Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference, Berkeley
Lodging and Logistics
For those seeking economy, we have secured a package deal at very low cost that includes 3 nights in a dorm-style room, shared bathroom, and 3 meals/day.
These rooms are in Unit 1 Residence Hall, 2650 Durant Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94720, located 1 block from campus, near many restaurants and shops,
a short 8 minute walk to the venue, and 10 blocks from BART.
Check in is Sunday June 3rd after 3pm.
Check out is Wednesday June 6th by 11:00 am.
For students: Single occupancy rate (including conference registration) is $308.73. Double occupancy rate (per person, including conference registration) is $239.10.
For non-students: Single occupancy rate (including conference registration) is $361.48. Double occupancy rate (per person, including conference registration) is $291.85.
Since these economy rates are a package deal, the check in and out dates are firm and cannot be changed on an individual basis.
- For more on this and other lodging, see Lodging information
- Tentative conference location: Bechtel Engineering Center, UC Berkeley campus
- Conference announcement
Food and Restaurant Options
Restaurant options near campus
Conference Registration
Registration opens 16 January 2018 and will be handled by Eventbrite.
PLEASE REGISTER EARLY. WE HAVE LIMITED CAPACITY AND MAY BE REQUIRED TO CLOSE REGISTRATION EARLY IF THE CONFERENCE FILLS UP.
Registration fees Registration fees include the conference, workshops, and refreshments and hors d'oeuvres at Monday's poster session and Tuesday's reception:
- $100.00 for professionals,
- $ 50.00 for students.
General registration deadline: 15 May 2018.
- Registration deadline for those submitting an abstract: 30 April 2018.
- Registration deadline for those taking advantage of the economy lodging option: 30 April 2018
To register: Click here
Conference Abstracts
This year we are offering attendees an opportunity to propose oral and poster presentations as well as to propose and lead an open discussion session about a critical topic in the research use of digital data. Each of these requires an abstract submission, all of which can be completed on a single abstract form. You may propose up to three sessions: oral, poster, and discussion. You will receive a link to the abstract submission form upon registering. Abstracts must be submitted by 30 April 2018. Only abstracts from previously registered attendees can be considered.
This year's conference has five major themes, each of which should be construed broadly when submitting your abstract for a poster or oral presentation. Our goal is to be inclusive, recognizing that there may be topics beyond those we list here. If you are interested in presenting on the use of digital data in biodiversity research, please plan to submit. Here are the themes:
Addressing the fundamental questions of evolutionary biology and ecology,
Meeting the research challenges of the Anthropocene,
Biodiversity data archives for education and science outreach,
New tools for data discovery and analysis,
Future, untested frontiers for natural history collections.
Poster Specifications
Poster Specifications: Posters should not exceed 3’ tall and 4’ feet wide and should be displayed in landscape orientation.
Conference Streaming and Recording
To the extent possible, the Conference sessions will be broadcast and recorded using Adobe Connect. Meeting hosts will monitor the chat to address questions/concerns. To connect, go to https://idigbio.adobeconnect.com/digitaldataberkeley, select “Enter as a Guest”, enter your first name and surname and click “Enter Room.” For more information, remote participants are strongly encouraged to visit the iDigBio Web Conferencing Wiki prior to connecting: https://www.idigbio.org/wiki/index.php/Web_Conferencing.
