We invite you to take part in workshops during the conference. We offer classes where you will be introduced to different research methods and statistical analyses used in environmental research. You will also be able to gain guidance on how to be a good mentor and leader, and discuss bridging science with conservation activism. See details below.
Participation in workshops is free of charge, but there is a limit on places. Overall, the order of registration is decisive. Additionally, for Mentorship and Leadership Workshop the priority will be given to senior researchers.
As some workshops will be held at the same time, when registering, please ensure that you only register for one workshop on a given day.
Navigating Science, Advocacy and Activism for Conservation Action
Dr. habil. Katarzyna Nowak, Dr. Izabela Stachowicz
19.09.2024, limit: 25 participants
In this 2.5-hour workshop, we will discuss, and then put into practice, a continuum of ways of engaging with a conservation issue in our region/region of interest. These ways may include: preparing a press release following the publication of a scientific paper, participating in a public consultation process, writing an editorial or opinion piece for a local newspaper, organizing a campaign or a non-violent direct action. The aim is to step out of our comfort zones and learn how to be an effective advocate for a cause we care about. Ahead of the workshop, participants will receive guidance notes / an information handout. Invited, experienced guests will share their experience and participate in the final discussion. Reading material for the workshop will be sent to participants prior to the conference.
Mentorship and Leadership Workshop
Dr. Paulina Bednarz-Łuczewska
17.09.2024, limit: 20 participants
Mentorship and leadership have always been among the most important tools through which researchers and academics have been shaping their fields and disciplines. However, in today’s fast-paced, competitive and expertise-oriented world, rarely do we have an opportunity to pause and reflect on what it means for us to find ourselves in these challenging roles. Opportunities to consciously develop the necessary competencies in a supportive environment are even less frequent.
During this intensive short workshop, we will explore academic and research-centred leadership and mentorship through a series of interactive activities designed to help the participants identify and address some of the key challenges and tensions either already experienced by them in such roles, or anticipated in their prospective careers. They may include, for example, aspects of life-work balance, tensions inherent in team collaboration, or the dynamic of one-on-one mentoring.
Ordination methods in vegetation data analyses using R
Dr. Patryk Czortek
19.09.2024, limit: 20 participants
This workshop will encourage participants to interpret and discuss the ecological significance of patterns revealed by ordination analyses, fostering a deeper understanding of vegetation responses to environmental gradients. The comprehensive overview will encompass widely used indirect, i.e. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Canonical Analysis (CA), Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA), and Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS), and direct ordination methods, i.e. Redundancy Analysis (RDA) and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA), emphasizing their theoretical backgrounds, application possibilities, explanatory power, strengths, and limitations in analyses of species composition of plant communities. The hands-on practical session will enable participants to apply these techniques to real-world datasets, navigating through data preparation, particular method execution, and interpretation of obtained results using R software. The workshop will conclude with a Q&A segment, providing participants with the opportunity to discuss challenges and emphasizing the practical applications of ordination methods in vegetation analyses. We require participants to have their own computer equipment with the R and RStudio software installed, as well as the required R libraries (i.e. betapart, tidyverse, vegan).
Automatic analysis of soundscape data
Dr. Michał Budka
19.09.2024, limit: 20 participants
Acoustic monitoring can be an effective tool for animal biodiversity and abundance estimation. At the current stage of the technique, we are able to record the soundscape almost continuously. However, automatically analyzing such big data is still challenging. During the workshop, we focused on the advantages and limitations of automatically analyzing the soundscape. We will detect selected bird species automatically, calculate the acoustic complexity of the entire soundscape, and compare it with bird biodiversity. Additionally, we will use the soundscape characteristics to classify the type of forest environment. We will apply open-source software, mostly based on R. The dataset, as well as information about using the software, will be sent to participants before the course. We require participants to have their own computer equipment.
Trapper
Team member of Open Science Conservation Fund
17.09.2024, limit: 20 participants, own computers
TRAPPER is an application to manage camera trapping projects and has been developed by scientists from the Mammal Research Institute, PAS (Bubnicki et al. 2019) and currently maintained by Open Science Conservation Fund (https://os-conservation.org). Trapper is a flexible database driven web application to manage, classify, integrate, share and re-use data in camera trapping projects. The main features of trapper are: (i) it is fully open-source, (ii) it facilitates analysis of videos as well as images, (iii) it provides spatial filtering and web-mapping, (iv) it allows flexible implementation of specific data collection protocols, (v) it is a multi-user and role based system which facilitates collaborative work on camera trapping projects, (vi) it supports data re-use and (re)discovery. TRAPPER is integrated with the existing AI algorithms (e.g. Megadetector) for automatic object-detection and species-level classification of camera trap data. Moreover, TRAPPER has already the functionality to export standardised camera trap data packages with all metadata files required by end-users following the camera trap data exchange standard Camtrap DP. The workshop will be dedicated to learn how to use Trapper, with the participant’s own data. For logistics reasons the workshop will be limited to 20 people and each participant is expected to bring its own computer and data.