BES Annual Meeting 2024

BES 2024

Liverpool, UK

In December 2024, ecologists worldwide will gather in Liverpool for Europe’s largest conference dedicated to ecology.

The British Ecological Society Annual Meeting attracts over 1200 delegates each year in its flagship event, and provides opportunities to meet new colleagues, develop careers, learn new skills, engaging and sharing research with the global ecological community.

This welcoming conference offers each year an exciting programme of plenary sessions with internationally renowned speakers. This year, the event will feature Rob Fish, Professor of Environmental Sustainability at the Imperial College of London, Ana Carnaval, Professor in the Department of Biology of the City College of New York, Lucy Waruingi, Executive Director of the African Conservation Centre, and Nathalie Seddon, Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford and Founding Director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative.

Besides these interesting plenary sessions, the attendees will have the chance to attend a number of thematic sessions, workshops, networking events and exhibitions.

The conference is especially relevant for LifeWatch ERIC due to the rich programme of its Thematic sessions, addressing the biodiversity crisis, nature restoration policies and practices, novels tools and technologies to tackle current challenges and much more.

LifeWatch ERIC will attend the event with a booth dedicated to research communities facilities, services and resources (including ENVRI-Hub NEXT), and a set of talks dedicated to biodiversity monitoring, conservation strategies, and more. We have summarised here the details of our interventions:

  • 11 December at 17:15, Room 3A | Michele Lussu (University of Bologna): “Conservation strategy: spatial prioritization approach using Orchids.” (S11).
  • 12 December at 15:15, Room 11B | Andreja Ramšak (National Institute of Biology): “Towards automated biodiversity monitoring -a set-up of Biodiversity Observatory Automation (Thematic Topic under LifeWatch ERIC).” (S34).
  • 12 December from 17:00 to 18:30, Hall 2A | Milad Shokri (University of Salento): “Metabolic responses to climate change in invertebrates.” (poster presentation).
  • 13 December at 14:00, Room 3B | Francesco De Leo (CNR): “Toward a global relationship between net primary production and biodiversity in marine ecosystems.” (S50).

The full programme is available online. For more information, please visit the official website: https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/events/bes-annual-meeting-2024

Photo credit: @BritishEcolSoc on X

Tropical Summit 2024

tropical summit 2024

Lisbon, Portugal

The Tropical Summit 2024 aims to bring people together to address the ongoing challenges and opportunities in the tropics: a multi-stakeholder forum committed to achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda. The lessons from the past, including unmet global agendas, highlight the importance of not treating the 2030 deadline as a distant future event but as an urgent reality that requires immediate attention.

The main objectives of the Tropical Summit are to promote the transfer of knowledge, stimulate multidisciplinary collaboration, involve stakeholders, and contribute to the co-creation of innovative projects.

The focus will be on South-South-North triangular cooperation and four thematic areas:

  1. Planetary Health: Nurturing life within the global boundaries
  2. Agricultural Development: Sustainability as a path to socioeconomic progress
  3. Territorial and Social Transitions: Building resilient spaces and societies in every dimension
  4. Human Growth: Empowerment and technology for the times ahead

LifeWatch ERIC will be present in the “Biodiversity and digitalisation” section of the Exhibition Hall. Two members of our Service Centre in Lecce will be there. Laura Caciagli and Ant Türkmen will provide presentations about our services and present the MarineSABRES project.

They will be also joined by members of PORBIOTA, representing LifeWatch Portugal.

To learn more on the Tropical Summit 2024, please visit the official website: https://www.tropicalsummit2024.com/

ZEEKERWETEN – Science Festival at the coast

15-16 June, Oostende, Belgium

The Zeekerweter is a science festival located on the Belgian coast. At the festival, attendees can experience rising sea levels through an immersive Virtual Reality experience. Additionally, participants can explore the rich biodiversity of the sea at the beach of Oosteroever in the “sea workshop”. The festival also offers sustainable seafood and comedy centred around the sea theme.

