Data Providers – LifeWatch ERIC

The LifeWatch Alien Species Virtual Research Environment (Alien Species VRE) has been built and equipped in order to developing systems that support the scientist's work for experimental researches on alien species arrival and spread into different types of ecosystems (aquatic and terrestrial).

The Alien Species VRE is an example of the types of scientific studies that researchers on biodiversity and alien species could undertake.

The goal is to obtain a list of capabilities on the topic to be shared through the LifeWatch portal with all those interested in alien and invasive species.

Alien and Invasive Species

ARPA PUGLIA	Enrico Barbone
	Nicola Ungaro

CNR-IAMC Castellammare del Golfo	Luigi Musco

CNR-IAMC Taranto	Antonella Petrocelli
	Ester Cecere
	Giorgio Alabiso
	Giuseppe Portacci

CNR-IBAF Roma	Giorgio Matteucci

CNR-IREA Milano	Alessandro Oggioni

CNR-ISE Verbania	Aldo Marchetto
	Angela Boggero
	Antonella Cattaneo
	Diego Fontaneto
	Giuseppe Morabito
	Lyudmila Kamburska
	Marina Manca
	Martina Austoni
	Nicoletta Riccardi
	Pietro Volta
	Sara Lauceri
	Silvia Zaupa

CNR-ISMAR Venezia	Alessandra Pugnetti
	Davide Tagliapietra
	Elisa Camatti
	Erica Keppel
	Fabrizio Bernardi Aubry
	Marco Sigovini
	Mauro Bastianini
	Stefania Finotto

Corpo Forestale dello Stato	Claudia Cindolo
	Cristiana Cocciufa
	Emma Minari

OGS TRIESTE	Alessandra De Olazabal
	Bruno Cataletto
	Daniela Fornasaro
	Marina Cabrini
	Marina Monti
	Tamara Cibic
	Valentina Tirelli

Stazione Zoologica di Napoli ANTON DOHRN	Adriana Zingone
	Beatrice Scipione
	Diana Sarno
	Francesco Paolo Patti
	Maria Cristina Buia
	Maria Grazia Mazzocchi
	Maurizio Lorenti
	Valerio Zupo

Università del Molise	Angela Stanisci

Università del Salento	Adriana Giangrande
	Alberto Basset
	Antonio Terlizzi
	Daniel Fuentes
	Ferdinando Boero
	Giovanni Aloisio
	Ilaria Rosati
	Lucia Rizzo
	Nicola Fiore
	Simonetta Fraschetti
	William Ingrosso

Università di Bari	Angelo Tursi
	Carlotta Nonnis Marzano
	Cataldo Pierri
	Caterina Longo
	Francesca Carruggio
	Francesca Mantino
	Francesco Mastrototaro
	Francesco Saverio D’Amico
	Frine Cardone
	Gianfranco D’onghia
	Giuseppe Corriero
	Letizia Sion
	Lorenzo Gaudiano
	Luigi Forte
	Manuel Marra
	Maria Mercurio
	Porzia Maiorano
	Rocco Labadessa
	Rocco Sorino
	Viviana Cavallaro

Università di Camerino	Domenico Lucarini
	Giandiego Campetella
	Marco Cervellini
	Maria Cristina Allegrini
	Roberto Canullo
	Stefano Chelli

Università di Ferrara	Cristina Munari
	Fabio Cianferoni
	Luca Bartolozzi
	Michele Mistri

Università di Genova	Giorgio Bavestrello
	Riccardo Cattaneo Vietti
	Stefano Chiapparelli

Università di Milano Bicocca	Gentile Francesco Ficetola

Università di Parma	Francesco Nonnis Marzano
	Giampaolo Rossetti
	Isabella Bertani

Università di Perugia	Alessandro Ludovisi
	Ambrosius Martin Dörr
	Antonia Concetta Elia
	Concetta Elia
	Elda Gaino
	Enzo Goretti
	Gianandrea La Porta
	Massimo Lorenzoni

Università di Roma 3	Alicia Acosta

Università di Roma Foro Italico	Riccardo Santoro

Università di Roma La Sapienza	Alessandro Campanaro
	Paolo Colangelo

Università di Roma Torvergata	Donatella Cesaroni
	Giorgio Riccarducci
	Stefano De Felici
	Valerio Sbordoni

Università di Sassari	Anna Maria Bazzoni
	Antonella Lugliè
	Bachiso Mario Padedda
	Cecilia Teodora Satta
	Nicola Sechi
	Silvia Pulina

Università di Torino	Mauro Bassignana
	Michele Freppaz

Università di Venezia Ca’ Foscari	Adriano Sfriso
	Francesco Cavraro
	Matteo Zucchetta
	Piero Franzoi
	Stefano Malavasi

Università Politecnica delle Marche	Cecilia Totti
	Stefano Accoroni
	Tiziana Romagnoli

Showcase Team

Freshwaters Database manager
Angela Boggero

Marine Database manager
Cataldo Pierri

Transitional Waters Database manager
& Metadata manager
Ilaria Rosati

IT specialist
Nicola Fiore

Experimental design and statistical analysis
Paolo Colangelo

Architecture and development of Alien Species VRE components
Paolo Tagliolato
Paolo Colangelo
Alessandro Oggioni

Data providers
List

Policy Relevance and Uptake

End of May 2026 – Policy-brief to demonstrate the application of habitat-based mapping in supporting EU strategies (e.g., Biodiversity Strategy, Nature Restoration Law).

