It was great to see many of you at the recent International Congress for Conservation Biology. Several Planet Research Data Commons (Planet RDC) projects presented, including WildObs, EcoCommons Australia and Open Ecoacoustics.
In this update from the Planet RDC, we provide an update on our Environmental Indicators Initiative, congratulate Professor Richard Kingsford AO, and share the latest news from our programs.
The Environmental Indicators Initiative (EII) is progressing toward its goal of enabling a nationally coordinated, inclusive, and scalable infrastructure to support biodiversity and ecosystem indicators. Recent efforts have focused on synthesising input from our latest co-design workshop with important stakeholders from government agencies, research organisations, and data providers to inform the roadmap of the project. The project aims to align with international frameworks such as Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), while also leveraging existing national infrastructure, to avoid duplication and maximise interoperability. A report from the co-design workshop will be released soon, so stay tuned.
The AusTraits project continues to make great strides for Australian researchers via plant traits data. This month, the project team commenced the first iteration of a ShinyApp Data Portal, which will make searching across the vast array of trait data more user-friendly. The project team also reached a consensus with government agencies and herbaria on trait data pipelines that focus on fire response, e.g. resprouting capacity, reproductive maturity, and time to flowering post-fire. Further information is available on the project page.
We are excited to congratulate Professor Richard Kingsford, UNSW, on being awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2025 Australia Day Honours for distinguished service to conservation biology, environmental sustainability research, freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems governance.
Professor Kingsford leads the ARDC Planet Research Data Commons project, Gayini Data Hub. This project is establishing data, analytics and governance infrastructure that enables discovery, access and reuse of trusted data across multiple providers for environmental management, decision making and research in an area of significant environmental value. Professor Kingsford is also involved in the Environmental Indicators Initiative, discussed above.
The ARDC Award for New Developers of Open Source Software in Ecology was established in partnership with the Ecological Society of Australia to encourage new open source software development from the Australian community. It aims to support efforts to develop and share methodology, models and data in ecology and management of Australia’s ecological communities. It will also focus on supporting researchers new to software development. Submit your application by 31 July 2025.
This Planet Research Data Commons program provides shared national infrastructure, services and standards to enable processing of ecoacoustic and camera trap data via 2 projects: Open Ecoacoustics and WildObs. Read the updates from the program steering committee in the latest communique.
Watch the recording of the first Open Ecoacoustics webinar, where researchers share how they use ecoacoustic recordings to understand the endangered Pink Cockatoo, detect threatened and invasive species, and understand how birds respond to fire. Featuring Lola Lange (QUT), Slade Allen-Ankins (JCU) and Karen Rowe (Museums Victoria Research Institute). Watch the recording.
Join the next Open Ecoacoustics webinar on 31 July – BirdNET: Tips, Tricks, and Insights for Ecoacoustic Analysis. Philip Eichinski (QUT), Dr Nina Scarpelli (CSIRO and Museums Victoria) and Callan Alexander ( QUT) will share how they use BirdNET to identify species vocalisations from acoustic monitoring and answer your questions. Register now.
In November, the Open Ecoacoustics team will hold a workshop at the Acoustics 2025 and co-lead a symposium at Australasian Ornithological Conference (AOC) 2025. On 17 November, between these 2 conferences, the team will lead a workshop on the Ecoacoustics platform – register your interest here.
The ARDC and partners are adopting the dataspaces model to create trusted ecosystems for secure data exchange between research, industry and government in Australia.
To validate the dataspaces concept within the Australian context, 3 pilot projects are underway, building on existing work in our Planet Research Data Commons for earth and environmental science research:
We also invite you to learn the core concepts behind dataspaces in a 2-day Dataspace Fundamentals course on 22 to 23 July, delivered by SQS Spain, an International Data Spaces Association (IDSA)-approved training provider. Learn more.
Please encourage your colleagues to register their interest in the Planet Research Data Commons to receive regular updates.
Read on to discover the latest news, upcoming events, recent publications, new resources and items open for submission.
