LifeCLEF 2026

LifeCLEF is an international research initiative in the field of biodiversity informatics that organizes yearly challenges on the automated identification and understanding of life forms, particularly using machine learning and computer vision methods. It is part of CLEF (Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum), which organizes benchmark challenges to advance state-of-the-art techniques in information retrieval and data analysis.

Challenges

The 2026 edition of LifeCLEF proposes five data-oriented challenges related to the identification and understanding of biodiversity:

• (i) AnimalCLEF 2026: discovery of individual animals (unsupervised clustering / re-identification),
• (ii) BirdCLEF+ 2026: multi-taxa species identification in soundscape recordings,
• (iii) FathomNetCLEF 2026 : positive-unlabeled object detection in marine images,
• (iv) PestCLEF 2026: information extraction on plant pests from news articles,
• (v) PlantCLEF 2026: multi-species plant identification in quadrat (vegetation plot) images.

Tentative Schedule

• 17 November 2025: Registration opens for all LifeCLEF challenges (registration is free of charge)
• 1 February – 1 March 2026: Competition Start (depending on the competition)
• 23 April 2026: Registration closes for all LifeCLEF challenges
• 7 May 2026: Competition Deadline
• 28 May 2026: Deadline for submission of working note papers by participants [CEUR-WS proceedings]
• 30 June 2026: Notification of acceptance of working note papers [CEUR-WS proceedings]
• 6 July 2026: Camera-ready deadline for working note papers.
• 21-24 Sept 2026: CLEF 2026 Jena - Germany

CLEF Conference, registration and working notes

LifeCLEF lab is part of the Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum (CLEF). More information about CLEF 2026 (Jena, Germany, September 21–24, 2026) can be found on the CLEF 2026 conference website.

Registrations

To take part in one of the LifeCLEF challenges, you must first register for the CLEF 2026 lab registration: CLEF 2026 Labs Registration Form. Note that the lab registration is NOT a registration to the CLEF conference. The lab registration is free of charge and mostly enables you to receive information about the CLEF process (by email). Registration for the conference itself (for a fee) is via the “Register for the Conference” link on the CLEF 2026 website.

Specific procedures for each LifeCLEF challenge (registration in the submission system, access to data, etc.) are given on the respective pages: AnimalCLEF 2026,
BirdCLEF+ 2026, FathomNetCLEF 2026, PestCLEF 2026, and PlantCLEF 2026.

Working notes

Submitting a working note with the full description of the methods used in each run is mandatory. Any run that could not be reproduced thanks to its description in the working notes might be removed from the official publication of the results. Working notes are published within CEUR-WS proceedings and indexed by major bibliography systems.

For detailed instructions, please refer to the CLEF 2026 Submission Instructions page.

LifeCLEF presentation at ECIR 2026

A brief overview of the whole LifeCLEF lab will be presented at
ECIR 2026 (March 29 – April 2, 2026, Delft, The Netherlands).

Organizing Team

Overall coordination

• Alexis Joly, Inria / University of Montpellier, France, alexis.joly@inria.fr
• Lukáš Picek, Inria (France) & University of West Bohemia (Czechia), lukaspicek@gmail.com
• Stefan Kahl, Chemnitz University of Technology (Germany) & Cornell Lab of Ornithology (USA), stefan.kahl@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de
• Hervé Goëau, CIRAD, France, herve.goeau@cirad.fr

AnimalCLEF

• Lukáš Adam, University of West Bohemia, Czechia, lukas.adam.cr@gmail.com
• Lukáš Picek, Inria (France) & University of West Bohemia (Czechia), lukas.picek@inria.fr
• Kostas Papafitsoros, Queen Mary University of London, UK, k.papafitsoros@qmul.ac.uk
• Dean Williams, Texas Christian University, Texas, USA, dean.williams@tcu.edu
• Daniella Biffi, Texas Christian University, Texas, USA, d.biffi@tcu.edu

BirdCLEF+

• Stefan Kahl, Chemnitz University of Technology (Germany) & Cornell Lab of Ornithology (USA), stefan.kahl@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de
• Holger Klinck, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, USA, holger.klinck@cornell.edu
• Willem-Pier Vellinga, Xeno-Canto Foundation, The Netherlands, wp@xeno-canto.org
• Robert Planqué, Xeno-Canto Foundation, The Netherlands, bob@xeno-canto.org
• Tom Denton, Google LLC, USA, tmd@google.com

FathomNetCLEF (MarineCLEF)

• Laura Chrobak, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), USA, lchrobak@mbari.org
• Kevin Barnard, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), USA, kbarnard@mbari.org

PestCLEF

• Robert Bossy, INRAE, France, Robert.Bossy@inrae.fr
• Claire Nédellec, INRAE / Paris-Saclay University, France, claire.nedellec@inrae.fr
• Louise Deléger, INRAE / Paris-Saclay University, France, louise.deleger@inrae.fr
• Marine Courtin, INRAE / Paris-Saclay University, France, marine.courtin@inrae.fr

PlantCLEF

• Hervé Goëau, CIRAD, France, herve.goeau@cirad.fr
• Giulio Martellucci, INRAE, France, giulio.martellucci@inrae.fr
• llyass Moummad, Inria, France, ilyass.moummad@inria.fr
• Pierre Bonnet, CIRAD, France, pierre.bonnet@cirad.fr
• Fabrice Vinatier, INRAE, France, fabrice.vinatier@inrae.fr

Credits