19–20 May 2025 | Seville, Spain On May 19th and 20th, LifeWatch ERIC and the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) will welcome a distinguished delegation of researchers and representatives from public institutions across Latin America and Europe to Seville, to strengthen transatlantic collaboration on environmental indicators for the energy transition within the framework of the EULAC ENERGYTRAN project’s mobility programme. ENERGY TRAN has the objectives of co-designing analytical tools based on the FAIR principles to assess energy transition indicators, building capacity in the use of European research infrastructures, such as LifeWatch ERIC, to connect environmental...

BMD (Biodiversity Meets Data) aims to enhance access to high-throughput biodiversity monitoring tools, analyses, and data to support evidence-based conservation efforts across Europe. The project, coordinated by Niels Raes from Naturalis Biodiversity Center, kicked off in Leiden, the Netherlands, at the beginning of March 2025 (click here for a nice group picture). Joaquín López Lérida attended the meeting on behalf of LifeWatch ERIC. During the event, presentations on the current biodiversity policy landscape highlighted how Biodiversity Meets Data can support key initiatives such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the Birds and Habitats Directives and the Nature Restoration Law....

Every year, the World Register of Marine Species releases its annual list of the top ten remarkable marine species described by researchers during the previous year. We are glad to announce that the 2024 list was revealed on 19 March, a date that coincides with World Taxonomist Appreciation Day. This date was not randomly chosen: it is worth noting that over 340 taxonomists around the world contribute their time to keeping the World Register of Marine Species up to date, and this is WoRMS' way of acknowledging their work and celebrating taxonomists worldwide. Selecting the top ten was no easy...

LifeWatch Italy (https://www.lifewatchitaly.eu/) is launching a Call for Action to validate, refine, and expand the Traits Thesaurus 2.0, a comprehensive semantic artefact designed to standardise trait data and metadata for aquatic organisms, covering diverse biological groups, such as phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, macroalgae, and macrozoobenthos. The Traits Thesaurus 2.0 builds upon, and integrates, pre-existing thesauri, originally developed within LifeWatch Italy, into a unified and structured framework. The first validated version (1.0), is already available on EcoPortal: https://ecoportal.lifewatch.eu/ontologies/TRAITS_THES. By becoming a validator, you will: Contribute to trait-based research, and help standardise trait data, supporting scientific progress in aquatic ecology; Reduce heterogeneity in...

Thanks to our daily activities and European projects, we’ve had the opportunity to work with inspiring female researchers, technologists, managers, policymakers and science communication professionals.  For our International Women’s Day 2025 campaign, we have decided to put them in the spotlight and entirely dedicate the homepage of our LifeWatching TV to the talented women in science we have met over these years, collecting and republishing their interviews. Some of these women are directly involved in LifeWatch ERIC or its National Distributed Centres, while others are researchers that we’ve had the chance to work with in the context of scientific projects....

LifeWatch ERIC is proud to be one of the 26 first signatories of the Disentis Roadmap: a mission involving some of the world's leading institutions, experts and scientific infrastructures dedicated to biodiversity information. These organisations are joining forces to pursue a 10-year roadmap with a unique objective: to "liberate" data existing and presently trapped in research publications. A goal that is fully aligned with LifeWatch ERIC's mission to provide access and support to biodiversity and ecosystem data, as it helps make what science has provided us accessible and usable. The initiative aims to enable the creation of a "Libroscope": a...

The ENVRI-Hub User Group is a collaborative space where researchers, data scientists, and environmental professionals can contribute to shaping the development of the ENVRI-Hub, a platform that provides access to environmental research infrastructures, data and digital tools across disciplines. The ENVRI-Hub helps researchers access what they need to tackle climate change, biodiversity, ecosystem services and other environmental challenges, through it's catalogue of FAIR resources. Members of the ENVRI-Hub User Group, launched in February 2025, will have the opportunity to test new tools, provide direct feedback and define training needs, so that the platform can authentically provide a service tailored to...

