Bologna, Italy – a congress, a symposium and a workshop

In June 2024, we have attended the 7th European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB 2024), held in Bologna, Italy (https://eccb2024.eu).

Bologna, Italy
Bologna, Italy

Within the Congress, we organized a symposium titled “The use of online digital data to advance invasion science”, aimed to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge on approaches for harnessing large digital data sources within invasion science, and to highlight them through several case studies. The symposium was held on June 20, and included six presentations by several project members and external project collaborators. The symposium was very well attended and well received by the audience.

Valerio Sbragaglia, presentation “Spatio-temporal patterns of public attention to alien species across an invasion front”
Rubén Rabaneda Bueno, presentation “Time-series of public attention and perceptions during the invasion process of recent alien species introductions”

On the same day, right after the symposium, we also organized a mini-workshop, where we invited a wider network of collaborators from the fields of culturomics and iEcology who were present at the Congress, as well as several participants who attended the meeting remotely. We used the opportunity to discuss about the ongoing studies, potential future joint projects and funding options. The workshop was attended by more than 20 participants.

Workshop

Presentations:

1) Human dimensions of biological invasions: novel research opportunities. Ivan Jaric, Ana Novoa, Pavel Pipek & Petr Pyšek.

2) Can invasive alien species be monitored through online digital images? A deep learning test case with Cortaderia selloana. Ana Sofia Cardoso & Ana Sofia Vaz.

3) Do we pay enough attention to costly invasive alien species? Ugo Arbieu, Uri Roll, Reut Vardi, Ana Sofia Vaz, Gabriel Henrique de Oliveira Caetano, Andrea Soriano-Redondo, Ana Novoa, Elena Angulo, Franck Courchamp, Christophe Diagne, Boris Leroy & Ivan Jarić.

4) Spatio-temporal patterns of public attention to alien species across an invasion front. Lara Fazzari, Reut Vardi, Ivan Jarić, Ricardo Correia & Valerio Sbragaglia.

5) Time-series of public attention and perceptions during the invasion process of recent alien species introductions. Rubén Rabaneda Bueno, Ana Novoa, Pavel Pipek, Petr Pyšek, Gabriel Henrique de Oliveira Caetano, Uri Roll, Valerio Sbragaglia & Ivan Jaric.

6) Secondary Data: an untapped Treasure for Invasion Biology. Nadja Pernat, Susan Canavan, Marina Golivets, Jasmijn Hillaert, Yuval Itescu, Ivan Jarić, Hjalte M. R. Mann, Pavel Pipek, Cristina Preda, David M. Richardson, Heliana Teixeira, Ana Sofia Vaz & Quentin Groom. (study published in Ecological Solutions and Evidence)