clinics) will *not* be possible, in compliance with H2020 regulations.

More information available here.





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Africa Rising: Mobilising Biodiversity Data for Sustainable Development conference

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

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

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

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

 





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Empowering Biodiversity Research conference

There is a world of tools, standards and data out there, ready for you to use. Biodiversity Informatics deals with the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity information for improved management, presentation, discovery, exploration and analysis of scientific data. Combined with open data sources on the Internet, this is a powerful new approach in doing research. During this conference, organised by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform and several key institutes, we would like to take you on a trip to the world of biodiversity informatics & open data. After this conference a series of related workshops will be organized.





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Globis-B kick-off meeting

The Globis-B kick-off meeting will take place in Amsterdam from on 8-10 June (Monday till Wednesday). The kick-off meetingwill  bring the consortium together to talk through the different parts of the project. A mini-symposium is also planned for Wednesday morning with three talks from international speakers about research topics that are relevant for the project.

Globis-B  stands for GLOBal Infrastructures for Supporting Biodiversity research and is a H2020 project within the coordination & support action funding scheme of the H2020-INFRASUPP-2014-2 call. The main aim of the project is to bring together scientists with global research infrastructure operators and legal interoperability experts to address the research needs and infrastructure services required to calculate Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV). Currently we are finalizing the grant agreement with the EU and the project will probably starting on 1st June 2015. 





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ICCB : 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology 4th European Congress for Conservation Biology

The ICCB : 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology 4th European Congress for Conservation Biology will take place from 2 to 6 August, 2015 in Montpellier - France.
 
SCB’s International and European Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB & ECCB) are the most important international meeting for conservation professionals and students.  They are a forum for addressing conservation challenges and for presenting new research and developments in conservation science and practice. Most importantly, ICCBs and ECCBs connect our global community of conservation professionals and are the major networking outlet for anyone interested in conservation.
 
The meeting theme is 'Mission biodiversity: choosing new paths for conservation', and as such we intend that ICCB-ECCB 2015 is a transdisciplinary meeting and delegates attend from a range of professions and sectors. Conservation biology has always had socioeconomic relevance but it is clear that biologists need to undertake interdisciplinary collaborations from the first inception of projects, through to implementation and dissemination of outputs. The programme will emphasise science-policy and science-society dialogues using interactive sessions and symposia.
 
GEO BON plans a 3-hour symposium "Essential Biodiversity Variables for conservation needs" at the ICCB-ECCB conference in Montpellier. This symposium will be about EBV developments, EBV's for CBD and national needs and EBV dataflows.
 
Contact Person: Jörg Freyhof (Executive Director of GEO BON; joerg.freyhof@idiv.de
 
The call for Symposia, Thematic Poster Exhibitions, Workshops, Round Table Discussions and Training Course Proposals is now open! The deadline is 31st October 2014 and notification of the results will be given prior to December 1st 2014.
 
For more information, please visit the event's dedicated website at: http://www.iccb-eccb2015.org/frontpage

 

 





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GBIF GB22, Nodes Training Sessions & Global Nodes Meeting, Madagascar

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

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





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Global Bioeconomy Summit 2015

The Global Bioeconomy Summit 2015 will take place on 25 & 26 November at the Berlin Congress Center (BCC), Berlin, Germany.

Food security, sustainable development, economic growth and the conservation of scarce natural resources – the promises of bioeconomy are manifold. The Global Bioeconomy Summit is the first community building platform to discuss bioeconomy policies globally. This summit builds on the post 2015 development goals to start a multilateral agenda setting process for a sustainable bioeconomy. For this purpose the German Bioeconomy Council invites more than 500 leaders from policy, research, industry and civil society to Berlin.

For more information about the congress and registrtion, please visit: http://www.gbs2015.com/home/





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3rd EU BON Stakeholder Round Table "Biodiversity data workflow - from data mobilisation to practice"

The 3rd EU BON Stakeholder Round Table "Biodiversity data workflow - from data mobilisation to practice" will take place on 10&11 December 2015 Granada, Spain.

One main objective of the round table is to understand how the workflow from data mobilisation to decision making functions in practice, including within the context of EU BON.

