From 21 to 25 September, BMD took part in this year’s Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Annual Conference in Oslo, Norway. The conference was themed “Research and Robot-ready Biodiversity Data Standards” and brought together researchers, project leaders, and students for discussions on topics ranging from taxonomy and biodiversity infrastructures to community science and knowledge extraction. 

Conference participation

During the Conference, many of the BMD partners participated as session (co-)organisers and presenters. Some of their presentation titles included:

• “Reducing the Lag from Observation to Information”, Quentin Goom (Meise Botanic Garden)

• “Mainstreaming high-throughput biodiversity monitoring using AI”, Niels Raes (BMD coordinator, Naturalis Biodiversity Centre)

• “The BMD Cubing Engine: Harmonising Biodiversity and Earth Observation Data”, Mathias Dillen (Meise Botanic Garden)

• “Building the Foundations for a European Biodiversity Data Space”, Lena Perzlmaier (Senckenberg)

• “From Buzzwords to Blueprints: What It Really Takes to Operationalise Biodiversity Digital Twins”, Sharif Islam (Naturalis Biodiversity Centre) – you can learn more about this topic via Sharif Islam’s blog post

• “Catalogue of Life and Freshwater species data”, Olaf Bánki (Catalogue of Life)

• “Species trait literature mining to support integrative biodiversity distribution modelling”, Robert Waterhouse (SIB Swiss)

Two of the TDWG sessions were also co-organised by BMD partners, such as: 

• “Operationalising Biodiversity Digital Twins within Data Space Ecosystems”, co-organised by BMD coordinator Niels Raes (Naturalis Biodiversity Centre)

• “National and policy-relevant species checklists: why official, updated and validated data matter”, co-organised by Olaf Bánki (Catalogue of Life)

Dissemination corner

On top of actively participating in presentation sessions and discussions, BMD also co-hosted a dissemination booth with the projects TETTRIX, ANERIS, as well as Pensoft Publishers, which are one of the partnering organisations in the BMD project. Both the BMD materials and the joint policy brief, co-written with the projects B-Cubed, OneSTOP, MAMBO, GUARDEN, and AURORA, were showcased and disseminated to relevant stakeholders.

The TDWG Conference was an extraordinary opportunity for BMD to share its objectives and work on biodiversity monitoring to all visitors – both through the sessions and the project materials.