Ecological Responses to Climate Change

Ecological responses to climate change: implications on human well-being

Resources

Antonello Provenzale & Alberto Basset

Welcome and Introduction to LifeWatch Thematic Core Service (TCS)

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Doug S. Glazier

Individual Metabolic Responses to Climate Warming Depend on Biological and Ecological Context

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Paolo Lionello

Using Artificial Intelligence for estimating the Responses of coastal lagoons to Climate Change

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Milad Shokri

Energetic and Behavioral Responses of Aquatic Ectotherms to Projected Climate Change

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Gianpaolo Coro & Pasquale Bove

Climate Change Effects on Animal Presence in the Massaciuccoli Lake Basin

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Francesco De Leo

Empowering Environmental Science and Climate Change Study with DataLabs: LifeWatch’s Collaborative Coding Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research

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Mara Baudena

Ecological Resilience of Mediterranean Forests to Climate Change and Wildfires

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Paolo Fiorucci

Cellular Automata Models for Wildfire-Vegetation Interaction

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Alessio Collalti

A Vegetation Simulation Platform in a Global Change Context

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Marta Magnani

Identifying the environmental drivers of carbon fluxes – a step to assess climate change impacts on ecosystems

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Carmela Marangi

Modelling of Soil Organic Carbon dynamics in wetlands

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Jessica Titocci

Monitoring aquatic primary producers response to Climate Change: The Phytoplankton VRE

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Ecosystems and biodiversity are currently under threat owing to many different manageable and unmanageable anthropic pressures. Among these, climate changes are unmanageable pressures, which can have direct impact on ecosystems and biodiversity, pushing populations to abandon traditional distribution areas and move to new territories, favouring the spread of allochthonous species, reducing the survival of endemic and/or specialised organisms, leading to impoverished ecosystems more prone to collapse. Ecological responses to climate change include also increasing individual level respiration rates, altering species interaction networks and ecosystem process rates, leading to lower net primary productivity and standing biomass. Climate change can have indirect amplifying effects on other anthropogenic threats, such as pollution, land degradation and fragmentation, and the diffusion of invasive species; ecological responses to climate change can also have indirect effects on human well-being.

In this workshop, organised with LifeWatch Italy, we intend to explore the role of LifeWatch ERIC in developing a suite tool and services on data curation, data analysis and modelling,  to better understand ecological responses to climate change, describe scenarios of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning change under climate change, considering in particular how such changes affect ecosystem integrity and to what extent they could harm and decrease the benefits that healthy ecosystems provide to human beings.

Since ecosystems include biotic and abiotic components that form a complex network of interactions, particular attention will be given to biological and mathematical models that consider:

  1. The interplay of biological and physical-chemical-geological aspects, including the interaction of biodiversity and geodiversity, the role of organisms as ecosystem engineers, and the effects of climate change on biogeochemical cycles, with special attention to the water and carbon cycles; and,
  2. The mechanisms underlying the upscaling of individual level responses to climate change and global warming to the ecosystem and global level responses of ecosystem functioning and services, including net primary productivity and  standing biomass.

Objectives

The following main objectives are envisaged for the Working Groups:

  • Enhance collaboration both between and within the Common Facilities and Distributed Centres;
  • Review and update the mapping of the research needs of the National scientific communities regarding the Thematic Services and highlight the construction priorities;
  • Promote and coordinate the participation of Distributed Centre research Institutions to Horizon Europe and other European/international projects, on behalf of and in collaboration with LifeWatch ERIC, in order to co-design and co-construct the priority services with other key actors in the biodiversity and ecosystem research landscape, including the relevant communities.
For the launch of Working Group constitution and the promotion of the activities and developments currently running on each LifeWatch ERIC Thematic Service, a series of LifeWatch ERIC Thematic Service Workshops have been co-organised by the LifeWatch ERIC National Distributed Centres and Common Facilities. Each Workshop is then locally organised by a LifeWatch ERIC National Distributed Centre, engaging the relevant national community, with the support of the Service Centre.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The kick-off Workshop, focusing on the Taxonomy Thematic Services, has been proposed and organised by LifeWatch Belgium in collaboration with all LifeWatch Common Facilities and National Distributed Centers. The workshop took place in Brussels on January 30th, concurrently with the LifeWatch Belgium Biodiversity Day. The workshop also launches the constitution of LifeWatch ERIC Working Groups on the Thematic Services, engaging participants from all LifeWatch National Distributed Centers and Common Facilities in an open discussion on the current state of the Taxonomy Services, their actual matching with the scientific community needs and requirements and the approaches and priorities of the Taxonomy Services’ Working Group for further integration and improvement of LifeWatch Taxonomy Services and user engagement.

