How to do Synthesis

Many researchers in iDiv are using synthesis as a way to identify general patterns emerging across different taxa, ecosystems and geographic regions, as well as to explore variation around general patterns. Given the potential for far-reaching inferences, syntheses can address urgent questions about global biodiversity change and their findings may feed into high-level policy decision-making. However, conducting a synthesis of datasets involves many, often subjective, decisions about which data to include, how and whether to harmonise data, how to integrate data and what tools to use for evidence synthesis, and how to communicate results, especially with respect to scale and generalizability.

In this workshop, we hope to combine and distill the experiences of different iDiv researchers, in particular, about how they have tackled the challenges associated with synthesis. Whilst many analytical aspects, e.g., how different statistical approaches weight evidence and what that means for inference, are relevant for synthesis on any topic, we will focus our examples around synthesis for biodiversity change research.