Join LifeWatch ERIC’s Thematic Services Working Groups

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 the Thematic Services, and identify priority areas for development;
  • Promote and coordinate the participation of Distributed Centre research institutions in Horizon Europe and other European and international projects, on behalf of and in collaboration with LifeWatch ERIC, to co-design and co-construct the priority services with other key actors in the biodiversity and ecosystem research landscape.

The initiative officially took off in 2024, marked by a series of Thematic Service Workshops hosted by the National Distributed Centres, engaging local communities from the start.

Today, we are glad to present the Working Groups on the website: six dedicated entry points, each focused on a specific topic and open for participation!
Each page offers a brief overview of the scope and objectives, as well as a timeline of activities, including some future actions already planned.

The activities in each group are led by a coordinator from one of our National Distributed Centres, who will oversee the follow-up of its activities.

Moreover, the abstract submission topics for this year’s ‘BEeS’, LifeWatch ERIC’s Biodiversity & Ecosystem eScience Conference, have been selected in alignment with those of the Working Groups, given that they had been previously identified as key priority areas by the National Distributed Centres.

What are you waiting for? Find out more about the Working Groups, join forces with fellow experts and contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem research!

Biodiversity Meets Data: the EU & SERI project that will turn biodiversity data into action

BMD Project

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.

Even before its official launch, the project had already made its first appearances – at the The European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) workshop in November 2024, and at the Eurosite – European Land Conservation Network Annual Meeting in October.

More specifically, BMD will provide a Single Access Point (SAP) for natural resource managers and policymakers, offering access to: 

  • Biodiversity monitoring tools including image, sound, e-DNA and AI taxon identification services; 
  • Co-designed Virtual Research Environments (VREs) for terrestrial, freshwater and marine realms; 
  • A Web-GIS Map Viewer for data exploration.

The Virtual Research Environments (VREs) will build on the expertise of eLTER (terrestrial and freshwater domains) and LifeWatch ERIC (marine domain), combining biological data with environmental, climatic, and remotely sensed datasets.

These integrated platforms will bridge knowledge gaps through predictive modelling, supporting the identification of drivers of change and enabling analysis of climate and land cover impacts on species and habitats. 

In addition to its role in the marine VRE, LifeWatch ERIC will also contribute to the data visualisation engine and the design of the Single Access Point, and lead learning, training, and capacity-building initiatives.

The project’s tools and services will be co-designed and co-developed with stakeholders, ensuring user input guides every stage. Contributions from Biodiversa+ and BioDiMoBot during the kick-off meeting presented opportunities to connect BMD with ongoing biodiversity monitoring efforts across Europe.

BMD will help turn biodiversity data into actionable insights for conservation and policy, thanks to the collaboration of 14 partner institutions.

Funders: the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

Stay in touch via the official website: https://bmd-project.eu

WoRMS reveals the list of ten remarkable new marine species from 2024

remarkable marine species

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 task, with an average of 2,000 fascinating new marine species discovered every year, and over 3,200 described in 2024 alone. The call for nominations was announced in December 2024 and sent to all WoRMS editors and major taxonomy journals.

The final decisions reflect the immense diversity of taxonomic groups in the marine environment, including crustaceans, corals, sponges, jellies, and worms.

Read the full press release here: https://marinespecies.org/worms-top-ten/2024/press-release

About WoRMS: hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), within LifeWatch Belgium (the National Distributed Centre of LifeWatch ERIC – more info here), the World Register of Marine Species grew out of the ERMS, the European Register of Marine Species, combined with a series of registers maintained at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ).

Become a Traits Thesaurus 2.0 validator on EcoPortal

Traits Thesaurus

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 trait-based data, playing a crucial role in developing new standards for trait-based data, and improving the interoperability of trait terminologies;
  • Collaborate with a network of experts;
  • Receive acknowledgement of your contribution by an open-access resource that supports interoperability in trait-based research.

If you decide to join the Traits Thesaurus 2.0 pool of validators, you will review and provide feedback on specific terms and definitions included. The validation phase will last for three weeks, and after the necessary revisions, the updated thesaurus will be published.

If you want to join, fill in this form by 25 March: https://forms.office.com/e/6LGXj2TUJ2?origin=lprLink, to receive the invitation for a webinar on 26 March and learn all you need to know.

Download the leaflet

Women in Science: LifeWatching TV special feature for International Women’s Day 2025

women in science

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.

We thought this was the perfect opportunity to revisit their work and listen once again to what they have to say, learning more about their expertise and understanding their impact on biodiversity and ecosystem research: from coastal wetlands to fisheries, bat populations to deep-sea observation, animal tracking and behaviour, invasive alien species, phytoplankton, to name just a few examples. After the end of this year’s campaign,these contents will remain available in the new permanent page “Women in Science”.

