October 10 & 11, 2024
Penn State University, State College, PA
The EcoSpatial Summit
Spatial Data Analysis and Visualization for Bees and Beyond
About the event
The EcoSpatial summit brings together both experts and novices to foster knowledge sharing, collaboration, and innovation around applications of the spatial datasets featured in the Beescape platform and beyond to ecosystem services and conservation. Participants can expect insightful talks from experts, engaging discussions on the latest trends and developments, interactive workshops to access Beescape data for research applications, and networking opportunities to connect with other researchers.
The summit is organized into three theme areas
Data Applications
Discover research that showcases the use of spatial datasets included in Beescape to understand ecological communities and populations as well as the services they deliver
Allied Platforms
Hear about lessons learned from other public facing-platforms that also aim to visualize spatial data and provide decision support tools
New Frontiers
Engage with researchers who are developing new ecological spatial data frameworks and connections to envision a new suite of functionalities for Beescape and other ecospatial data platforms
About Beescape
Beescape is a web-based tool developed by Penn State University to help beekeepers, gardeners, urban planners, growers, researchers, and land managers assess the quality of their landscapes for supporting bees and other pollinators. Bees can fly up to 3 miles (5 kilometers) from their nest to find food, and Beescape provides an easy way for you to explore the landscapes surrounding your location.
We hope to foster use of Beescape data by the research community and learn more about the features researchers value.
Event Organizers
Heather Grab
Assistant Professor
Penn State University
Co-developer of BeeShiny. Evaluating land use and climate impacts on pests and beneficial arthropods
in agroecosystems
Kevin Li
SCINet/ORISE
Postdoctoral Fellow
USDA-ARS
Co-developer of BeeShiny. Developing machine learning methods to optimize multiple ecosystem
services in agricultural landscapes.
For questions about the event or BeeShiny please contact Kevin and Heather at ecospatialsummit@gmail.com
Featured Speakers
Melanie Kammerer
Geospatial Data Scientist
EcoData Technology
Expertise leveraging spatial data to support on-the-ground tools for conservation and agriculture
Eric Lonsdorf
Assistant Professor
Emory Univesity
Senior Fellow
Natural Capital Project
Building ecological models in conservation and natural resources for decision-makers faced with uncertainty and with
limited resources
Sarah Goslee
Research Ecologist
USDA ARS
Co-developed of BeeShiny. Landscape ecologist developing data science approaches to study agroecosystem
diversity
Maggie Douglas
Assistant Professor
Dickinson College
Creating tools to map pesticides and measure their effects for conservation and management
in agroecosystems
Vikas Khanna
Professor
University of Pittsburgh
Developing systems-based approaches for understanding sustainability and resilience
in engineered and
natural systems
Dave McLaughlin
Geospatial Data
Visualization Engineer
Institute for Computational
and Data Sciences
Penn State University
Communicating science through interactive cartography and data visualization
Anthony Robinson
Professor
Director GeoGraphics Lab
Penn State University
Designing and evaluating geovisualization tools to improve geographic information utility and usability
Lindsie McCabe
Research Entomologist
USDA ARS
Pollinating Insect Research Unit
Understanding how bees are distributed across landscapes and the drivers of their distributions
John Kartesz
Director
Biota of N. America Program
Peter Raven Award Recipient
Cataloging and mapping the diversity and distributions
for the comprehensive
flora of North America.
Mae Lacey
Data Scientist
Conservation Science Partners
Applying GIS to understand species distributions, measure climate impacts on wildlife, identify key biodiversity conservation areas, and tell stories of conservation
through spatial data.
Pablo
Moreno García
Postdoctoral Associate
University of Arizona
Understanding and forecasting the effects of global environmental change on biodiversity, phenology, and species interactions
Hannah
Gaines-Day
Research Scientist
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Evaluating the impacts of
land use patterns on managed and wild pollinators in agroecosystems
Lauren
Oldham Jaromczyk
Data Visualization Developer
Lab of Ornithology
Cornell University
Creating interactive data visualizations to explore wildlife occurrence data in
a dynamic, data-driven
manner
Sara Emery
Assistant Professor
Cornell University
Leveraging historic pest monitoring data to understand landscape, management and environmental drivers of population and
phenological variability
Elias Bloom
Postdoctoral Associate
Cornell University
Exploring the interaction between local and landscape scale drivers of insect communities in agroecosystems
Participate
Hands on Opportunity for Early Access to BeeShiny
BeeShiny is an app built in the R Shiny environment that allows researchers to explore and batch download data associated with Beescape. Summit participants will get first access to explore the app during the event with guidance from the developers.