Preconference Invited Workshop
Sunday, 3 June 2018
| Pre-conference Invited Workshops and Meetings | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast (On your own) 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. | ||||
| {Location} (8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.) Biodiversity Literacy in Undergraduate Education: A Workshop to define competencies for the core undergraduate biology curriculum Moderator: Anna Monfils
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| {Fishbowl UCMP} (1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.) 2018 Regional Meeting of GBIF Participant Nodes in North America Moderator: David Jennings This is an invited meeting of node managers. The 2018 Regional Meeting of GBIF Participant Nodes in North America is being hosted by iDigBio in conjunction with the Second Annual Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference. The North America Regional Nodes meeting brings together representatives from the GBIF nodes in the North America region to inspire collaboration and discussion of shared goals, challenges, and opportunities. The meeting will focus on progress updates from the represented nodes, preparations for the Governing Board meeting, and a discussion of strategies/goals for the coming year. | ||||
Agenda: Monday, 4 June 2018
Wireless link:
Twitter:
| Day One | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast (On your own) 7:30-8:30 a.m. | |||||
| Registration - 7:30-8:30 | |||||
| Keynote Session {Location} 8:00 - 10:15 a.m. Moderator: David Ackerly | |||||
| Time | Title | Presenter(s) | |||
| 8:30-9:00 | Welcome Workshop Framing Introduction to iDigBio and ADBC |
David Ackerly, Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley Gil Nelson, iDigBio, Florida State University | |||
| 9:00-9:30 | James Hanken, Director, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University | ||||
| 9:30-10:00 | David Blackburn, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida | ||||
| 10:00-10:30 | Break - {Location} | ||||
| 10:30-11:00 | Paula M. Mabee, Professor of Biology, University of South Dakota, formerly Director of the Division of Environmental Biology in the NSF’s Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) | ||||
| 11:00-11:20 | David Thau, Manager of Developer Relations for Google Earth Engine and Google Earth Outreach | ||||
| Concurrent Session IA - {Location} (11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.) Moderator: Theme: Addressing the fundamental questions of evolutionary biology and ecology | |||||
| 11:30-11:45 | What drives European fungal biogeography? Connecting digital data to temporally static and dynamic environmental predictors to explain climate, pollution and urbanization impacts on fungi | Carrie Andrew Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL | |||
| 11:45-12:00 | Using herbarium records to make climate niche comparisons among co-occurring sub-dominant forbs of the sagebrush steppe | Sarah Barga University of Nevada, Reno | |||
| 12:00-12:15 | Ontology of Ecological Affordances: What, Why and How | Steve Dilliplane, Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University | |||
| 12:15-12:30 | The Importance of Taxonomic Quality Control in Paleontological Digitization: Strategies for Increasing Fitness for Use and Trust in Aggregated Data | Kathryn Estes-Smargiassi Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County | |||
| Concurrent Session IB - {Location} (11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m,) Moderator: Theme: New tools for data discovery and analysis | |||||
| 11:30-11:45 | MorphoBank at twenty years: the importance of discipline-specific repositories | Mariangeles Arce H. The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University | |||
| 11:45-12:00 | Biodiversity and Taxonomy Software Tools in R | Scott Chamberlain rOpenSci / UC Berkeley | |||
| 12:00-12:15 | Reconciling phenological observations with flowering records in herbaria | Jonathan Davis University of British Columbia | |||
| 12:15-12:30 | GigaPanning for Golden mantled ground squirrels | Andrew Doll Denver Museum of Nature & Science |
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| Concurrent Session IC - {Location} (11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.) Moderator: Theme: Meeting the research challenges of the Anthropocene | |||||
| 11:30-11:45 | Generating databases of three-dimensional leaf structure for living collections of grapevine | Elizabeth Forrestel University of California, Davis | |||
| 11:45-12:00 | Lessons from both sides: challenges in providing and using data from specimens to study the distribution of a venomous lizard in New Mexico. | J. Tomasz Giermakowski The University of New Mexico | |||
| 12:00-12:15 | Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation: tracking the invaders | Gerald "Stinger" Guala USGS | |||
| 12:15-12:30 | Future priorities for conserving the evolutionary diversity of the California flora | Matthew Kling UC Berkeley | |||
| 2:45-3:00 | Using iNaturalist citizen science data to explore community assembly patterns of urban biodiversity | Misha Leong California Academy of Sciences | |||
