7th European Congress of Conservation Biology

Bologna, Italy.

The European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB), organised by the Europe Section of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), aims to facilitate the exchange of conservation science and nature conservation practice and policy to promote the conservation of biological diversity in Europe.

The 7th ECCB will focus on achieving a biodiversity-positive status by 2030. This theme presents a positive message and a call to action towards conserving biodiversity. Despite the challenges, new protected areas were established, carbon emissions were reduced, and there is a growing awareness of biodiversity’s importance for survival.

This congress provides a platform for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and collaborate toward achieving a sustainable future. By working together and taking action, we can make significant progress in conserving Earth’s biodiversity and achieving a positive biodiversity world by 2030.

To learn more, please visit the official website: https://eccb2024.eu/

Come and visit us!

If you want to discover or learn more about LifeWatch ERIC’s services to biodiversity researchers, you can find us at the 7th European Congress of Conservation Biology with our booth with gadgets and information material.

Can you spare a minute for us?
If you would like to help us improve our services, please complete our survey on research needs in conservation biology: https://forms.lifewatch.eu/virtualoffice433/form/Surveyonconversationbiologyresearchneeds/formperma/sMXw6ARj7G9LfvSyT2jxuGy0S45fTWkYgQmLb6dbU84

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. 

Species assemblages across space and time

Bologna, Italy, 4-5 April 2024

Last update: 25/03/2024

Organisms and biological communities vary along geographic space both in relation to the gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area. In addition, the species composition of the local or regional assemblages varies across space and time depending on evolutionary and ecological pressures. This makes biodiversity not evenly distributed in space, with some regions hosting significantly more species than others. Climatic and land use changes affect species’ biogeographical distribution and abundance. Often, these changes determine the reduction of the number of individuals and range size of species, but opposite patterns are typically observed for alien invasive species. The changes in abundance and distribution of species determine a continuous transformation of species assemblages. This is very interesting for establishing basic studies of general conservation strategies and species conservation planning actions.

In this workshop, we intend to explore the role of LifeWatch ERIC in developing a suite of tools and services on data curation, data analysis and modelling to better understand biogeographical gradients in space and time and to model future changes in response to climate change or conservation strategies.

To register, please fill in this form.

Agenda (updating)

4th April (14.30-19.00)

  • Opening by prof. Alessandro Chiarucci (University of Bologna);
  • Introduction to LifeWatch Thematic Service Workshop by prof. Alberto Basset (Università del Salento);
  • Presentations: Present and future challenges in Biogeography:
  • Prof. Ole Reidar Vetaas (University of Bergen): Conservation biogeography; migration, isolation, and barriers in changing climate;
  • Prof. Borja Jimenez-Alfaro (University of Oviedo): Diversity and distribution of alpine ecosystems;
  • Linking Earth Observation with Emerging Risks of Wildfires in European Temperate Forests by Prof. Carl Beierkuhnlein (University of Bayreuth)
  • Open discussion

5th April (9.00-12.00)

  • Discussion on research-related development policies and strategies;
  • Establishment and development of working groups on biodiversity;
  • The role of the scientific community in LifeWatch ERIC;

Ecological responses to climate change: implications on human well-being

Lecce, Italy, 21-22 February 2024

Ecosystems and biodiversity are currently under threat owing to many different manageable and unmanageable anthropic pressures. Among these, climate changes are unmanageable pressures, which can have direct impact on ecosystems and biodiversity, pushing populations to abandon traditional distribution areas and move to new territories, favouring the spread of allochthonous species, reducing the survival of endemic and/or specialised organisms, leading to impoverished ecosystems more prone to collapse. Ecological responses to climate change include also increasing individual level respiration rates, altering species interaction networks and ecosystem process rates, leading to lower net primary productivity and standing biomass. Climate change can have indirect amplifying effects on other anthropogenic threats, such as pollution, land degradation and fragmentation, and the diffusion of invasive species; ecological responses to climate change can also have indirect effects on human well-being.

In this workshop we intend to explore the role of LifeWatch ERIC in developing a suite tool and services on data curation, data analysis and modelling,  to better understand ecological responses to climate change, describe scenarios of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning change under climate change, considering in particular how such changes affect ecosystem integrity and to what extent they could harm and decrease the benefits that healthy ecosystems provide to human beings.

Since ecosystems include biotic and abiotic components that form a complex network of interactions, particular attention will be given to biological and mathematical models that consider:

  1. The interplay of biological and physical-chemical-geological aspects, including the interaction of biodiversity and geodiversity, the role of organisms as ecosystem engineers, and the effects of climate change on biogeochemical cycles, with special attention to the water and carbon cycles; and,
  2. The mechanisms underlying the upscaling of individual level responses to climate change and global warming to the ecosystem and global level responses of ecosystem functioning and services, including net primary productivity and  standing biomass.

To register, please fill in this form.

Agenda

BES Annual Meeting 2023

Belfast, Northern Ireland, 12-15 December 2023.

The British Ecological Society is the oldest ecological society in the world. Its Annual Meeting is Europe’s biggest conference solely dedicated to ecology. In 2022, more than 1,500 delegates from over 50 countries across six continents attended the meeting in person or online.

LifeWatch ERIC will present nine posters at the conference in collaboration with the Italian National Research Council, the University of Salento, and LifeWatch Italy. Additionally, we will exhibit our e-services at a stand.

Learn more about this event by visiting the BES website.

LifeWatch ERIC BEeS Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience Conference

Bees Conference

Seville, Spain, 22–24 May 2023.

This Biodiversity Day, don’t miss out on the LifeWatch ERIC BEes Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience Conference “Threats and challenges to biodiversity and ecosystem conservation from an eScience perspective”.

Submit your abstracts until 30 April on the following topics: major threats to the Earth’s biodiversity and ecosystem health, Macroecological and biogeographical approaches to biodiversity conservation, Ecosystem and habitat mapping, Animal biology and behavioral traits, “System of systems” biodiversity observation, Biodiversity and ecosystem responses to climate change, and finally, Natural capital and the “One Health” approach. There will also be a round table on the theme of World Biodiversity Day, moderated by LifeWatch ERIC and keynote speakers.

Visit the conference minisite to sign up and/or submit your abstract.

Mareamico’s 31st Conference of the Sea

Mareamico 2022

Gallipoli, Italy, 6–9 October 2022.

Following last year, Mareamico is bringing back the Conference of the Sea in 2022, reaching its 31st edition, held in Gallipoli at the Galleria dei due mari from 6–9 October 2022. The theme this year will be SAFEGUARDING BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES AND THE BLUE ECONOMY.

Among the issues that will be discussed at Mareamico 2022 are the management and recognition of the value of these resources, both by experts (including Professor Alberto Basset, director of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre), and local and national institutional and political representatives.

For more information and the programme, please visit the Mareamico website (in Italian).