Expand your network with a Flash Talk
Share your ideas with your fellow participants to ignite new collaborations and get feedback. Even early stage ideas are welcome! Participants who sign up to deliver a flash talk will have one slide and two-three minutes to pitch their work. The idea is to spark new conversations and connections rather than explain it all in one talk.
Travel Information
Event Address
300 Science Park Rd, State College, PA 16801
Hotel Block @ The Graduate
Reserve a room in our block at The Graduate by calling +1 814-231-2100 and using the reference “PSU Ecospatial Summit” or use this link by September 9th
Check out these other attractions
Participating safely in-person
Penn State strongly encourages all participants to follow CDC guidelines for preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses such as COVID-19 which includes staying up to date on immunizations, avoiding gatherings if you have been exposed and choosing to wear a mask and other strategies.
Summit Agenda
Note: agenda may be subject to change. A final agenda will be provided to registered attendees at the event
Thursday October 10th, 2024
09:00 Introduction to Beescape and workshop – Christina Grozinger, Penn State
09:20 Bringing the view from above down to earth: integrating land cover and vegetation data to estimate resources
for pollinators – Melanie Kammerer, EcoData Technology
09:50 Putting pesticides on the map for pollinator research and conservation – Maggie Douglas, Dickinson College
10:20 Nesting and forage – Eric Lonsdorf, Emory University
10:50 Coffee break
11:00 Mapping the economic value of insect-mediated pollination service – Vikas Khanna, University of Pittsburgh
11:30 Flash talks
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Introduction to BeeShiny app and data applications speakers
14:10 Where should I put my honey bees? Exploring variation in pesticide contamination, nutritional quality, and
diversity of pollen collected by honey bees in Wisconsin landscapes –
Hannah Gaines-Day, University of Wisconsin-Madison
14:30 Synergism between local‐and landscape‐level pesticides reduces wild bee floral visitation in pollinator‐
dependent crops – Eli Bloom, Cornell University
14:50 Filling in the gaps: Using habitat to predict range distribution of wild bee species –
Lindsie McCabe, USDA ARS
15:10 Coffee break
15:20 Panel Discussion – working with landscape data
15:50 Workshop – using BeeShiny to download data layers and work with them
18:00 Dinner on your own
Friday October 11th, 2024
09:00 Introduction to Allied Platforms
09:10 Beescape NexGen: Developing and Evaluating Web Mapping Tools for Pollinator Ecology –
Dave McLaughlin, Penn State & Anthony Robinson, Penn State
09:40 Interactive data visualization for conservation: Current applications and interdisciplinary opportunities –
Mae Lacey, Conservation Science Partners
10:00 Pollinator Pathways: Using Graph Analytics, Generative AI, and Spatial Tools for Conservation –
Izzy Hill, USDA Office of the Chief Scientist & Victoria Anderson, Esri
10:20 eBird Status and Trends Visualization: Successes and Pitfalls of Multi-Resolution Map Data –
Lauren Oldham Jaromczyk, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
10:40 Coffee break
10:50 Panel Discussion – Allied platforms: lessons and challenges
11:10 Flash talks
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Introduction to New Frontiers
14:10 Proper Places for Plants, Pollinators, and People – Sarah Goslee, USDA ARS
14:40 Using community-data to assess plant-pollinator interactions –
Pablo Moreno Garcia, University of Arizona
15:00 The Pest Control Living Database: integrating pest monitoring and remote sensing data for better predictions
Sara Emery, Cornell University
15:20 Digital North American Floristics at Your Fingertips – John Kartesz, Biota of North America Program (BONAP)
15:40 Panel Discussion – New frontiers
16:00 Coffee break
16:10 Flash talks or additional workshop time
17:00 Conclusion
Registration for the event is now full!
Please contact ecospatialsummit@gmail.com
Supported by the USDA NIFA Data Science for Food and Agricultural Systems Program project 2021-67021-34146