Azorean Biodiversity Portal

The Autonomous Region of the Azores is a remote archipelago consisting of nine islands in the Atlantic Ocean, 1,360 km from the coast of Portugal. The Azorean Biodiversity Portal (ABP), a key infrastructure for the integrated management of biodiversity data in the Azores, is now associated with PORBIOTA, the building block of LifeWatch Portugal, and therefore with LifeWatch ERIC.

LifeWatch ERIC’s offer to its users will now been widened thanks to ABP and its opportunities. The 3,000 visits per day, the numerous international scientific collaborations, resulting in publications and academic theses, and the connection with other prestigious databases demonstrate the Portal’s value to the LifeWatch ERIC scientific community, as well as its general appeal.

Hosted by the University of Azores and funded 85/15 by European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) and Azorean public funds through Operational Program Azores 2020, the ABP provides an original platform for biogeographical and macroecological research on the islands, which are among the richest regions in Europe as regards fungi, plant and animal diversity. 

By fostering the mobilization of biodiversity data on a regional level, ABP stands as a valuable tool to raise awareness of biodiversity on a global scale and to promote the development of knowledge in this field and its dissemination.

ABP was the first Biodiversity Portal in Portugal when it was established in 2008, and provides not only taxonomic and occurrence data, but also images of most species in a temporal scope from as far back as 1,443. These days it is recognised as a valuable outreach, management and conservation tool for everyone working in the research and conservation of biodiversity. 

The Portal features over 2.4 million records of taxonomic distribution information on around 5,000 species, including 1,332,681 occurrences of plants, 1,051,476 of animals, and 24,258 of fungi. As such, it is a unique resource for fundamental research in systematics, biodiversity, education and conservation management in the Azores.

LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative

Non-indigenous and Invasive species (NIS) are considered a major threat to biodiversity around the globe: they can impact ecosystems in many ways by outcompeting or predating on native species. Who has not heard of the Burmese pythons in Florida that eat alligators? The negative impact of imported rats and cats that have decimated island fauna populations? However, the long-term impacts of NIS on ecosystem integrity are poorly explored, and policy-makers are often left without sufficient information to make wise management decisions.

In the belief that the first steps in tackling biodiversity loss must be to improve our knowledge by developing better inter-disciplinary paradigms, LifeWatch ERIC is launching an exciting new Internal Joint Initiative (IJI), involving the scientific communities of National Nodes and other European Research Infrastructures, that will thoroughly describe the issues involved in ecosystem and habitat type vulnerability, and produce future scenarios under changing vectors to help decision-makers combat the impacts of climate change. 

The LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative will combine data, semantic resources, data management services, and data analysis and modelling from its seven member countries – Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain – to bring together national assets on a scale never attempted before. This integration of Common Facilities and National Nodes will provide the comprehensive and synthetic knowledge so much needed by institutions and administrators.

By deploying and publishing on the LifeWatch ERIC web portal the federated resources and e-Tools and e-Resources, the Internal Joint Initiative will also define the requirements and architecture of the LifeWatch ERIC virtual research environments, and provide a clear demonstration of the Infrastructure’s added value for researchers in addressing specific biodiversity and ecosystem management issues. 

Non-indigenous and Invasive Species are a global problem. They are distributed among most plant and animal taxa, and present a number of key issues that remain challenging for both researchers and policy-makers. The knowledge produced by the Internal Joint Initiative will thus be of global significance. It is to be hoped that this demonstration case will be seen to have scientific and socio-economic implications for many different fields of investigation over the coming decades.

Portugal joins LifeWatch ERIC

Photo credit: César Garcia

Portugal is the most recent member of LifeWatch ERIC. LifeWatch Portugal is managed at a national level by PORBIOTA – e-Infrastructure Portuguese Information and Research in Biodiversity, led by CIBIO-InBIO, the Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources. The integration into LifeWatch reinforces and projects onto an international scale the contribution of our country to understanding the factors that threaten biodiversity and ecosystems as key elements for the well-being and development of society.

By joining LifeWatch ERIC, Portuguese researchers in the field of biodiversity will be part of an important international research network and unique computing resources that will enable them to explore new frontiers and applications of science relevant to meet key societal challenges. At the same time, they will contribute with their experience and knowledge to reinforce LifeWatch ERIC’s impact, for instance, by taking part in the development of innovative models for mobilizing and processing biodiversity information.

Towards a cultural change | First LifeWatch ERIC Scientific Community Meeting

The Scientific Community Meeting held in Rome from 27 – 29 May 2019 was designed to bring together the wider LifeWatch ERIC scientific communities of researchers and developers to generate and advance the discussion of the most promising lines of scientific development. In the view of the conference coordinator, Alberto Basset, Interim Director of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre in Lecce and Professor of Ecology at the University of Salento, the 3-day event hosted by the Italian National Research Council, leader of the Italian contribution to the infrastructure, “was a great success”.

A truly international event, the meeting boasted 150 participants from 12 different countries which, thanks to the contributions given by LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities and National Nodes (Belgium, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain), delivered to its participants a rich programme featuring 20 plenary sessions and 40 presentations in working sessions. The Scientific Community Meeting was the first of its kind and ended in widespread positive feedback and calls for greater interdisciplinary cooperation.

The three days were structured around the three complimentary strands of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Theory, Marine Biodiversity & Ecosystem Functioning, and Data, Modelling & Supporting Disruptive Technologies. There was widespread appreciation of the e-Science capabilities that LifeWatch ERIC provides, and agreement that the architecture is flexible with a user-friendly interface.

Many technologies and innovative case studies were also on display: from remote sensor monitoring of fauna and flora populations, to collecting data on marine life. But beyond gizmos, the working groups ended up agreeing on the need for collaboration, to work across borders and to use metadata to create user stories that everyone can relate to, to create greater common understanding.

Over these three days in Rome, LifeWatch ERIC has moved closer to identifying major gaps in scientific knowledge that need to be addressed, has emphasised key societal challenges that biodiversity and ecosystem science are required to address, gathered indications of the services and VRE developments that user communities need, proposed innovative approaches, like the use of blockchain, and has identified the need to reinforce collaboration and trust. 

LifeWatch ERIC CEO, Christos Arvanitidis, closed proceedings by saying that the processes of life on this planet are complex; that we need complex infrastructures to model and understand that complexity, a task which no country can do alone; and that the scientific community has a responsibility to answer global concerns about climate change. He concluded, “We will use all our arsenal to integrate everything we have and try to give a synthetic knowledge to many more recipients, so we can make a proper response to society. All disciplines need to come together with open communication.”

You can find all of the presentations from the meeting on the minisite: www.lifewatch.eu/scientific-community-meeting