UKCEH at the British Ecological Society Meeting 2025

UKCEH had a great week at BES 2025. We hosted an exhibition stand funded by NC-UK where we invited conference attendees to help shape the future of environmental monitoring. These conversations form part of a wider ambition to build a vision for an Integrated Environmental Monitoring Network (IEMN) that supports science, policy and community action, and connects environmental data across the UK..

UKCEH scientists showcased innovations like LepiSense for automated moth monitoring and hosted several workshops, talks and posters.

Highlights from BES included:
•    Demonstrations of LepiSense on the UKCEH exhibition stand by Tom August, Helen Roy and Rob Cooke, showing how AI and low-cost sensors can enhance insect monitoring
•    An insights workshop hosted by Francesca Mancini, exploring perspectives on building a UK Biodiversity Observation Network (UK-BON) that links data across species, habitats and ecosystems
•    An interactive engagement activity capturing views on community monitoring, including a short survey and a live map showing where and what is being monitored across the UK
•    Open discussions with the ecological and monitoring community on developing an IEMN that is collaborative, scalable and aligned with user needs.

UKCEH is strengthening environmental monitoring with smarter, joined-up observation of land, freshwater, and air across the UK. Using advanced sensors, AI, and adaptive sampling, we aim to support science, policy, and industry.

Help Shape the Future of Environmental Monitoring

Take our short survey and share your views:
•    What data or tools would be most helpful to you?
•    How can access to environmental data be improved?
•    What do you see as the main benefits of an integrated monitoring network?
•    What are the main challenges you face in relation to environmental data?

Explore our data on land, freshwater and air.

•    View our data video guides – access training videos on how to use our data
•    Access our data through our National Capability data page

Tuesday 16 December

• Dancing with the Devil: does working with business and finance create solutions to the biodiversity crisis or facilitate greenwashing? James Bullock (UKCEH) and Hazel Normal (British Ecological Society)

Wednesday 17 December

• Towards a UK Biodiversity Observation Network: Francesca Mancini and Nick Isaac

Tuesday 16 December

• Hawthorn shrub allometry and U-net modelling to derive biomass and carbon from affordable UAV observations: France Gerard
• How Might Digital Tools Help Us and Nature Stay Healthy? Jan Dick
• The roles of space and food web complexity in mediating ecological recovery: Klementyna Gawecka

Wednesday 17 December

Peatlands in Flux: Land Use, Ecosystem Processes, and Microbial Drivers of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Falkland Islands: Katy Ross

Thursday 18 December

• Pluralakes: visioning positive lake futures in contested landscapes. The case of the lakes in the Lake District National Park, UK: Heather Moorhouse
• Farmer citizen science: co-designing AI-assisted moth monitoring on farms: Abigail Lowe
• Multi-scale habitat selection of foraging seabirds within a tidal stream environment: Tom Gale
• An energy-based framework exploring the potential of regenerative agriculture for increasing soil health: Sabine Reinsch
• Keynote: Presidential Address & Closing Remarks: Bridget Emmett

Tuesday 16 December

• A new treescape typology for Great Britain incorporating tree cover, connectivity and landscape: Merryn Hunt
• Sustrans Wales Biodiversity Assessment: A Case Study in Quantifying Potential BNG Uplift: Russell Stevens
• Modelling spatially explicit scenarios of UK Net Zero land use change: John Redhead
• Common traits of invasive non-native species identified through horizon scanning in Great Britain: Emily Williams
• Determining dispersal distances in Dipterocarpaceae: an analysis of seedlings, juveniles and adult trees in Malaysian Borneo: Fiona Seaton
• An open-source approach to assessing drought risk to vegetation productivity: Vasilis Myrgiotis
• Predicting tick-borne disease risk to guide interventions in the UK and Europe: Richard Hassall
• Evolution is Bayesian: Peter Levy

Wednesday 17 December

• Insects underpin vertebrate biodiversity through diverse ecological roles: Rob Cooke
• Parasitoid evasion continues in Harmonia axyridis’ invaded range: Robin Hutchinson
• The role of monitoring sound in long-term socio-ecological research networks: Jan Dick
• Ecological monitoring in Wales: innovations in data capture in the ERAMMP field survey: Claire Wood
• Recovery of South and Southeast Asia’s tropical forests through the lens of tree functional traits: Lindsay Banin
• Tree flowering reduced by forest disturbance: an example from the 2019 mass flowering event in Danum Valley, Malaysian Borneo: Matúš Seči