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My academic and professional background has provided me with a profound understanding of the importance of inclusive and community-focused approaches to addressing the challenges posed by dynamic ecosystems and global change. My current research focuses on the development and application of monitoring and modeling tools for ecosystem services.
At NACCB, I presented our analytical approach to assess and project habitat connectivity changes under different climate and land use scenarios. Our work, involving past and present Gonzalez lab members, highlights a decline in connectivity despite stable habitat area. This underscores the urgent need for strategies to conserve and restore connectivity, aligning with the KM-GBF’s targets.
Andy’s work with the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) for the UN CBD concluded in Cambridge with a report on monitoring indicators and gaps. PhD candidate Flavio Affinito contributed significantly to the report. The guidance was well-received at the 26th SBSTTA meeting in Nairobi, supporting the Global Biodiversity Framework’s finalization at COP16.
In Davos, Andy co-hosted a well-attended GEO BON workshop with NASA and ESA on designing Biodiversity Observation Networks. The workshop sparked discussions on implementing BONs to support national biodiversity strategies.
I have joined the Gonzalez Lab to contribute to the development of the Canadian Biodiversity Observation Network (CAN BON), where I will work on developing decision support, analysis, and visualization tools regarding biodiversity observation and monitoring in Canada, in close collaboration with many partners and stakeholders.
New efforts are being made for research teams across universities to work on common challenges and help each other in finding solutions to the biodiversity crisis in cities
In Helsinki and Tallinn, I shared GEO BON's efforts to establish a Global Biodiversity Observing System and learned from Finland’s Ecosystem Observatory (FEO) and Biodiversa+ initiatives. These experiences will inform the development of a similar observatory in Canada (CAN BON) and enhance cross-border collaboration in biodiversity monitoring.
Being part of science for action is a major commitment of the Gonzalez lab and we were extremely grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the leading global agreement on conserving biodiversity.
The GEO BON Global Conference 2023 brought together experts and stakeholders from around the world to discuss the theme of Monitoring Biodiversity For Action. A packed four day schedule saw people talk about science, policy, indigenous rights, finance and conservation.
Discover the hidden threat within our ecosystems as the IPBES unveils a groundbreaking Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species (IAS). From economic upheavals to alarming impacts on human health, the report underscores the critical need for global collaboration to prevent further ecological deterioration.
Samara just started her my MSc in the Gonzalez lab, co-supervised by Dr. Laura Pollock. She will be examining connectivity in Quebec and working to understand how species traits combine to create movement eco-profiles that can be used to better support prioritizations of connectivity.
Dr. Oehri will join the lab of Gabriela Schaepman-Strub at University of Zurich, Switzerland, as a postdoctoral researcher, where she continues to work on strengthening national and international science-society-policy collaborations that enable transformative change towards sustainable futures in human-transformed landscapes!
The 2023 ESA annual meeting in Portland, Oregon, saw over 4000 attendees from a broad spectrum of institutions: academic, private, governmental and NGOs. Both Prof. Andy and Flavio (PhD candidate) attended the conference to present the lab’s work to this large audience.
It is crucial that we fill existing gaps in our understanding of biodiversity change across the province. We must provide the science to support decisions in light of the policy to be inscribed in the Plan Nature. Conservation action will flow from different levels of government and a broad network of actors mobilizing their efforts to achieve conservation outcomes by 2030.
A group of biodiversity scientists gathered at the Quadra Centre for Coastal Dialogue on Quadra Island, BC to work on a Canada Biodiversity Observation Network (CAN BON). They discussed how biodiversity observations and monitoring can be brought together to produce statistically robust assessments of biodiversity change over time across Canada.
The network's annual general meeting took place in Quebec in Mt Orford National Park during the first week of May, bringing together scientists from all across the country to discuss their individual progress and the contributions of the whole network to Canadian and international science.
Out of the 242 nominations received, only 45 experts from 30 parties and 15 observer organisations were selected, including Andy Gonzalez who will be representing the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON).
My talk “Biodiversity Science & Solutions for the Anthropocene” conveyed what we know about alarming rates of biodiversity change today and how this knowledge can be mobilized to support biodiversity conservation.
On April 17th, Sam presented her Honours Thesis at the Biology Honours Symposium, which was a full day of presentations from the undergraduate Biology Honours students at McGill. She will be graduating this summer.
Since COP15 in Montreal, new partnerships are being formed worldwide to support the action needed to achieve the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework. While technology has made it easier to communicate with others across the globe, there is no substitute for face-to-face interactions.
Last Monday, Professor Andrew Gonzalez gave a talk at the AI for Good Summit about the role of Artificial Intelligence in monitoring biodiversity change. He proposed the implementation of a framework to guide detection and attribution analyses, where Artificial intelligence can play a strong role.
In this episode “La forêt urbaine” (The urban forest), Professor Gonzalez explains how his work aims to create ecological networks to connect the wooded areas, parks and green spaces of the greater urban community of Montreal to benefit biodiversity.
Flavio’s PhD work focuses on monitoring how the interaction between nature and society is changing. His work is aimed at multiple stakeholders from academics, to the government and First Nations people.
Transferring findings from ecological studies to conservation practices is an attractive challenge to me. Therefore, I come to work with Andy Gonzalez and Laura Pollock as a postdoc, aiming to develop and apply biodiversity models and indicators to support conservation decisions and planning for Canada’s protected area network.
I joined the Gonzalez lab, as I got a post-doc position in the ResNet project, that is partly supervised by Elena Bennett and partly by Andy Gonzalez – which fantastically complements each other.
As a postdoc in the Gonzalez Lab, Chuliang worked to forecast the dynamics of ecological systems under under incomplete information about the entire system. Chuliang is currently a postdoc at Princeton University where he will work on eco-evolutionary dynamics.
By bringing different communities together and creating collaborations between researchers and stakeholders, we can translate science into action and create better urban environements for everyone - from the smallest organism to us humans.
As delegates are negotiating the Global Biodiversity Framework at the COP15 in Montreal, it is becoming more and more urgent to develop a monitoring framework that proposes a suite of indicators by which the Parties can measure progress toward both national and global targets.
In the face of an unprecedented biodiversity crisis, the world is in desperate need of a comprehensive system to monitor and safeguard the planet's precious ecosystems. A groundbreaking initiative called the Global Biodiversity Observing System (GBiOS) offers a glimmer of hope by proposing an interconnected global network to monitor biodiversity changes and guide conservation efforts.