Description
Restoration ecology often suffers from a disconnect between the availability of scientific evidence and the specific, site-level questions faced by practitioners. While high-level syntheses provide general guidance, practitioners frequently require precise answers to localized problems—for example, "What is the most effective method for managing European Buckthorn in a Carolinian grassland?" To address this, we propose a collaborative workshop designed to identify and prioritize the high-value questions that should drive the development of the EcoWeaver knowledge graph.
Drawing on Bill Sutherland’s environmental scan approach, this session will assemble a diverse group of restoration researchers and practitioners to iteratively identify, refine, and rank evidence needs specific to their ecosystem types. By systematically surfacing the "unanswered" questions of the field, the workshop aims to create a prioritized research and synthesis agenda that informs the architecture of EcoWeaver. Rather than relying on top-down priorities, this process ensures that the resulting knowledge graph is grounded in the actual needs of those implementing restoration on the ground.
The output of the session will be a ranked list of evidence gaps that will be directly integrated into the EcoWeaver framework, transforming the graph from a theoretical exercise into a tool for actionable local intelligence. Participants will leave with a shared understanding of the current evidence landscape and a direct role in shaping a digital tool designed to reduce the research-practice gap in restoration ecology.
| Topic | Topic 4: Can knowledge graphs and AI-based synthesis improve ecological synthesis? |
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