Resources

30/01

10:00 | Welcome

10:05 – 10:20 | Introduction LifeWatch Thematic Core Service (TCS) by Alberto Basset (LifeWatch Service Center).
10:20 – 10:30 | Defining the scope of the TCS Taxonomy Services (TCS) by Leen Vandepitte (LifeWatch Belgium) + Discussion.
10:30 – 11:00 | What is already in place in terms of taxonomic services (within and outside of LifeWatch)? by Stefanie Dekeyzer (LifeWatch Belgium) + Discussion.
11:00 – 11:30 | What are the needs and requirements from the community or how can we identify these? by Leen Vandepitte (LifeWatch Belgium) + Discussion.
11:30 – 11:45 | How can we further integrate this into the infrastructure? (Discussion).
11:45 – 12:00 | How to organize this TCS-community interaction for the future? (Discussion).
12:00 | Closing of the meeting

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Presentations 70%

Animal movement and Biologging

Animal Movement and Biologging

10:00 |  Welcome

10:05 – 10:20 | Introduction LifeWatch Thematic Core Service (TCS) by Alberto Basset (LifeWatch Service Centre)

10:20 – 10:30 | Defining the scope of the TCS Animal Behavior and biologging Services by Jan Reubens (LifeWatch Belgium) + Discussion

10:30 – 11:00 | What is already in place in terms of services (within and outside of LifeWatch)? – Compiled presentation based on received input

11:00 – 11:30 | What are the needs and requirements from the community or how can we identify these? – Discussion on stakeholders to involve

11:30 – 11:45 | How can we further integrate this in the infrastructure? – Discussion

11:45 – 12:00 | How to organize this TCS-community interaction for the future? – Discussion

12:00 | Closing of the meeting

Coming soon!
Presentations 70%

Biogeography

Biogeography: Species assemblages across space and time

Resources

A. Basset, C. Arvanitidis, P. van Tienderen, L. de Moncuit

Introduction to LifeWatch Thematic Core Services

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Michele Lussu

Developing databases with orchids as target group

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Ole R. Vetaas

Conservation biogeography; migration, isolation, and barriers in changing climate.

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Carl Beierkuhnlein & Christopher Shatto

Linking Earth Observation with Emerging Risks of Wildfires in European Temperate Forests

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Alessandro Chiarucci

Plant diversity in Italy across biogeographical gradients and human history

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Borja Jiménez-Alfaro

Diversity and distribution of alpine ecosystems

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Organisms and biological communities vary along geographic space both in relation to the gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area. In addition, the species composition of the local or regional assemblages varies across space and time depending on evolutionary and ecological pressures. This makes biodiversity not evenly distributed in space, with some regions hosting significantly more species than others. Climatic and land use changes affect species’ biogeographical distribution and abundance. Often, these changes determine the reduction of the number of individuals and range size of species, but opposite patterns are typically observed for alien invasive species. The changes in abundance and distribution of species determine a continuous transformation of species assemblages. This is very interesting for establishing basic studies of general conservation strategies and species conservation planning actions.

In this workshop organised with LifeWatch Italy, we intend to explore the role of LifeWatch ERIC in developing a suite of tools and services on data curation, data analysis and modelling to better understand biogeographical gradients in space and time and to model future changes in response to climate change or conservation strategies.

Agenda (updating)

4th April (14.30-19.00)

 

    • Opening by prof. Alessandro Chiarucci (University of Bologna);

    • Introduction to LifeWatch Thematic Service Workshop by prof. Alberto Basset (Università del Salento);

    • Presentations: Present and future challenges in Biogeography:

    • Prof. Ole Reidar Vetaas (University of Bergen): Conservation biogeography; migration, isolation, and barriers in changing climate;

    • Prof. Borja Jimenez-Alfaro (University of Oviedo): Diversity and distribution of alpine ecosystems;
  •  
    • Linking Earth Observation with Emerging Risks of Wildfires in European Temperate Forests by Prof. Carl Beierkuhnlein (University of Bayreuth)

    • Open discussion

5th April (9.00-12.00)

 

    • Discussion on research-related development policies and strategies;

    • Establishment and development of working groups on biodiversity;

    • The role of the scientific community in LifeWatch ERIC;

 

Biodiversity Observatory Automation

Biodiversity Observatory today and in the future

The Biodiversity Observatory Automation, part of our Thematic Service Workshop Series, is dedicated to reviewing and updating the requirements for effective biodiversity assessment in an era of unprecedented environmental change and biodiversity loss.

