The importance of genomic (including metabarcoding and metagenomics) and bioinformatics research area in the assessment, understanding, monitoring and preservation of biodiversity is continuously growing. It constitutes an important asset for LifeWatch ERIC, which will greatly benefit for coordination of the major research groups that are active in this research area in the different LifeWatch ERIC national nodes.
To this aim, LifeWatch ERIC is organizing with CIBIO-InBIO and LifeWatch Portugal (PORBIOTA) at the University of Porto a first brainstorming between the key research groups that in the national LifeWatch ERIC nodes are active on genomic approaches to biodiversity assessment, understanding, monitoring and preservation. Furthermore, we will explore interactions with other communities using genomic tools in ecological research and environmental monitoring. Overall, the meeting aims to explore how LifeWatch ERIC can integrate online bioinformatics pipelines in its Virtual Research Environment, which can then be used by the wider scientific community for research and applications in the fields of biodiversity survey and environmental biomonitoring.
We would like to invite you to join us for this brainstorming meeting that will be held at CIBIO-InBIO headquarters in Campus de Vairão, Vila do Conde, just north of Porto (https://cibio.up.pt/how-to-get-here ), on February 26-28, 2020 (from 2pm of the first day to 2pm of the last).