National Forum for Biological Recording and British Ecological Society Conference 2015
The National Forum for Biological Recording and the British Ecological Society’s Macroecology Special Interest Group are organising a joint conference in Spring 2015 with the theme:
“A Question of Ecology – answers from biological recording”.
Use of volunteer-collected biological records by the professional scientific community is widely encouraged and celebrated. Considerable efforts are being made to raise awareness of this valuable resource, to compensate for sampling bias in ‘big data’, to develop recording methodologies informed by ecological sampling theory and to make records more easily available for research use, for example through the new rNBN package .
However, much interpretation of biological records is carried out by the amateur naturalists themselves, who may not even think of themselves as ‘scientists’, but who are uncovering new ecological knowledge from their own records and sharing that knowledge with others. Biological recording is not just about producing checklists, dot maps or providing ‘big data’ for others to analyse; it is a way of engaging with the natural world which both raises questions and provides answers to them. New tools, technologies and methods for collecting and interpreting biological records are opening up new avenues of interest, enabling amateur naturalists and the organisations that support them to go beyond the biological record, taking us back to the roots of natural history and improving our understanding of ecology and ecosystem functions.
The NFBR/BES conference will celebrate achievements, highlight opportunities and seek to overcome obstacles regarding the use of biological records to answer ecological questions.
The conference aims to:
1) Raise awareness of how biological records can be interpreted to answer ecological questions, and how this analysis can lead to conservation action at a site-specific, local, national and international scale.
2) Empower volunteer recorders and the organisations that support them to get more out of their biological records by highlighting effective approaches to data collection and analysis.
3) Foster collaboration between the professional research community and volunteer recording community through examples of good practice.
4) Discuss barriers to the use of biological records for research and start a dialogue between the biological recording and research communities about how to overcome those barriers
The date and venue are still being finalised, but the conference will be a three day event in late April or early May. It will include a discussion workshop, a field meeting with local naturalists and a free training session on using open source tools to interpret biological records. Further details and a call for papers will be released soon.
The British Ecological Society celebrated its centenary last year. Its vision is to advance ecology and make it count. The Macroecology Special Interest Group aims to provide a UK forum to unite researchers who work in, or who are influenced by, macroecology, by helping to set the agenda for macroecology, supporting early-career researchers, promoting data access and standards, facilitating inter-disciplinary collaboration and showcasing methodological advances.
NFBR promotes and supports biological recording and the scientific use of high quality information on wildlife and habitats for biodiversity conservation. Originally founded in 1986 as the National Federation for Biological Recording, NFBR has been a catalyst in developing major initiatives in biodiversity information and is a founder member of the NBN Trust. NFBR changed its name to the National Forum for Biological Recording last year, when it achieved charitable status to facilitate its future development.
NFBR and BES look forward to bringing together the skills and expertise of their members at this conference to discuss issues, identify opportunities and recommend practical outputs.