The evolution of e-Ecology

Willem Bouten

Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem DynamicsUniversity of Amsterdam

Our Scientific Challenges

• Increased human pressure on nature

• Data explosion as an opportunity

• Virtual Fieldwork

• e-Ecology towards a quantitative predictive science

Research aim: to understand interactions between abiotic and biotic components of systems at different scales

eScience approach for integrating models and measurements

e-Ecology

e-Ecology is a multidisciplinary scientific approach to answer ecological questions,

by organizing computer networked collaborations and distributed resources,

and by utilizing new developments in computer science, information and communication technology (ICT).

Citizen science Bird radars GPS-tracking

> 20.000 users> 50 M observations

NDFF

Streaming dataMany TB

ENRAM network

Streaming data

40 Word-wide projects

Our virtual labs for e-Ecology

Allegranza

Madagaskar

Measurement interval 48 secTri-axial accelerometer at 20 Hz

An example

Vogel het uit

Vogel het uit!

Our next Challenge(s) in eEcology

• Quatifying the 3D structure of the world vegetationas a proxy for biodiversity

• Confronting theoretical models with observations in a Bayesian framework

• Introduce e-Ecology in the curriculum of ecology