You will also be able to interact and send questions on the approach of a Network of Knowledge for Europe. You can send a question by EMAIL to: info@biodiversityknowledge.eu, or by TWITTER: using #biodiversityNOK
BiodiversityKnowledge (formerly KNEU) is an initiative by researchers and practitioners to help all societal actors in the field of biodiversity and ecosystem services to make better informed decisions. In this challenge, we invite the whole biodiversity community to help us develop an innovative mechanism called Network of Knowledge - an open networking approach to boost the knowledge flow between biodiversity knowledge holders and users in Europe.
www.biodiversityknowledge.eu.
Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia) are seeking two talented, creative and highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Fellows to join the Department of Biological Sciences. Macquarie University was recently declared as Australia’s leading institution for ecology and environmental science. It provides a vibrant research environment on a leafy campus with excellent transport links to the centre of Sydney, one of the world’s most inspiring cities. Both post-doc positions concern plant functional traits.
For full details see: http://bio.mq.edu.au/~iwright/postdocinfo.htm.
For all enquiries please contact Ian Wright via email at ian.wright@mq.edu.au.
The deadline for applications is 10 June 2012.
The Sustainable Development Dialogues, to be held in Riocentro, between June 16 to 19, in the context of the Conference, is an instrument to convene experts and stakeholders from civil society, including private sector, NGOs, scientific community, among other major groups, with a view to defining recommendations that will be taken directly to the Heads of State and Government during the High-Level Segment of Rio+20.
Experts are invited to submit recommendations to the online Rio+20 Sustainable Development Dialogues: https://www.riodialogues.org. A range of themes are covered, including water, forests and oceans. For example, practitioners in the area of forest governance have a unique opportunity to directly contribute to the recommendations and influence the process by sharing your expertise and suggestions for the historic Rio+20 conference.
The Dialogues are now entering the recommendations drafting stage. In relation to forests, three problem-focused discussions have been held on 'Forests and Energy', 'Forests and Food' and 'Forests and Climate', led by expert facilitators, who will consolidate the final recommendations: Prof. Benjamin Cashore, Yale University, USA; Prof. Edson Vidal, University of Sao Paulo/ESALQ, Brazil and Michelle Kovacevic, CIFOR, Indonesia.
These online discussions are serving as a sounding board leading up to the sustainable development dialogue panels that will be hosted by the Brazilian Government, from 16-19 June, in the days leading up to the Rio+20 Conference. The aim of the Dialogues is to bring together NGOs, academia, the public and private sectors, the scientific community and young people to contribute fresh ideas on sustainable development. Conclusions and recommendations drawn from the dialogues will be conveyed directly to the heads of State and Government gathering in Rio.
The dialogues' coordinators would very much appreciate your suggested recommendations to be submitted to the Rio conference. The online Dialogues are currently open and accepting inputs in French, Spanish, Portuguese or any other language - please visit: https://www.riodialogues.org to request an invitation and influence the Rio process.
]]>The International LTER network, ILTER, has been accepted as an endorsed network of the Global Land Project (GLP), a joint core Project of both the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). The GLP was built on the research of more than a decade within IGBP and IHDP core projects, especially GCTE (Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems) and LUCC (Land-Use and Land- Cover Change), along with other projects sponsored by the international global change programmes. This legacy provides the opportunity to study the coupled human-environment system in ways not possible in the past. GLP seeks to merge these existing research communities, and to attract other researchers from the social and natural sciences and the humanities.
With its extensive coverage of geographic regions and socio-ecosystems places, ILTER is in a unique position to contribute to addressing local, national and international issues affecting the environment and related social and economic issues. It is an expanding international research network based on over 600 Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) sites organized within 40 member networks. ILTER members include 21 member networks in Europe, who cooperate via the LTER-Europe umbrella. LTER-Europe is supported by ALTER-Net.
