In the framework of the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone, VLIZ co-organized the EMODnet Marine Species Traits Workshop.

In June 2017, the LifeWatch INBO team participated in a 5-day workshop and hackathon at the University of Amsterdam, titled “Visualizations: from show cases to production”.

In March 2015, the LifeWatch INBO team co-organized a bird migration visualization challenge and hackathon, inviting other developers to visualize these type of data in an intuitive way.

Documents: 

Appendix 3.pdf

The main aim of this workshop was to bring together the specialists for both marine, marine Antarctic and freshwater taxa. During this 3 day meeting, the taxonomists discussed and crosschecked species occurring in the three aquatic species databases. In addition, the data entry and publication tools were demonstrated and tested, and the editors were engaged in completing distribution information. About 20 WoRMS-FADA-RAMS taxonomic editors participated, mostly from overlapping groups, i.e.

During the Catalogue of Life mini-symposium, the different aspects of the Catalogue of Life were presented. An overview of the history of the Catalogue of Life (CoL) was given, including its current position. Several users and data providers – e.g.

The course provided an introduction to the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS). This included best practices in marine biogeographic data management, data publication, data access, data analysis and data visualization.

During the FixO3 workshop, an introduction and practical use of European marine data infrastructures was given. Furthermore, the Belgian LifeWatch e-Lab was demonstrated during a training sessions.

On November 22nd 2015, VLIZ celebrated Science Day (Dag van de Wetenschap). For this event, VLIZ opened the doors of its Marine Station Ostend (MSO) and the LifeWatch laboratories for the public at large, for the second year in a row. Several aspects of the Flemish LifeWatch infrastructure were presented: the environmental DNA lab, the fish acoustic tracking network, and the zooplankton monitoring during the monthly LifeWatch sampling campaigns. Furthermore, the RV Simon Stevin could be visited.

From September 21st-25th 2015, the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone and related data services were also presented at the 50th European Marine Biology Symposium (EMBS50) in Helgoland. In total 3 oral presentations were given: (1) Assessing the data quality, completeness and fitness for use of marine biogeographic data, (2) Creating a species information backbone: merging marine taxonomy, geography and ecology from various sources, and (3) A new online world database of over 1,400 introduced marine species as part of WoRMS.

LifeWatch Belgium was invited to the 13th European Ecological Federation (EEF) and 25th Italian Society of Ecology’s (S.It.E.) joint conference (“Ecology at the Interface: science-based solutions for human wellbeing”) in Rome (September 21st-25th 2015), to build a demonstration booth about the different LifeWatch activities in Belgium.