Italy

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LifeWatch Italy

University of Salento
via prov. Lecce Monteroni sn,
73100 Lecce, Italy

Italy is one of the founders of LifeWatch ERIC and hosts its Service Centre. LifeWatch ERIC has always been strongly supported by the national scientific community, as well as regional and national institutions, since Italy is a biodiversity hotspot in Europe, with more than 57,400 animal and 6,500 plant species. Italian landscapes and protected areas are natural laboratories for biodiversity and ecosystem research.

The LifeWatch Italy webportal provides a networking interface for the biodiversity and ecosystem community, offering learning and training opportunities, semantic resources and data, ICT services & VREs, supporting research activities and science-based policymaking.

What We Do

Semantics

LW ITA implements controlled vocabularies and ontologies to support the interoperability of different data infrastructures.

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Education

LW ITA provides platforms and learning environments combined with gaming resources, specifically designed for students.

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Data & Metadata

LW ITA makes data and metadata accessible, interpretable and reusable.

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Citizen Science

LW ITA is currently working on the release of its brand new Citizen Science platform.

Services

LW ITA ICT provides and shares ICT Services for the study of biodiversity and ecosystems.

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VREs

LW ITA develops and makes available VREs dedicated to major scientific issues (e.g. alien species, Phytoplankton).

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The Italian Ministry for Universities and Research (MUR) and the Italian National Research Council (CNR) lead the Italian contribution to LifeWatch ERIC and the activities of its distributed centre, in close cooperation with the Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection.

Organised as a Joint Research Unit (JRU), LifeWatch Italy is coordinated by the department of Earth system science and environmental technologies of the CNR. The General Assembly and the Coordination and Management committees oversee its governance.

The JRU counts among its many members the most important institutions active in this domain, including the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic (Castelporziano Presidential Estate), the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institute for Nuclear Physics, the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics, the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, as well as many universities, regional agencies and private bodies (please see here for the full list of members).

Projects

News from LifeWatch Italy

Biodiversity and Ecosystem responses to Climate Change: scientists in Lecce discuss the invisible cost of the ecological crisis

The international workshop “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change” took place on 12–13 June 2025 at MUST Museum in Lecce. The National Biodiversity Future Centre (NBFC), Italy’s first national research and innovation centre for biodiversity, funded by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) through NextGeneration EU funds, organised the workshop in collaboration with LifeWatch ERIC's Working Group on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change. Climate change is deeply altering the living conditions of organisms across the planet, influencing their geographic distribution, abundance, and even the daily cost of survival. These effects are especially severe for species which...

Join LifeWatch ERIC’s Thematic Services Working Groups

LifeWatch ERIC launches the minisites of the six Thematic Services Working Groups: hubs for knowledge and resources sharing, networking, and collaboration. Co-developed by the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities in collaboration with the National Distributed Centres, they reflect the main priority areas of e-Service construction, and therefore are central to the 2022-2026 Infrastructure Strategic Working Plan. The Thematic Services Working Groups are coordinated by the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre and pursue three main objectives: Strengthen collaboration between and within the Common Facilities and the Distributed Centres; Review and update the mapping of the National scientific communities’ research needs in relation to...

Become a Traits Thesaurus 2.0 validator on EcoPortal

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...

22nd Italian Ornithology Conference: call for symposia and round tables proposals

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...

LifeWatch Italy Conference 2025

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...

Sandy Beaches Symposium: the world’s leading experts gather in Lecce

The IX International Sandy Beaches Symposium was held in Lecce, Italy, on June 24-27 2024. The event was an opportunity to bring the world's leading experts on sandy coastal ecosystems together in the city.Past, present, and future of sandy beaches were at the center of the symposium: biodiversity loss, abundance, distribution and dynamics of species of sandy beach ecosystems, climate change impacts, anthropogenic pressures (fisheries, tourism, etc), urbanization, the key role of marine protected areas, and the challenges of creating a network between them, coastal erosion and mitigation strategies, insights from environmental DNA metabarcoding and advanced statistical models, are some...

A future for the Critical Zone? Insights from the Gran Paradiso Summer School 2024

From 19 to 23 June in Valsavarenche, Italy, scientists, researchers, and students from various disciplines are attending lectures, workshops, and fieldwork sessions at the Gran Paradiso Summer School. This year, the school's theme is "Fundamental Processes in Earth System Dynamics - The Future of Critical Zone". Hosted at the Gran Paradiso National Park, the school aims to foster a deeper understanding of Earth Sciences, with lecturers from Europe, the United States, Japan, and Taiwan. Thanks to its interdisciplinary approach, it provides a platform for geologists, ecologists, hydrologists, and scientists working in these fields to collaborate and share their expertise. Our...

A postcard from the European Congress of Conservation Biology

The European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB), organised by the Europe Section of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), was held in Bologna from 17 to 21 June 2024. The Congress aimed to facilitate the exchange of conservation science and nature conservation practice and policy to promote the conservation of biological diversity in Europe. The 7th ECCB focused on achieving a biodiversity-positive status by 2030. This theme presents a positive message and a call to action towards conserving biodiversity. Despite the challenges, new protected areas were established, carbon emissions were reduced, and there is a growing awareness of biodiversity’s importance for survival....