Firstly, we want to evaluate what kind of (biodiversity) data are available and what workflows and best practices already exist. Secondly, we want to assess which gaps still exist and what will be needed to improve the current situation to overcome existing barriers.

Please register here: http://societas.biodiv.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/?q=node/64

 





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IUBS 2015 Frontiers in Unified Biology

The 32rd International Union of Biological Sciences General Assembly and Conference will take place from 14 to16 December 2015 in Berlin, Germany.
 
Symposia:
  • Biological Consequences of Global Change: current challenges
  • Building an Informatics Agenda that will deliver a Unified Biology
  • Integrated Biology Education for Future Earth
  • Integrative Climate Change Biology - Biodiversity, functional traits, and lessons from the past
  • BioNomenclature: Making nomenclatural codes, concepts and tools fit for modern research
  • Biology and the Societal Interfaces
  • From Urban Biology to sustainable BiodiverCities

More information available on teh official conference website.





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GLOBIS-B workshop 1

Workshop 1 and 2 have the aim to identify the options and problems associated with the general challenges of provisioning the research infrastructures to deliver capabilities for supporting the generation and calculation of EBVs. The two workshops (Figure 1) will focus on the EBV class ‘Species populations’ (EBVs ‘Species distribution’ and ‘Population abundance’) for which the data, models and understanding are presently much better developed than for other EBV classes.

Workshop 1 will have integrated as well as parallel sessions with ecologists and biodiversity scientists (with special expertise in species distributions and abundance and its monitoring), biodiversity informaticians and infrastructure operators, and legal interoperability experts.

http://www.globis-b.eu/33/workshop_1.html





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Global Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring: Science, Data and Infrastructure Needs for IPBES and Beyond

 

"Global Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring: Science, Data and Infrastructure Needs for IPBES and Beyond" is a joint symposium of the Future Earth Clusters ‘Global Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring, Prediction and Reporting’ and "Support for IPBES", which will take place from 6 to 10 March 2016 in Monte Verita, Ascona, Switzerland. 

The symposium follows up on the initial meeting on "Global Biodiversity Monitoring" at Yale University in May 2015. The 2016 event will in particular bring biodiversity and global change scientists from Europe, Africa, and Asia to this discussion and add as additional focus the scientific needs for IPBES, in particular on indicators and scenarios. Key goals of the conference are to link the main research groups active in this area, improve data sharing, develop collaborative analyses, realize potential synergies and advance international cooperation. Work efforts to date have been organized into several working groups and the meeting will provide opportunity for these groups to advance or complete their work and for new initiatives to form. Future Earth is entering the next formative stage and the symposium is a forum to advance the role of biodiversity within Future Earth as well as develop or engage in new research and funding opportunities under its umbrella.

Please see here for the draft program and logistical information, and http://biodiversitymonitoring.org for more background about the Future Earth Biodiversity Monitoring cluster.

Further information on the event is available in the official announcement here.

 





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EU BON biodiversity data sharing and data publishing workshop

EU BON is organising a "Biodiversity data sharing and data publishing workshop" to take place in Sofia, Bulgaria on 22-23 March 2016. The event is directed to biologists and other life scientists from Eastern Europe who are actively involved in monitoring  and managing biodiversity data. A core topic of this training will be the  publishing of biodiversity data, in particular species occurrences, sample-based and citizen science data. The training will include a practical session during which participants will be assisted by experienced trainers from the EU BON project.

Addressing global problems, such as biodiversity loss and impacts of climate change requires open access to data. This was concluded by world leaders at Johannesburg Summit in 2002 when they established the Group for Earth Observations (GEO).  EU BON (Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network) seeks to enhance biodiversity data availability and integration, and is the European contribution to the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network.

All biodiversity databases need to be integrated in GEO. Therefore, EU BON undertakes capacity building of biodiversity communities (e.g. researchers, citizen scientists, non-governmental organisations) that are involved in collecting and disseminating biodiversity information, including monitoring initiatives.

The sessions on data sharing will cover introductory overview of key concepts,  demonstration and  practical  exercise using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit  (IPT). The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is the world's largest initiative for enabling free access to biodiversity data via internet.

Special attention will be paid to data paper publishing led by specialists from Pensoft Publishers - a company well known among biodiversity scientists worldwide for technologically cutting-edge open access journals, such as: Research Ideas and Outcomes, ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, Nature Conservation, and a strong advocate of data publishing. Registration of data in GEO registry system will be also addressed during the workshop.

