News

Society

New President and Executive Committee of the International Bio-Logging Society announced at BLS8!

Dear Colleagues and Society Members,

Following the online elections, open to all Society Members, the new President and Executive Committee of the Society have accepted their appointment and are ready to kick off!

At BLS8, the first President of the IBioLS, Prof. Christian Rutz, gave an address to thank the Executive Committee Members, Guests, and Helpers who worked hard to launch the Society in what turned out to be a 7-year term due to the pandemic. Despite the difficult times, many extraordinary results were achieved thanks to their dedicated and generous efforts. Thanks again to the President, Vice-President, Executive Committee Members, Guests and Helpers 2017-2024!

The new President-elect, Dr Francesca Cagnacci, was announced, and the newly elected Members of the Executive Committee introduced to the community:

Taiki Adachi
Nyambayar Batbayar
Emily Bennitt
Marianna Chimienti
Sarah Davidson
Maria Guerisoli
Suresh Kumar
Mary-Anne Lea
Matthias Loretto
Monica Muelbert
Katsufumi Sato
Marlee Tucker
Mia Wege

The Executive Committee will soon be joined by Guests and Helpers. Stay tuned for news on the Society’s Team and agenda!

Symposium

The 8th International bio-logging science symposium

Tokyo, March 2024

We are excited to announce that the 8th International Bio-Logging Science Symposium (BLS8) will be held from March 4-8, 2024, in Tokyo, Japan!

The first International Bio-Logging Science Symposium was held in Tokyo in March 2003. The 2003 Symposium coined the term ‘Bio-Logging’ and spurred international collaborations among scientists working mainly on marine animals. Nearly 20 years have passed since then, and six BLS Symposia have been held across the globe (St. Andrews, Pacific Grove, Hobart, Strasbourg, Konstanz, and Honolulu).

‘Bio-Logging Science’ has now flourished across diverse research fields, not only in marine but also in terrestrial research fields. The recent coronavirus pandemic has compromised our research activities in the remote field sites, but it has also inspired the development of enhanced community-wide collaborations such as COVID-19 Bio-Logging Initiatives. It is timely to hold the 8th BLS Symposium in Tokyo again to reflect on our achievements during the last 20 years, and to look ahead to the future of Bio-Logging Science!
Project

COvid-19 bio-logging initiative

The International Bio-Logging Society, together with several partner organizations, has launched the COVID-19 Bio-Logging Initiative to investigate global wildlife responses to altered levels of human activity during the pandemic. The ultimate goal of the Initiative is to use bio-logging data collected before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown to advance our understanding of human–wildlife interactions and to inform global efforts to foster sustainable human–wildlife coexistence. We have outlined our vision for this work programme on “anthropause” effects in a recent open-access comment article.

Following an open call for collaboration, we now have a global consortium of >600 partners investigating how animals responded to pandemic lockdowns, which is now endorsed as a UN Ocean Decade project. In a remarkable collaborative effort, the community has pooled >1 billion location fixes for ~13,000 tagged animals across ~200 terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic species in shared bio-logging databases, such as Movebank, enabling the launch of a rich portfolio of coordinated sub-projects.