Coastal Wetlands are broadly defined as "areas of saltwater and freshwater located within coastal zones"1. These areas are among the most crucial ecosystems, playing a key role for climate neutrality, biodiversity protection, zero-pollution, and circular economy. The project RESTORE4Cs recently launched a Serious Game School Competition: a fun and easy way to make school students learn about this fascinating world. Acting as natural sponges, coastal wetlands are able to regulate the water cycle and mitigate both floods and droughts. Some particular types can actively sequester and accumulate organic carbon, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, they host a range of plant...

In October 2024, ESFRI released its Monitoring Panel Report for LifeWatch ERIC as part of its monitoring as a Landmark Research Infrastructure. ESFRI Landmarks were introduced in the ESFRI Roadmap 2016 as reference Research Infrastructures that guarantee the operational excellence of their Landmark label, including LifeWatch ERIC.  These Landmarks are pillars in the European Research Area (ERA) landscape, providing services to academic research and supporting development and innovation. To make sure that RIs meet the standards that qualify them as Landmarks, ESFRI monitors their quality through a specific “Monitoring Implementation Group”. This group has defined some objectives of the monitoring:...

We are thrilled to announce the new release of EcoPortal, the LifeWatch ERIC repository of semantic resources for ecology and related domains. This is a major update that introduces the federation feature to OntoPortal and activates this for EcoPortal.With this release, you can now explore ontologies across multiple federated portals using our new federated browsing and search features, enabling seamless access to ontologies from other OntoPortal instances. This is a joint release with AgroPortal, EarthPortal and BiodivPortal i.e., each portal is now connected to each other and displays some content from the others. This version also includes significant performance improvements,...

CISO (Centro Italiano Studi Ornitologici), University of Salento and the Institute of Research on Terrestrial Ecosystems of the National Research Council (CNR-IRET), LifeWatch Italy and Or.Me. organise the 22nd Italian Ornithology Conference. The conference will gather ornithologists and natural science enthusiasts together in Lecce, a first edition for the Apulia region in more than 40-year history of ornithology conferences. Participants are invited to submit proposals for symposia and round tables, proposing topics of their own particular interest or general relevance. Any symposium should therefore focus on a well-defined topic that could appeal to a wider audience than just specialists in...

Wednesday, 29, and Thursday, 30 January will see the LifeWatch Italy team engaged in its Annual Conference 2025 in Rome, hosted at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). This important event brings together researchers to explore the latest research and technological advancements in biodiversity and ecosystem. Italy is a biodiversity hotspot in Europe and one of the founders of LifeWatch ERIC, hosting its Service Centre in Lecce. The LifeWatch ERIC Italian National Distributed Centre is led and managed by the CNR and is coordinated by a Joint Research Unit, currently comprising 35 members. With over 57,400 animal species and...

We recently shared news about the deployment of a network of fish detection devices along the Leie and the Scheldt rivers (you can find the article here). The Institute for Nature and Forest Research (INBO) has been working for years to protect fish species in the Flanders region. It is, in fact, the independent research institute of the Flemish government that underpins and evaluates biodiversity policy and management through applied scientific research. Today we bring you a success story, one of those unexpected surprises that truly reward researchers for their dedication. The twaite shad (also known as the "May fish"...

Mapping the migration patterns of fish species is extremely important for researchers, as it allows them to offer better protection against various obstacles. Every year in fact, millions of fish migrate to their spawning and rearing habitats, where they lay eggs and nurture their young. For some, this means swimming thousands of miles before they can reach their destination, often finding areas blocked by human-made barriers such as dams and navigation lock complexes. When fish cannot reach their habitat, they cannot reproduce and build their population, for this reason it is important to provide effective solutions. This is the case...

As we carry on with our daily lives working, researching, and attending events, taxonomists are working hard to discover new species every year. Now, the time has come to celebrate their discoveries by submitting nominations for the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) Top-Ten Marine Species of 2024! The aim of a World Register of Marine Species is to provide a list of names and synonyms of marine organisms, so that it can serve as a guide to interpret taxonomic literature. The content of the register is controlled by taxonomic and thematic experts: each taxonomic group is represented by an...