| 11:30-11:45 | A state of knowledge for marine invertebrate biodiversity in the continental US | François Michonneau, The Carpentries Gustav Paulay, Florida Museum of Natural History Mark Q. Martindale, Whitney Laboratory, University of Florida | |||
| Concurrent ID - {Location} (11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.) Moderator: Biodiversity data archives for education and science outreach | |||||
| 11:30-11:45 | 45 Minute Discussion Session: Creating a Data Carpentry Biodiversity Curriculum | François Michonneau, The Carpentries Deb Paul, iDigBio | |||
| 11:45-12:00 | Data Carpentry Biodiversity Curriculum, cont'd | François Michonneau, The Carpentries Deb Paul, iDigBio | |||
| 12:00-12:15 | Data Carpentry Biodiversity Curriculum, cont'd | François Michonneau, The Carpentries Deb Paul, iDigBio | |||
| 12:15-12:30 | Data Carpentry Biodiversity Curriculum, cont'd | François Michonneau, The Carpentries Deb Paul, iDigBio | |||
| 12:30-1:45 | Lunch (On your own) - Restaurant suggestions | ||||
| Concurrent IIA - {Location} (1:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.) Moderator: Theme: | |||||
| 1:45-2:00 | |||||
| 2:00-2:15 | |||||
| 2:15-2:30 | |||||
| 2:30-2:45 | |||||
| 2:45-3:00 | |||||
| Discussion Sessions II - (1:30 p.m. - 3:10 p.m.) | |||||
| 1:30-3:00 | |||||
| 1:30-3:00 | |||||
| 1:30-3:00 | |||||
| 1:30-3:00 | |||||
| 1:30-3:00 | |||||
| 3:15-3:45 | Break - {Location} | ||||
| Poster Session - {Location} (3:45 - 5:00 p.m.) | |||||
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| Dinner (On your own) | |||||
Tuesday, 5 June 2018
| Day Two | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast (On your own) 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. | ||||
| Registration 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. | ||||
| Plenary Session - {Location} (8:30 - 10:00 a.m.) Moderator: | ||||
| Time | Title | Presenter(s) | ||
| 8:30-9:00 | Robert J. Full, Professor, Dept. of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley | |||
| 9:00-9:30 | Scott V. Edwards, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, and Curator of Ornithology and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology | |||
| 9:30-10:00 | Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, Institute on Environment Fellow, University of Minnesota | |||
| 10:00-10:30 | Break - {Location} | |||
| Concurrent Session V - {Location} (10:30 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.) Moderator: Theme: | ||||
| 10:30-10:50 | ||||
| 10:50-11:10 | ||||
| 11:10-11:30 | ||||
| 11:30-11:50 | ||||
| 11:50-12:10 | ||||
| Concurrent Session VI - {Location} (10:30 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.) Moderator: Theme: | ||||
| 10:30-10:50 | ||||
| 10:50-11:10 | ||||
| 11:10-11:30 | ||||
| 11:30-11:50 | ||||
| 11:50-12:10 | ||||
| 12:10-1:30 | Lunch (On your own) - Restaurant suggestions | |||
| Concurrent Session VII - {Location} (1:30 p.m. - 3:10 p.m.) Moderator: Theme: | ||||
| 1:30-1:50 | ||||
| 1:50-2:10 | ||||
| 2:10-2:30 | ||||
| 2:30-2:50 | ||||
| 2:50-3:10 | ||||
| Concurrent Session VIII - {Location} (1:30 p.m. - 3:10 p.m.) Moderator: Theme: | ||||
| 1:30-1:50 | ||||
| 1:50-2:10 | ||||
| 2:10-2:30 | ||||
| 2:30-2:50 | ||||
| 2:50-3:10 | ||||
| Discussion Session III - {Location} (1:30 p.m. - 3:10 p.m.) Moderator: Theme: | ||||
| 1:30-3:10 p.m. | The Digital Data un-un-conference: Leveraging Data Science for Digital Biodiversity | Carl Boettiger (University of California Berkeley) Matt Collins (University of Florida) Deb Paul (Florida State University) | ||
| 3:10-3:40 | Break - {Location} | |||
| Capstone Session Moderator: | ||||
| 3:40-4:10 | Dena Smith, Program Director, Division of Earth Sciences, Sedimentary Geology & Paleobiology Program, U.S. National Science Foundation | |||
| 4:10-4:40 | Cindy Schmidt, Associate Program Manager, Applied Sciences Ecoforecasting Program, ARSET Land Management team lead, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, NASA Ames Research Center | |||
| Reception, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology | ||||
Wednesday, 6 June 2018
| Day Three - Workshops | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast (On your own) 7:00 - 8:00 a.m. | ||||
| Registration 7:00 - 8:15 a.m. | ||||
| Collections tours at California Academy of Sciences Exact time: TBA Capacity limited to 20 participants Cal Academy is offering space for 20 people to do tours in two groups of 10 each. Included are tours of two scientific collections plus an aquarium tour for each group. The tours will take about 2 hours, after which participants will be invited to explore the public floor including catching a planetarium show. First come, first served. Must provide your own transportation. Start time is being worked out and will be announced. The entire event could take about a half day. | ||||
| Field Trip - Pt. Reyes National Seashore 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Cost: $25.00 Capacity limited to 16 participants Join us on a field trip to Point Reyes National Seashore, over 100 square miles of unique coastal wilderness and open space that hosts an estimated 2.5 million visitors every year. The tour will include a visit to UC Berkeley’s Point Reyes Field Station, which is located within park boundaries in bucolic Olema Valley and facilitates science education and research in the park. Participants will also attend a presentation of NOAA’s Science on a Sphere and its real-time earth sciences data at the park’s visitor center, purchase lunch to go at a nearby deli (or bring your own), learn about decades of fire ecology research after a fire swept through the park’s coastal plant communities in 1995, have a chance to see resident Tule elk, and explore one of the most scenic beaches in the park. Photograph shorebirds, stroll along the sand, and dip a toe in the chilly Pacific Ocean before heading back to Berkeley. | ||||