On June 15, LifeWatch Belgium will host two sessions. One will focus on Virtual Reality, climate, and plankton, while the second will take place at Oosteroever Beach, where participants can discover what lives in the sea and on the sand.

On June 16, the Ostend Marine Station will be a fusion of science, art, and creativity.

To learn more about this event, please visit this website: https://lifewatch.be/en/events/zeekerweten-science-festival-coast.

IX International Sandy Beaches Symposium

Lecce, Italy

The International Sandy Beaches Symposium invites sandy beach researchers, students, and managers to share their research, interact, and establish links. The IX ISBS is returning after a 6-year break to align research with emerging needs of multi-disciplinarity and representativeness. During the Symposium, two workshops will aim to harmonise research and address gaps in the context of sandy beaches. The workshop will have two topics: Research Integrity and Validating a standard vocabulary for beach ecosystem studies.

To learn more about the International Sandy Beaches Symposium, please visit the dedicated website: https://isbsymposium.org/ 

Research Integrity

Integrity is essential for research, impacting data reliability and societal scientific trust. With heightened attention to research integrity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s crucial to ground theories, principles, and guidelines into our research practice. During the workshop, guidelines from Hazel Newton, Dr Ed Gerstner, Dr Jo Appleford-Cook, Christina Emery, and Laura Graham-Clare at Springer Nature Ltd. will be used to delve deeper into this topic.

Validating a standard vocabulary for beach ecosystem studies

Data sharing is increasingly important, but creating machine-interoperable data is still challenging. Standard terminologies are crucial for achieving FAIR principles. This workshop will create a common vocabulary for data harmonisation in sandy beach ecosystem research. It will focus on understanding standard terminologies, presenting a vocabulary for beach-related research, and validating it for improved data consistency and sharing within the research community. 

Coastal Wetlands: Evidence for Climate and Nature Targets Workshop

Online, 23 May 2024

On 23 May 2024, at 10:00 CET, RESTORE4Cs will organise an online workshop to broaden the perspectives available for countries in finding solutions for achieving and reporting success in coastal conservation towards international and EU commitments.

European Union policies emphasise the importance of wetlands in achieving EU objectives related to climate neutrality, biodiversity protection, zero pollution, flood protection, and the circular economy. Therefore, it is crucial to prioritise assessing the current extent and condition of European wetlands, their greenhouse gas emissions, and their potential for mitigation through restoration or other measures. These priorities are essential to stopping biodiversity decline, restoring the environment, and achieving climate goals.

The workshop aims to identify countries’ needs, shared priorities, and activities for restoring wetland ecosystems. It also aims to establish indicators for assessing coastal wetland habitats and ensure the quality of evidence for policy development and investment in nature-based solutions.

For more information and to register, please visit this page: https://www.restore4cs.eu/coastal-wetlands-evidence-for-climate-and-nature-targets-workshop/

SC23 Conference

Denver and online, Colorado, 12-17 November 2023.

SC23 is the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis. The conference will occur in Denver, Colorado, from November 12-17. This conference is a platform for researchers, practitioners, and industry experts worldwide to share advances in HPC technologies and their applications.

The program for SC23 includes various technical presentations, papers, workshops, and more. This program focuses on sharing best practices in areas such as algorithms, applications, architectures, and networks. It also covers topics like clouds and distributed computing, data analytics, visualisation and storage, machine learning and HPC, performance, programming systems, system software, and the state of practice in large-scale deployment and integration.

For more information, please visit this page.

52nd Congress of the Italian Society of Marine Biology

52nd Congress of the Italian Society of Marine Biology.

Messina, Italy, 12–15 June 2023.

The 52nd Congress of the Italian Society of Marine Biology, organised by the University of Messina, will be taking place from 12-15 June at the Science Department of the University of Messina, in Italy.

