First meeting - summary

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.