Kind regards,
Hamish Holewa
Director, Planet Research Data Commons
ARDC
Use new and recently updated resources from the ARDC.
The first release of tagged camera trap images from ARDC-supported WildObs is now live. This dataset features expertly labelled images of Australian wildlife in the Wet Tropics, captured and tagged by quantitative wildlife ecologist and WildObs team member Zachary Amir. Each image includes rich metadata, species ID, date, time, and location, making it a high-quality, standardised resource for:
Watch the recording of a webinar hosted by the Australian Chief Protection Officer about ARDC-supported Biosecurity Commons. Biosecurity Commons is an open-access, cloud-based platform used by hundreds of researchers and decision makers to model and analyse biosecurity risk and response. Watch the recording.
Biosecurity Commons is an ARDC-supported decision-support platform for modelling and analysing biosecurity risk and response. In its latest newsletter, learn about the new Risk Mapping explainer, several new quick start guides, and improvements to Surveillance Design. Learn more.
In this notebook, EcoCommons explores getting species location data from different global data collections using only one package. Learn how to use ‘spocc’ R package functions to query and unify species records across global databases, ideal for species mapping, ecological analysis and Species Distribution Models. Read the notebook.
16 Jul
ARDC National Skills Forum: Growing and Adapting to New Audiences and Scales
24 Jul
TechTalk 29: It’s all About Data – Improving Data Access in AuScope Portal
31 July
BirdNET: Tips, Tricks, and Insights for Ecoacoustic Analysis
Getting Started with the Nectar Research Cloud
17 to 19 Sept
Research Software Asia Australia Conference – proposals close 22 June
13 – 16 Oct
2025 International Data Week – Join the Planet RDC at a panel session on Monday 13 October, and at the ARDC booth.
20 – 24 Oct
2025 eResearch Australasia Conference – abstracts close 6 June
10 – 12 Nov
Australian Data Science Network (ADSN) Conference 2025
12 to 14 Nov
17 Nov
Open Ecoacoustics Requirements Workshop – register your interest
18 – 20 Nov
Australasian Ornithological Conference 2025
23 – 28 Nov
Read recent journal papers acknowledging ARDC services and ARDC-supported platforms and data assets. When you acknowledge the ARDC, you support our ongoing sustainability.
Wang et al. Complete genome sequence of Rhodococcus qingshengii strain R isolated from Antarctic soil. Microbiology Resource Announcements
Used ARDC-supported Australian BioCommons Bring Your Own Data (BYOD) Expansion.
Damerow et al. Opening doors to physical sample tracking and attribution in Earth and environmental sciences. Scientific Data
Mentions the ARDC and CSIRO-facilitated Information Management for Physical Samples Community of Practice.
The ARDC Award for New Developers of Open Source Software in Ecology was established to encourage new open source software development from the Australian community. It aims to support efforts to develop and share methodology, models and data in ecology and management of Australia’s ecological communities. It will also focus on supporting researchers new to software development. Submit your application by 31 July 2025.
Those involved in crisis and emergency management are invited to complete a global survey that aims to identify the data needs and barriers faced by stakeholders – including first responders, policymakers, and data professionals – during disaster and crisis situations.
This global survey is a collaboration between researchers from Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), CODATA, Research Data Alliance, and Middle East Technical University, with support from the RDA-CODATA Data Systems, Tools, and Services (DSTS) for Crisis Situations Working Group.
Findings from the survey will help the working group to develop recommendations on the role of data and data systems in disaster response and recovery. Complete the survey.
The Research Software Asia Australia Conference 2025 (RSAA25) will be held online from 17 to 19 September under the theme “Connecting with Community”, exploring how research software practitioners collaborate, build networks, and develop sustainable solutions.
You are invited to present insights, experiences, and innovations on the second day of RSAA25. Submit an abstract by 22 June 2025.
This update is sent to all those who registered their interest in the Planet Research Data Commons. To register for updates, please complete the form below.