| Self-guided tour of the UC Botanical Garden The 34-acre UC Botanical Garden is one of the most diverse landscapes in the world, with over 10,000 types of plants including many rare and endangered species. Organized geographically, the Garden features 9 regions of naturalistic plantings from Italy to South Africa, along with a major collection of California native plants. The Garden was established in 1890 and its living collections are invaluable resources for international research and conservation. | ||||
| Workshop 1 - {Location} (8:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.) Moderator: Andy Bentley, University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute Theme: BCoN: Data integration and attribution This workshop will expand on the BCoN February needs assessment workshop and will focus on finding mechanisms to facilitate the integration of data and attribution of collections within the data pipeline. All conference attendees are welcomed to attend. A white paper from the February workshop will be used to highlight areas of need, topics of discussion, further development, and to discuss specific ways in which we can bridge the existing gaps and provide the necessary mechanisms to create robust integration and attribution pathways for collections data. | ||||
| Workshop 2 - {Location} (8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.) Moderators: Hamish Holewa, Robina Sanderson, John La Salle, CSIRO, Canberra, Australia Theme: Next generation biodiversity data: developing an international traits system Biodiversity “trait data” refers to a variety of species or specimen level attributes that can contribute to our understanding, assessment, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity data (e.g. morphology, species interactions, derived genomic information, life history/stage/behaviour, ecological attributes and tolerances, medicinal or food uses, etc.). There are several initiatives around the world that are starting to make computable trait data available to the biodiversity research community. There is now an opportunity to work together to create an international traits system that will facilitate the sharing, integration and use of this data, and bringing it into eResearch infrastructures to fully integrate it with other data streams, environmental layers, phylogenetic tools and mapping and analysis capability. This workshop is the start of developing a coordinated international effort to meet this vision. | ||||
| [Invited] Workshop 3 - {Location} (8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.) Moderator: Alex Vandam, University of Puerto Rico Theme: Sharing and Mobilization of Massive Specimen Image Databases from Collections of Tropical Island Biodiversity Tropical Islands are global biodiversity hotspots, this combined with their remote locations has led to many undescribed species on tropical islands. In order to further our taxonomic knowledge of tropical island biodiversity rapid dissemination of expertly identified specimens is needed. Here we start with tropical islands that we have strong holdings of in our collections, and discuss which geographic regions should have highest priority for digitization. We will discuss new methods for capturing specimen images and sharing massive databases of specimen image files. We will also discuss how to best mobilize these specimens from our collections in the most efficient manner. | ||||
| [Invited] Workshop 4 - {Location} (8:30 a.m. - Noon) Moderator: Dave Blackburn, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Theme: Meeting of oVert collaborators This meeting will afford the opportunity for oVert collaborators to review progress, discuss issues and solutions, share workflows, and troubleshoot image uploads and management. | ||||
| Workshop 5 - {Location} (1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.) Moderator: Dave Thau, Manager of Developer Relations for Google Earth Engine and Google Earth Outreach Theme: Hands-on training on Google's planetary-scale geospatial and imagery analysis tools NOTE: All participants for this workshop should sign up for Google's Earth Engine prior to the workshop. At Google we've been busily creating geospatial and imagery analysis tools that are being used in forest conservation, water monitoring, malaria elimination, camera trap species recognition and a host of other applications. This workshop will provide hands-on training on some of these tools, including Google Earth Engine and machine learning tools, with an eye toward their application to biodiversity data management and analysis. There will also be plenty of time to discuss where these tools can be improved, and to brainstorm around future projects where they might be leveraged. If this sounds good to you, sign up for Earth Engine and we'll see you there. | ||||