First meeting - summary
This is a summary of the Mediterranean task force meeting held in Avila, Spain, September 2011.
Topics discussed in the meeting
- How are data being analysed?
- What are the relations between monitoring results and decision making in different countries?
- Can we benefit from (and is it feasible/practical?) to decide upon common variables to be monitored by all?
- Monitoring at ecosystem level (biogeochemistry, atmospheric processes, climate change?). Which parameters are meaningful?
- Response to water stress? What should we monitor?
- Invertebrates? (what do we do with them). Lack of taxonomists
- Herbaceous diversity (annual variability, frequency, cost-effectiveness)Management for the conservation of rare species populations (small populations, not enough data on phenology & demography, need to re-construct traditional habitats…)
- Issues concerning data processing, analysis & sharing
- Using remote sensing for monitoring
- Automation of data collection - monitoring phenology using fixed cameras, wildlife…
- Kosovo protocol (wildlife monitoring)
- Means of collaboration: meetings, facebook forum (need content manager), shared website, virtual conferences, students exchange? Joint research projects
- National networks: What kind of support do they give; What kind of support do you expect to get (and don’t); Do you have a national database, how is it being managed, what kind of data is stored in it?; Do you have central remote sensing services?
Decisions
- To start a 'Google' forum for continuing brainstorming
- To start from the info-base and map existing data and shared research interest as a basis for collaboration and comparisons.
- To write a proposal for a shared project (inside EnvEurope framework). Proposed topics: space utilization by large mammals with relation to land use changes and landscape fragmentation; effects of rain distribution on dominant woody plants phenology.