LifeWatch Italy, the CNR and the University of Salento launched the Virtual Museum of Ecosystems and the Natural Environment

On 22 April - during Earth Day, the international day for protecting and conserving the environment - LifeWatch Italy, the University of Salento and the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) celebrated by hosting an online webinar entitled "Knowing ecosystems to protect them". During the webinar, the hosts presented the Virtual Museum of Ecosystems and the Natural Environment, a dissemination and learning tool aimed at high school and first-year university students, alongside all citizens interested in understanding how the natural world around us works. The virtual museum features four rooms dedicated to natural environments - mountains, marine-coastal wetlands, semi-arid regions,...

Biogeography for conservation: a recap from our Thematic Workshop in Bologna

LifeWatch Italy, in partnership with the University of Bologna, organised a two-day workshop as part of the LifeWatch ERIC Thematic Service Workshop Series. The workshop, which took place from April 4th to 5th, brought together scientists and researchers to focus on biogeography and conservation strategies. The event aimed to facilitate in-depth exploration and collaboration and address the pressing challenges related to biodiversity preservation and habitat management. The symposium began with a welcome speech by Alessandro Chiarucci from the University of Bologna, followed by Prof. Alberto Basset from the Università del Salento and LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre Director. Prof. Basset gave...

Hic Sunt Lupi meets the citizens

On Wednesday 3 April, the “Hic Sunt Lupi” project held its first public meeting “The return of the wolf in Salento: let's get to know it” in Lecce, Italy. The meeting was opened by the Councilor for Environment of Regione Puglia, Anna Grazia Maraschio, the Mayor of Lecce, Carlo Salvemini and hosted representatives of the experts involved in the project, like Paolo Ciucci, Professor at Sapienza-University of Rome, and Francesco Cozzoli and Francesco De Leo, researchers at the National Research Council (CNR-IRET), Lecce, and Ruben Cataldo, archaeologist and President of Archeo-Rec. This was the first of a series of meetings...

Thematic workshop: LifeWatch ERIC explores climate change impacts on biodiversity

The second Thematic Workshop, out of a series of six, was organised by LifeWatch Italy. Following the success of the first workshop on Taxonomy hosted by LifeWatch Belgium, this event took place on February 21st and 22nd at the Rectorate Hall of the University of Salento in Lecce, Italy. Over a hundred participants attended the workshop, both online and in person. The workshop's main objective was to understand and address the ecological impacts of climate change. LifeWatch ERIC has planned a series of workshops for 2024 that will focus on its Thematic Services, ICT tools to support biodiversity and ecosystems...

LifeWatch ERIC launches the 2024 Thematic Service Workshop Series

Last update: 1 February 2024 The LifeWatch ERIC Thematic Services, co-developed by the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities and National Distributed Centres, are a key component of the 2022-2026 Infrastructure Strategic Working Plan (SWP). They represent the key priority areas of eService construction in LifeWatch ERIC proposed by the National Distributed Centres. Activities, developments and physical outcomes of the LifeWatch ERIC Thematic Services, as eServices, Virtual Labs (vLabs) and more complex and complete Virtual Research Environments (VREs), are planned to be coordinated by Thematic Service Working Groups participated by scientists from both the National Distributed Centres and the Common Facilities, with...

Hic Sunt Lupi: a new project to monitor the return of wolves in Salento

"Hic sunt leones", although historically unclear, is an expression used in cartography to describe unexplored, unknown territory. Similarly, the Hic Sunt Lupi project aims to understand the causes of a hitherto unknown situation: the wolf's return to Salento (Italy). Partners of this project are Regione Puglia, CNR-IRET, and the Sapienza University of Rome, which will implement it with the support of LifeWatch Italy, the National Biodiversity Future Center and the University of Salento. In recent years, people have spotted several wolves in the Salento area. However, gathering data and understanding the situation better is crucial before taking any measures to manage this phenomenon. Where do they...

Semantic Academy: the registration for the LifeWatch ERIC Intensive School is now open!

In recent years, one of the major challenges in Environmental and Earth Sciences has been managing and searching larger volumes of data, collected across multiple disciplines. Many different standards, approaches, and tools have been developed to support the Data Lifecycle from Data Acquisition to Data Curation, Data Publishing, Data Processing and Data Use. In particular, modern semantic technologies provide a promising way to properly describe and interrelate different data sources in ways that reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity and ecosystem resources and researchers. Therefore, we are delighted to announce the launch of the 2023 edition...

Biodiversity and Ecosystem responses to Climate Change: scientists in Lecce discuss the invisible cost of the ecological crisis

The international workshop “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change” took place on 12–13 June 2025 at MUST Museum in…

Join LifeWatch ERIC's Thematic Services Working Groups

LifeWatch ERIC launches the minisites of the six Thematic Services Working Groups: hubs for knowledge and resources sharing, networking, and…

Become a Traits Thesaurus 2.0 validator on EcoPortal

LifeWatch Italy (https://www.lifewatchitaly.eu/) is launching a Call for Action to validate, refine, and expand the Traits Thesaurus 2.0, a comprehensive…