The FOBIMO steering group: Christine Barras¹, Vincent Bouchet², Silvia Hess³, Orit Hyams-Kaphzan⁴, Michael Martinez-Colon⁵, Irina Polovodova-Asteman⁶

¹ University of Angers, France; christine.barrasuniv-angers.fr
² University of Lille, France
³ University of Oslo, Norway
⁴ Geological Survey of Israel, Israel
⁵ Florida A&M University, USA
⁶ University of Göteborg, Sweden; irina.polovodovamarine.gu.se

The international FOBIMO (FOraminiferal-BIoMOnitoring) working group was established in 2011 with the aims (i) to standardize methods for the use of benthic foraminifera in environmental biomonitoring (Schönfeld et al., 2012) and (ii) to unify the effort of “foraminiferologists” to classify foraminiferal species according to their sensitivity to eutrophication and use a common biotic index to assess the Ecological Quality Status (Alve et al., 2016; Jorissen et al., 2018; Bouchet et al. 2021). The group will resume its annual meeting series during TMS Foraminiferal Spring Meetings, this time at the next CFFR-TMS Foraminifera Spring Meeting in Cologne. Due to pandemics all regular FOBIMO meetings could not occur with the latest one being in 2019.

The workshop in Cologne will be an excellent opportunity to once again bring together specialists in biomonitoring studies using benthic foraminifera with early career researchers. It will provide the perfect forum to share our latest advances within environmental survey with foraminifera. Noticeably, the last few years have been blossoming in terms of new techniques; particularly the introduction of eDNA and the automated identification of foraminiferal species. The FOBIMO steering group would like to suggest and discuss possible new FOBIMO-group foci and research questions for the future such as, the comparison of conventional and new methods (faunal assemblage analyses versus environmental DNA techniques), the homogenization of taxonomy or the introduction and use of indicator species. This workshop will be the opportunity to define specific questions together, identify researchers interested to get involved in this team effort and define a working strategy. We will further discuss the best ways to enhance our scientific collaborations and exchanges within the framework of FOBIMO.

All researchers interested/involved/keen to be involved in environmental monitoring using benthic foraminifera as bioindicators are invited to participate in this workshop.