BioDiMoBot at BioMonWeek 2026

Our partner SYRION presented BioDiMoBot at Europe's inaugural Biodiversity Monitoring Week Conference (4–8 May, Montpellier, France).

BioMonWeek 2026 marked a landmark moment: the very first edition of a conference dedicated entirely to biodiversity monitoring across Europe. Co-organized by Biodiversa+, GBIF, MARCO-BOLO, BioAgora, and the Alliance for Nature, it brought together researchers, monitoring professionals, policymakers, private sector actors, and students under one roof in Montpellier — a city renowned for its ecological richness on the edge of the Camargue and Languedoc wetlands.

Unlike traditional scientific conferences, BioMonWeek was designed as a meeting place for the entire monitoring community: a space to align methods, share infrastructure, and build the transnational cooperation that biodiversity science urgently needs. Keynotes and plenary sessions were also livestreamed and open to the public online.

BioDiMoBot was represented with a talk entitled "BioDiMoBot: Autonomous Robotic Monitoring for Aquatic Biodiversity - A Science–Industry Partnership", delivered by Dr. Werner Rom (SYRION) as part of the thematic cluster on Capacity Building in Monitoring, within the session "Tech or No Tech? How NatureTech Can Leverage Traditional Surveys". The presentation highlighted the key advantages of BioDiMoBot's autonomous and flexible monitoring approach - which attracted widespread interest at the conference. It also showcased several noteworthy aspects and innovations: the monitoring of Daphnia and bivalve behavior as ecologically meaningful proxy signals of water quality and environmental stress; the use of sounds from aquatic organisms for acoustic localization and species identification; and a novel approach to applying ML/AI for underwater image recognition called DEEP-SEA, which has already yielded outstanding results.

BioDiMoBot was also actively represented in numerous workshops throughout the conference: in the cluster event "The Landscape of EU Monitoring", attended by 11 representatives of the European Commission and delegates from numerous European R&D projects, as well as in the workshops "Boosting Science–Industry Partnerships for Underwater Biodiversity Monitoring" and "From Freshwater Biodiversity Monitoring to

Conservation Actions and Policy". This enabled BioDiMoBot to significantly expand its network and, beyond the scientific and policy communities, to actively elevate the potential role of the private sector by advancing its vision for the large-scale deployment of autonomous robotic water monitoring systems.

Photo credit: Werner Rom (SYRION)

A definite highlight of the conference: a visit to the Étang de Méjean (Méjean Lagoon) with its remarkable habitats - salt meadows, reedbeds, and glasswort marshes - and a diverse birdlife including greater flamingos, white storks, and glossy ibises.

As announced at the close of this year's conference, the next BioMonWeek — conceived as a recurring biennial event with a dedicated focus on European monitoring needs and priorities, and as a platform to promote collaboration, share best practices, and celebrate achievements — will take place in Finland in 2028.

Written by: Dr. Werner Rom