 

Although biodiversity assessment can be challenging due to time-consuming fieldwork and demanding post-fieldwork data processing and storage, advances in automation of data collection, increasing computational power, and artificial intelligence offer new possibilities.

 

The workshop, hosted by LifeWatch Slovenia, will bring together experts to present key achievements and obstacles in monitoring and observational approaches and discuss the drawbacks and needs of different stakeholders. In this workshop, we will explore the possibilities offered by a variety of modern approaches to monitoring and detecting biodiversity (from aerial observations to eDNA), from data collection design, data curation, and data exploration, including the use of AI to FARIfication of data to digital twins.

09:00 – 09:10 | Greetings from Slovenian hosts – Tanja Pipan and Andreja Ramšak (LifeWatch-SI)

09:10 – 09:30 | Presentation of Thematic Core Services (TCS) – Alberto Basset (LifeWatch ERIC Service Center)

09:30 – 10:10 | Invited talk: Ecosystem Virtual research environment: from data FARIfication to digital twins – Zhiming Zhao (University of Amsterdam)

10:10 – 10:25 | Talk: Challenges to Implement Darwin Core Meta Data Standard within GeoNetwork portals – Magdalena Năpăruş-Aljančič, Žan Kafol and Tanja Pipan (Karst Research Institute ZRC SAZU)

10:25 – 10:40 | Talk: Case study: Landscape features and biodiversity in agroecosystem – Danijel Ivajnšič and Nataša Pipenbaher (University of Maribor)

10:40 – 11:20 | Invited talk: Using high-throughput species discovery with robots and Nanopore sequencing to overcome taxon biases in biodiversity science – Rudolf Meier (Museum of Natural History, Berlin)

11:20 – 11:30 | Coffee break

11:30 – 12:10 | Invited talk: Environmental DNA and DNA metabarcoding for biodiversity monitoring and assessment – Gentile Francesco Ficetola (Università degli Studi di Milano, Department of Environmental Science and policy)

12:10 – 12:25 | Talk: Use of drones for various purposes – Hubert Potočnik (University of Ljubljana)

12:25 – 12:40 | Talk: Camera traps and citizen science App for biodiversity monitoring – Luka Duniš, Žiga Velkavrh and Elena Bužan (University of Primorska)

12:40 – 13:00 | Debate

13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch break

14:00 – 14:30 | Invited talk: LIFE NarcIS – NAtuRe Conservation Information System in Slovenia – Rok Havliček (Slovenian Environment Agency)

14:30 – 14:45 | Talk: Next-generation multi-modal monitoring of Rana arvalis in Slovenia – preliminary results – David Stanković, Sara Strah, Mojca Vek, Mariana Carreira Santos, Mladen Avramović and Jernej Polajnar (National Institute of Biology, University of Aveiro, University of South Bohemia)

14:45 – 15:00 | Talk: Acoustic and vibrational biodiversity monitoring – Jernej Polajnar and Rok Šturm (National Institute of Biology)

15:00 – 15:20 | Coffee break

15:20 – 16:00 | Invited talk: Presentation of the LifeWatch Belgium observatory services – Klaas Deneudt (VLIZ)

16:00 – 16:15 | Talk: Novel approaches to surveying habitat types and organisms on the seabed – Lovrenc Lipej, Borut Mavrič (National Institute of Biology, Marine Biology Station Piran)

16:15 – 16:55 | Invited talk: Estimating structural diversity of forests using national remote sensing data – Anže Martin Pintar and Mitja Skudnik (Slovenian Forestry Institute)

16:55 – 17:15 | Coffee break

17:15 – 17:45 | Workshop, moderated debate

17:45 – 18:00 | Conclusions and Wrap-up

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Presentations 70%

Habitat Mapping

Habitat Mapping: From Science and Policy Needs to Solutions

The workshop “Habitat Mapping: From Science and Policy Needs to Solutions” is organised by LifeWatch Portugal in collaboration with all LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities and National Distributed Centers. This gathering will explore the nexus between science, policy, and innovative solutions in habitat mapping. The agenda includes plenary sessions introducing LifeWatch TCS, showcasing indicators, and a World Café workshop on services, community needs, and integration strategies. The day concludes with discussions on future TCS-community interactions.