Mapping user requirements

End of January 2025 – Catalogue of services already available in LifeWatch ERIC or research lines addressing ecological responses to climate change;
February 2025 (TBD) – Online working table on setting priorities, timeline and milestones for the mapping service and model requirements by scientists and science stakeholders.

Greece

The Greek National Distributed Centre is funded by the Greek General Secretariat of Research and Technology and is coordinated by the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, in conjunction with 47 associated partner institutions.

To know more about how Greece contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Italy

The Italian National Distributed Centre is led and managed by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and is coordinated by a Joint Research Unit, currently comprising 35 members. Moreover, Italy hosts one of the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities, the Service Centre.

To know more about how Italy contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Netherlands

The Dutch National Distributed Centre is hosted by the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam. Moreover, The Netherlands hosts one of the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities, the Virtual Laboratory and Innovation Centre.

To know more about how The Netherlands contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Portugal

The Portuguese National Distributed Centre is managed by PORBIOTA, the Portuguese e-Infrastructure for Information and Research on Biodiversity. Led by BIOPOLIS/CIBIO-InBIO – Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, PORBIOTA connects the principal Portuguese research institutions working in biodiversity.

To know more about how Portugal contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Slovenia

The Slovenian National Distributed Centre is led by the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU). It focuses on the development of technological solutions in the field of biodiversity and socio-ecosystem research.

To know more about how Slovenia contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Spain

The Spanish National Distributed Centre is supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Regional Government of Andalusia and the Guadalquivir River Basin Authority (Ministry for Ecological Transition-MITECO). Moreover, Spain is the hosting Member State of LifeWatch ERIC, the location of its Statutory Seat & ICT e-Infrastructure Technical Office (LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities).

To know more about how Spain contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Bulgaria

The Bulgarian National Distributed Centre is represented by the Agricultural University-Plovdiv.

To know more about how Bulgaria contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Implementing services

End of January 2025 – Internal distribution of a questionnaire on the most used/relevant model resources in the WG member research activity;
February 2025 (TBD) – Online working table on setting priorities, timeline and milestones for the mapping service and model requirements by scientists and science stakeholders.

Knowledge Exchange and Capacity Building

End of December 2025 – Create a shared repository of guidance documents, tools, templates, and data resources accessible to WG members and broader communities.

Organising WG workshops and conferences

End of January 2025 – Setting priority research lines and contributions to the BEeS 2025 LifeWatch Conference for the session on the “Ecological responses to climate change”;
March/April 2025 (TBD) – Workshop ‘Ecological modelling and eco-informatics to address functional responses of biodiversity and ecosystems to climate change’ co-organised with the University of Salento;
30 June – 3 July 2025 – Participation to LifeWatch 2025 BEeS Conference on “Addressing the Triple Planetary Crisis”.

Fund raising

End of January 2025 – Establishing a WG Committee on scouting project application opportunities and fundraising.

Meetings, Webinars, International Conferences & Networking (2025/2026)

Organising and participating at discussions on emerging technologies in biodiversity monitoring;
Organising webinars on machine learning, eDNA analysis, and automated data collection;
Fostering collaboration between researchers, technologists, and decision-makers.

Collaborative Research & Case Studies (2025/2026)

Conducting pilot projects to test new monitoring methods;
Publishing scientific and popular science papers and reports on advancements in biodiversity assessment.

Data Standardisation & FAIR Principles Implementation (2025/2026)

Developing best practices for data curation and sharing;
Ensuring that biodiversity data aligns with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) standards.

Development of VREs for Ecosystem Simulation (2026)

Creating virtual models of ecosystems to predict environmental changes;
Enhancing conservation strategies through AI-driven simulations.

Mapping Requirements and Gap Analysis

End of December 2025 – Catalogue of services already available in LifeWatch ERIC or research lines Ecosystem services mapping.

Methodological Alignment and Innovation

End of January 2026 – Online working table on mapping standards, classification systems, and indicators across members;
End of January 2026 – Catalogue of advanced techniques (e.g., remote sensing, GIS modelling, and machine learning) for scalable, habitat-based ecosystem service mapping;
End December 2026 – Methodological framework to support methodological innovation through joint development and testing of mapping approaches, especially linking ecosystem service supply and demand.

Belgium

The Belgian National Distributed Centre makes varied and complementary in-kind contributions to LifeWatch ERIC. These are implemented in the form of long-lasting projects by various research centres and universities distributed throughout the country and supported by each respective political authority.

To know more about how Belgium contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.