The congress of SIBM (Società Italiana di Biologia Marina) will see the participation of LifeWatch ERIC with LifeWatch ERIC’s marine biologist Alessia Scuderi, who will present the Alborán project. During the session dedicated to the vulnerability of the species, habitat and resources of the coastal marine environment, Scuderi will present ‘Cetaceans and marine traffic in the Strait of Gibraltar: difficult but possible coexistence’ and part of her presentation will be dedicated to LifeWatch ERIC’s project Alborán.

MARBEFES & BioOcean5D BioBlitz

Marbefes Bioblitz

Sopot, Poland, 16–17 June 2023.

The aim of the MARBEFES & BioOcean5D BioBlitz is to gather as many biologists as possible for the identification of as many species as possibles and in in 24 hours in the seaside city park and coastal waters. From microbes and rotifers to fish and bats. Friday 16th is devoted to collections and observations, while Saturday 17th is the public event in the form of a scientific picnic.

Updates will be made on the MARBEFES project website.

ICYMARE Conference 2023

ICYMARE

Oldenburg, Germany, 18–22 September 2023.

The International Conference for YOUNG Marine Researchers ICYMARE is calling for Sessions!

After a successful in-person conference in Bremerhaven we are hoping to continue meeting you all in presence next year! ICYMARE 2023 will be taking place from the 18– 22 September at the Carl-von-Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany. We invite you to apply as an advanced (Master or PhD) student with your field of marine research and expertise aiming to offer and share it as an ICYMARE topical session.

To ensure every host is aware of all relevant information and is empowered to accomplish all tasks prior, during and after the conference, ICYMARE offers a mandatory workshop for all session hosts. During this workshop you will be introduced to or updated on all relevant tasks, such as abstract handling and session moderation, for ICYMARE 2023 OLDENBURG. Please indicate your availability to one of the three date and time suggestions you will find in the session host form!

We are convinced this workshop will be a beneficial training for all of us to allow for a professional conference organised by and for early career researchers from all over the world! Of course, we will provide a certificate of workshop attendance for all session host! As an additional benefit, session hosts and one invited speaker for your session will be free of conference fees!

Does that sound like an exciting opportunity for you? Perfect! Please apply to moc.eramyci@tcartsba with your own session (alone or as a team of two) until 28 February 2023 by submitting the three following documents:

  1. The filled-in and digitally signed session host form, including a “Call for Abstracts” on your session topic to invite presenters from all over the world (max. 100 words – excl. session title)
  2. A motivation letter of max 1 page showing your experience on the proposed topic and why you want to become a session host
  3. Your most recent CV

SORTEE Conference 2023

SORTEE Conference 2023

Online, 17–18 October 2023.

SORTEE (Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) conferences are informative, fun and low-cost.

There will be multiple participatory events organised by SORTEE members (you can submit a proposal a few months before the conference – watch out for content submission announcements).

SORTEE wants to facilitate lively exchanges of ideas, and so the following three participatory event types are the heart of the conference:

  • Unconferences: Facilitated discussions of ideas for how to make ecology, evolutionary biology, and related disciplines more open, reliable, and transparent. Facilitation involves moderating the conversation with ideas and examples, but there are no formal presentations.
  • Hackathons: Group projects with well-defined goals (papers, techniques, software, protocols, organisations, etc.).
  • Workshops: Facilitators will teach tools for implementing open, reliable, and transparent practices.

SORTEE strongly encourages proposals for all contribution types from people at a wide range of career stages and from members of underrepresented groups.

For facilitated sessions (Workshops, Unconferences, and Hackathons), SORTEE welcomes proposals from small teams (as well as individuals). SORTEE encourages teams to include diverse perspectives, for instance with facilitators from different countries and balanced in terms of gender and career stage. Facilitation by early career researchers (students or early career postdocs) is warmly encouraged.

SORTEE encourages people with any questions about accessibility in the submission process or the events themselves to contact conf.sortee[@]gmail.com.

More information on the SORTEE website.