The following topics will be covered (detailed program will follow):

  • The data publishing landscape, gaps and mobilization efforts
  • Demonstration and practical session on data publishing using the GBIF IPT: step-by-step demo will show in detail (and in practice) how to publish a dataset using IPT.
  • Data papers: types, structure, opportunities
  • Citizen Science gateway and demo of PlutoF Citizen Science module
  • GoldenGate Imagine tool and copyright issues
  • Registration of data in the GEO Registry System

To register and for more information, click here.





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Biodiversity Without Boundaries 2016

Biodiversity without Boundaries (BWB) 2016 takes place on 18-22 April in the biodiversity-rich, abundant, and beautiful Puerto Rico.

In collaboration with our Puerto Rico Network Partners - the Puerto Rico Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DRNA) and the leading environmental and educational nonprofit Para la Naturaleza - the NatureServe Network’s annual conference will convene hundreds of the world’s leading conservationists for a week of plenaries, symposiums, workshops, panels, presentations, and field sessions.

To register and for more information, please visit the official event's page.





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EUBON Workshop Milestone 144: Alpha version of data mobilization systems online

Workshop on beta versions of data mobilization systems at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm.

Registration link: http://goo.gl/forms/pCvjglXpcN

 

 

 





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Space - the final frontier for biodiversity monitoring

The ZSL Institute of Zoology is organizing a one day symposim "Space - the final frontier for biodiversity monitoring?" to take place on 29 April 2016. The event will bring together leading experts in biodiversity monitoring and satellite remote sensing to discuss ways to better capitalise on this technology to monitor biological diversity globally.

For more information on participation and logistics, please visit the official event 's page.





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2nd EARSeL SIG LU/LC and NASA LCLUC joint Workshop: Advancing horizons for land cover services entering the big data era

Following the successful 1st joint Workshop with more than 150 participants from 4 continents in Berlin, 2014, the EARSeL Special Interest Group on Land Use and Land Cover (SIG LU/LC) and NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program organize their 2nd joint workshop.
 
The Workshop will be conceptually linked with and support the objectives of the following ESA Living Planet Symposium 2016 on 9–13 May 2016, as a brainstorming preparation.
 
Hosting distinguished keynote speakers and poster presentations, the Workshop will discuss the latest advancements and upcoming challenges in Land Cover and Land Use Monitoring for the Environment, Food security, Energy, Health and Security. More information in the conference brochure.
 




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2nd International GGBN Conference on Biodiversity Biobanking

The Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin are glad to welcome you to the 2016 GGBN conference, held from June 21 through June 24, 2016, in Berlin, Germany.

The Global Genome Biodiversity Network is a collaborative effort to cryo-preserve and provide access to genomic samples from across the Tree of Life.
Sessions and Workshops are planned on

  • Concerted collecting and sampling strategies to preserve the Tree of Life
  • Sampling the lost world in Natural History collections
  • Nagoya Protocol: consequences and solutions
  • Knowledge exchange: natural history meets applied biobanking
  • Implementing GGBN standards and best practice

More information here.

 





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Biodiversity research for and by citizens in Eastern Europe: tools, information services and public engagement

Citizens in democratic society are no longer just passive bystanders when science is in focus. They show interest in results, ask for consultation and contribute with data. For many fields of research citizen science data are valuable additional information.
 
The FP7 project Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network - EU BON (http://eubon.eu/) now organizes a dedicated Citizen Science Workshop to explore the opportunities and tools for citizens in Eastern Europe to engage in biodiversity research. The workshop will take place on 27-28 June 2016 at the University of Tartu Natural History Museum, Estonia.
 
Engaging citizens is a challenge both for society and for researchers. There are new tools and methods which allow to manage citizen science projects, collect data and provide feedback to citizen scientists. The workshop will present EU BON results of citizen science mobilizing efforts for biodiversity research, provide training for citizen science tools and showcase some examples of Estonian projects and European initiatives. Workshop will also make an effort to prioritize recommendations and next steps for citizen science integration into biodiversity research.
 