The GLP goal is part of broader efforts to understand changes in the interaction between people and their environments, and the ways these have affected, and may yet affect, the sustainability of the Earth System. Changes in coupled human-environmental systems affect the cycling of energy, water, elements and biota at the global level and the global-level changes in political economy, such as international treaties and market liberalization, affect decisions about resources at local and regional levels. In this sense, GLP pursues three objectives: i) To identify the agents, structures and nature of change in coupled socio-environmental systems on land and quantify their effects on the coupled system; ii) To assess how the provision of ecosystem services is affected by these changes; and iii) To identify the character and dynamics of vulnerable and sustainable coupled socio-environmental land systems to interacting perturbations, including climate change. Resulting in 3 main themes for research: ‘Dynamics of land-systems’, ‘Consequences of land-system changes’, and ‘Integrating analysis and modelling for land sustainability’. ILTER looks forward to being able to contribute to these research areas.
ILTER's successful application for GLP endorsement means ILTER members - including all the LTER-Europe member networks - gain access to the GLP network (including various international and regional workshops) and associated opportunities for publications. There is also the possibility to share data among the members of the GLP network facilitated by the GLP International Project Office.
The successful applicant will participate in ecological, statistical, and phylogenetic analyses of our data sets from ongoing experiments and projects. In addition, s/he will be able to develop an independent project, using our permanent field sites. S/he will also mentor advanced students and will prepare a course for advanced students.
Please see: http://botanika.prf.jcu.cz/suspa/ for more information.
The deadline application is 31 May 2012
]]>Three ALTER-Net partners were involved in the study; the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in the UK, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Spain and the Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Increasing species numbers were only found on summits of northern and central Europe. By contrast, species numbers were stagnating or declining at nearly all sites in the Mediterranean region.
Dr Harald Pauli, from the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA), the study’s lead author, said, “Our results showing a decline at the Mediterranean sites is worrying because these are the mountains with a very unique flora and a large proportion of their species occur only there and nowhere else on Earth.”
"... a decline at the Mediterranean sites is worrying because these are the mountains with a very unique flora ..."
- Dr Harald Pauli, Institute of Mountain Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences
On summits further north in Europe, more plant species are prospering. This could be taken to indicate that these are much safer sites for alpine flowers. But Dr Michael Gottfried, from GLORIA’s coordination team said, “I'm afraid that this is not necessarily the case because the newly appearing plants are predominantly more widespread species from lower elevations and will pose increasing competition pressure on the rarer cold-loving alpine flowers.”
The uppermost tips of Mediterranean mountains are rather small patches of cold habitats, spread like islands over a sea of much warmer lowlands. Lowland areas, and the mountains are exposed to a characteristic dry season in summer. In the higher altitudes, precipitation mainly falls as snow during winter and spring, with snowmelt crucial for water supply of mountain plants during the arid growing season.
Dr Pauli added, “The observed species losses were most pronounced on the lower summits, where plants are expected to suffer earlier from water deficiency, than on the snowier high peaks. Climate warming and decreasing precipitation in the Mediterranean during the past decades fit well to the pattern of shrinking species occurrences. Much of the Mediterranean region is projected to become even dryer during the upcoming decades."
Further information
The description of the session is as follows:
Green infrastructure links natural, semi-natural and urban features, areas and spaces together. It provides both ecological as well as societal well being, and resilience against dramatic changes. It provides us with cultural ecosystem services such as possibilities for recreation, inspiration, learning and spiritual gains. But where can we find green infrastructure that supports sustainability and maintains its cultural ecosystem services? Can energy production from forests be sustainable and support recreational purposes? Which green infrastructure tolerates climate change and helps to forward positive transformations to cultural ecosystem services?
Through contributions debate from different disciplinary angles, this session will introduce novel ways of conceptualising the nature-human relationship by linking ecological theories of sustainability into everyday life of human societies. The session elucidates the future´s orientation of conservation and sustainability research and provides food for thought to the policy forum on the governance of European green infrastructure.
The speakers will be:
More information about ESOF 2012, which takes place from 11-15 July, can be found here: http://esof2012.org/
]]>This course is for MS students and professionals with a BS in biology, geology, ecology, or other environmental sciences, environmental engineering, geography or science librarianship
Scientists, engineers, and data librarians are working in an increasingly data-intensive research environment. The Environmental Information Management (EIM) Institute provides MS and PhD students and professionals with the conceptual and practical hands-on training that allows them to effectively design, manage, analyze, visualize, and preserve data and information. Participants completing the three-week Institute will be at a significant competitive advantage as they pursue further academic and professional efforts. They will gain invaluable experience with all aspects of the data life cycle: from managing data files and creating databases and web portals, through state-of-the-art analysis and visualization techniques, as well as managing, analyzing, and visualizing geospatial data.