We have also expanded our efforts, replicating the initiative in our LifeWatch ERIC Podcasts, introducing a “Women in Science” category on our Podcasts page, making it easier to discover interviews and discussions with women scientists and showcase their contributions across various disciplines.

This is simply our way of recognising and celebrating the work of the women we have had the privilege to collaborate with over the years.

Explore our collection of podcasts and interviews here.
Watch the featured videos now on LifeWatching TV.

Meet the Libroscope: LifeWatch ERIC signs the Disentis Roadmap 2024, a new vision to liberate data from biodiversity publications

DISENTIS ROADMAP

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 mechanism for unlocking and linking data from scientific literature, to support understanding of biodiversity. This fascinating name evokes the microscope and the telescope: two instruments that previously revolutionised science!

The Disentis Roadmap builds on the 2014 Bouchout Declaration on Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management. Ten years later, the follow up symposium in Disentis (Switzerland), evaluated the progress made since the first meeting, highlighting the need to simplify access to data across research publications and better connect them.

This year, 26 institutions, and 46 individual experts, have signed the Disentis Roadmap, officially setting it in motion on 4th March, 2025. The action plan will take off in the Living Data conference in Bogotá, Colombia in October 2025, addressing specific goals for 2035.

Read the full Press Release to explore the roadmap’s objectives for 2035 and insights from signatories, and access official contacts. Download it here.

ENVRI-Hub launches User Group

ENVRI-Hub User Group

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 the end-user needs.

Additionally, members of the User Group will get access to a network of like-minded individuals and gain practical experience in consulting, testing and platform validation. They will be able to interact directly with the technical development team and be the first to see and test each new release of the ENVRI-Hub services.

For more information on the advantages of the User Group and on how to join, visit: https://envri.eu/envri-hub-user-group/.

New release of EcoPortal

EcoPortal release

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, bug fixes, and user interface upgrades to make your experience smoother and more intuitive.

EcoPortal is designed to facilitate the work of researchers in the ecology domain, supporting the community in the creation, management, mapping and alignment of its semantic resources and subsequently also of its data. Users can upload and share their semantic resources to the portal, while discovering new insights and knowledge by exploring other semantic resources in the repository; they can map their semantic resources to other relevant ones in the same domain and collaborate with other users; they can describe their semantic resources with relevant metadata and get a FAIR score for them. Moreover, they can get feedback and suggestions from other users, who can use and comment on their semantic resources.

Technically speaking, this federation is done “at the user interface level” and the federation architecture is rather simple, being specifically developed to query and aggregate the results from multiple backends. The user interfaces have been significantly changed to handle the results coming from different portals while helping users to understand what is going on and addressing performance issues (e.g., it includes logic to manage duplicate results, optimise result ranking, and manage portal availability). What are the main properties of this federation feature? In few words: a federated documentation, federated categories, federated user interfaces, federated browsing and federated search.
Ontology developers who own a resource in EcoPortal may also have some category assignment double check too.

Check out the full EcoPortal documentation here: https://ontoportal.github.io/documentation/user_guide/EcoPortal

We appreciate your support and look forward to hearing your feedback!

The OntoPortal federation has been achieved in part with the context and support of the European Project FAIR-IMPACT (101057344) and with the collaboration of the OntoPortal Alliance.

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

ornithology

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 the field.

Symposia will have to follow a specific structure with six oral presentations, an introduction and a conclusion. The proposals will be evaluated based on the relevance of the topic, interest and originality, as well as gender and geographical balance criteria.

Round tables will last one hour and a half. A brief initial introduction by the organisers is welcome, but the round table must primarily promote discussion and active interaction among the participants.

The submission deadline is 10 February 2025.

For more information visit:

https://www.lifewatchitaly.eu/en/22-convegno-italiano-di-ornitologia/symposia-and-round-tables/

LifeWatch Italy Conference 2025

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 6,500 plant species, Italian landscapes and protected areas serve as natural laboratories for ecological studies.

LifeWatch Italy’s activities span a wide range of data-driven and technological solutions: from the development of controlled vocabularies and ontologies for data interoperability to ensuring FAIR data and metadata. The infrastructure also supports ICT services, Virtual Research Environments (VREs), Learning Platforms, and Citizen Science initiatives.

This year’s conference will focus on strategic developments for LifeWatch Italy, promoting collaboration with other research infrastructures and relevant national-level projects. Discussions will explore taxonomic and biogeographical data, climate change impacts, and new modelling approaches, alongside research on marine and terrestrial biodiversity, bio-cultural heritage, and ecosystem stressors. The event will also highlight technological innovations, including cloud computing, reference genomes, and new research platforms developed through LifeWatchPLUS.

For the detailed agenda, visit: https://www.lifewatchitaly.eu/conferenza-lifewatch-italia-2025/