To view the programme, learn more and subscribe, please visit the event's webpage here: http://eubon.cybertaxonomy.africamuseum.be/CS%20workshop




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ScenNet Biodiversity and Ecosystem Scenarios Network Scenarios and Models of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Support of Decision-Making

The conference covers scenarios and modelling applications in marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems, across all relevant disciplines of natural and social sciences. It is open to scientists and experts working in the field, policy makers and practioners. The conference focuses on: (i) Exploring recent advances in modelling human impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, (ii) Addressing the use of scenarios and models for decision support, (iii) Mobilising observations of biodiversity and ecosystem services for model development and testing, (iv) Capacity building for developing scenarios and models and for their use in decision making, (v) Horizon scanning and addressing gaps in knowledge.

More information available on the conference website.

 





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EcoSummit 2016 Ecological Sustainability: Engineering Change

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

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

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

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





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14th FishBase Annual Symposium, "FishBase and SeaLifeBase: a diversity of uses for biodiversity studies"

Theme:  FishBase and SeaLifeBase: a diversity of uses for biodiversity studies  

Date:      September 9, 2016

Venue:   Amphitheatre Rouelle, Museum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN), Paris

See tentative program/agenda below..

Open to all interested. If you wish to attend this event, contact:

Patrice Pruvost
Chargé de conservation d'ichtyologie
UMR Borea-7208
Département milieux et peuplements aquatiques
Museum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN)
CP26 - 43 rue cuvier
tel : 33 1 40 79 37 60
fax : 33 1 40 79 37 71
75005 Paris
E-mail: pruvost@mnhn.fr





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DEST Course: Philosophy of Biological Systematics

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

Target Audience

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

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

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





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Basics of Taxonomy: describing, illustrating and communicating biodiversity, a DEST course

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

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

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

 

 






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4th EU BON Roundtable: Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure

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

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

 





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13th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity

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

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





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Sharing Biodiversity data for re-use: Informatic tools and processes in Ecology

By lending access via the Internet to biodiversity data in open data infrastructures, biodiversity informatics worldwide allows anyone, anywhere to access and analyze data about all types of life on Earth. In applying common standards, research not previously possible is enabled, and better decisions to conserve and sustainably use the biological resources of the planet made possible.

In this symposium an overview of present and future opportunities will be given alongside recent research presentations and demonstrations of up-to-date tools for providing and acquiring information, handling data and presenting results.

The symposium is arranged as an Oikos Satellite Symposium but is open to anyone, i.e. also those not attending the Oikos conference can register for the symposium.

This symposium is organised by Swedish LifeWatch, GBIF Sweden and Department of Ecology at SLU and it will take place on February 6 2017, in Ecology Building, Sölvegatan 37, Lund, Sweden.

For more information, please visit the official event's page: http://www.slu.se/biodiversity-informatics





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BIOTALENT EU Conference: Tackling biodiversity challenges through innovative e-learning

BIOTALENT is a multilingual blended e-learning training programme to gain crucial skills and knowledge in biodiversity. Protecting life on earth in all its forms also involves introducing innovative ways to address pressing environmental issues of today. A strong investment in environmental education and a passion for science is therefore essential to this programme.

This one-day event, Taking place on 18 May 2017, in Brussels, will illustrate the uniqueness of the BIOTALENT project and programme in the way environmental education is brought to the course participant. The various expert speakers that are invited are all very passionate about innovation in education and the new ways in which scientific and environmental education can contribute to conserving biodiversity.  

To register and find out more visit the official announcement.





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BioSyst.EU's Third Meeting

The third meeting of the BioSyst.EU will be organized by the Swedish Systematics Association, Sweden and will take place in Gothenburg in August 14–18, 2017. More information on the meeting will be published in February-March 2016.

For more infromation visist: http://www.biosyst.eu/







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Michael Bennett recalled how Bill Belichick treated Tom Brady as harshly as other Patriots

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

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







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“Phantom of the Opera,” Broadway’s longest running musical, marks 29th birthday

Today is the 29th anniversary of the first performance of “The Phantom of the Opera,” which is currently the longest-running musical on Broadway. Andrew Lloyd ... Read more

The post “Phantom of the Opera,” Broadway’s longest running musical, marks 29th birthday appeared first on CMUSE.




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Essential biodiversity variables