For details see: http://elibrary.unm.edu/courses/eimi/index.php
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The Lectureships are in Animal Biology - almost any aspect of zoology research: animal behaviour, conservation, evolutionary and population biology, animal development, locomotion, nutrition and physiology. For more information, follow this link: http://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/fe/tpl_universityofleeds01.asp?s=FoQnTYvIgXJoLlXgd&jobid=81227,4114238652&key=78908699&c=585634544835&pagestamp=sevxwbidzxctigqtjb
Closing date: 17 April
The Fellowships cover a wide range of topics in Biology, from ecology to molecular genetics. They have a greatly reduced teaching load (roughly 1/3 of what would be expected from a new lecturer), and thus are likely to be even more competitive. For more information, follow this link: http://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/fe/tpl_universityofleeds01.asp?s=EXgIfLQnAyPBgDdPyv&jobid=81419,0298235983&key=78908699&c=585634544835&pagestamp=sejbrcrkcwkvtwugmn
Closing date: 23 April
The 7th ALTER-Net Summer School is entitled An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The summer school will be held at Peyresq, Alpes de Haute-Provence, France from 5 – 15 September 2012.
Click here for full details and an application form. Please note that the deadline for applications is 31 May 2012.
]]>A short film on the Anthropocene can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/39048998 and a new website being developed on the Anthropocene can be viewed here: http://www.anthropocene.info.
]]>For details, please see: https://www.jyu.fi/science/muut_yksikot/summerschool/en/courses/main/#Biology. Please note the deadline for applications is 30 April 2012.
]]>The abstract of the paper reads: "In the second half of the 20th Century there was a growing awareness of environmental problems, including the loss of species and habitats, resulting in many national and international initiatives, including the creation of organisations, such as the IUCN, treaties and conventions, such as Ramsar and the Berne Convention, and the establishment of networks of protected areas. Natura 2000 is a network of sites in the European Union for selected species and habitats listed in the 1979 Birds Directive and the 1992 Habitats Directive. Under the Habitats Directive a series of seminars and other meetings have been held with agreed criteria to ensure a coherent network. Despite both scientific and political difficulties the network is now nearing completion. "
The author, who currently works in the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity, has been closely involved in the development of Natura 2000 since 1993.
Evans, D. (2012). Building the European Union’s Natura 2000 network. Nature Conservation 1: 11–26
Available online: http://www.pensoft.net/journals/natureconservation/article/1808/building-the-european-union
doi: 10.3897/natureconservation.1.1808
]]>Since the financial crisis there has been a decrease in funding for and a loss of visibility of biodiversity research in the successive European Research Framework Programmes. The new framework programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020, illustrates quite well this trend and leaves biodiversity research to find bits and pieces under “climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials” or "Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research and the bio-economy".
The European Platform for Biodiversity research Strategy (http://www.epbrs.org) has decided to take up the challenge of advocating for Biodiversity Research and is collaborating with the Belgian Biodiversity Platform to produce an advocacy video to draw attention on the importance of biodiversity research for addressing future societal challenges.
EPBES is asking for help to build a strong argument for moving biodiversity research back on to the agendas of science policy makers and politicians, and maybe even influence the consultation on Horizon 2020 that is currently ongoing at the EU Parliament. If you wish to help, you are invited to take 10-15 minutes to answer the following questions: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MH73FB9.
We have said for a long time that biodiversity research needs charismatic ambassadors, so now is the time to find and engage them! Who do you think could carry this message in interviews of the advocacy video we are making?
EPBRS are planning to attend the Planet under Pressure conference where many key speakers and participants will be present. Could you name one or two persons who you think should be interviewed?
Thanks a lot for your support and help!
For more information please see the attached communication from the EC on Horizon 2020 where EPBRS have highlighted some key aspects.
[This news item is adapted from an e-mail circulated by Estelle Balian of the PBRS Secretariat].
]]>Finance available: EUR 2.000.000
Deadline for applications: 1 June 2012, 17:00 hrs at the latest.
For details see: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/funding/finansup_12_best.htm
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