Speaker presentations will be published on this page soon.

Register now

Times refer to the Portuguese time zone (UTC).

Plenary

  • 14:00 | Welcome
  • 14:05 | Introduction LifeWatch Thematic Core Service (TCS) by Alberto Basset (LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre)
  • 14:25 | Habitat Mapping by LifeWatch Belgium by Julien Radoux (remote)
  • 14:45 | Introduction LifeWatch Thematic Core Service (TCS) by Tiago Múrias (LifeWatch Portugal) + Q&A

Workshop – World Café

Moderators: Ana Lillebø, Bruna Oliveira, Daniel Crespo

15:00 – 16:30

  • Topic 1 – | What is already in place in terms of services (within and outside of LifeWatch ERIC)?
  • Topic 2 – | What are the community’s needs and requirements, and how can we identify these?
  • Topic 3 – | How can we further integrate this into the infrastructure?

Plenary

  • 16:30 – 17:00 | How to organise this TCS-community interaction for the future? Moderated by Ana Lillebø of LifeWatch Portugal / University of Aveiro
  • 17:00 – 17:30 | Wrap-up by Alberto Basset /Ana Lillebø
  • 17:30 | End of the session
Coming soon!
Presentations 70%

Registrations

Registrations

Taxonomy

30 January, Brussel, Belgium

Closed

Ecological resposes to climate change

21-22 February, Lecce, Italy

Closed

Animal Biology, Behavior and Biologging

22 March, Ostend, Belgium

Closed

Biogeography

4-5 April, Bologna, Italy

Closed

Biodiversity Observatory Automation

11 April, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Closed

Habitat Mapping

3 May, Aveiro, Portugal

Closed

Thematic Services

Meet our Thematic Services

LifeWatch ERIC tackles the constraints affecting biodiversity and ecosystem research, such as the pressing need for increasingly diverse data, larger and more advanced models, open data and open science clouds, making it possible to explore new frontiers in ecological science and support society in addressing planetary challenges.

Coordinate Reference Systems

Services enabling geographical analysis through the use of coordinate reference systems.
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Habitats and Ecosystems

Services which provide information on habitat and biotope occurrence and characteristics.
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Semantics

Services enabling discovery and interoperability and providing core and domain ontologies, as well as vocabularies and domain-relevant reference lists.
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Data Management

Services designed to cover the entire data lifecycle, from acquisition to visualisation.
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Metagenomics

Services dedicated to DNA Metabarcoding analysis.
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Species Distribution and Diversity

Services designed to provide information on species distribution and coverage in different geographical areas.
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Environmental Monitoring

Services enabling environmental monitoring and the evaluation of ecosystem health.
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Modelling

Services which enable the derivation of future scenarios under multiple vectors of change.
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Taxonomic

Services which run taxonomic checks on scientific and common species names.
View all services

Functional Traits

Services analysing species' functional traits to determine their effect on processes and responses to environmental factors.
View all services

Remote and Smart Sensing

Services designed to cover the entire process (from selection, to downloading, to viewing and analysis) required to work with remote and smart sensing data products.
View all services

About

The 2024 Workshop Series

Taxonomy

30 January, Brussels, Organised by LifeWatch Belgium

Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity Patterns

21-22 February, Lecce, Organised by LifeWatch Italy

Animal Movement and Biologging

22 March, Ostend, Organised by LifeWatch Belgium

Biogeography

4-5 April, Bologna, Organised by LifeWatch Italy

Biodiversity Observatory Automation

11 April, Ljubljana, Organised by LifeWatch Slovenia

Habitat Mapping

3 May, Aveiro, Organised by LifeWatch Portugal

News

The LifeWatch ERIC Thematic Services workshops have started with a kick-off on Taxonomy

30 January 2024
On January
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lifewatch eric thematic workshop

LifeWatch ERIC launches the 2024 Thematic Service Workshop Series

11 January 2024
Last update:
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