A revolution in conservation research with FAIR data and biodiversity Digital Twins

A revolution in conservation research with FAIR data and biodiversity Digital Twins

Remember struggling to find all the data you needed for a research project? You’re not alone!
In our fourth BioDT Talks episode, Joana Castro Paupério, Biodiversity Project Manager at the European Nucleotide Archive (EMBL-EBI), shares how her PhD frustrations with incomplete biodiversity data led to her passion for FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles.

Imagine trying to model genetic diversity of European beetles across environments. Would you find all the necessary data? Would you be able to access crucial context information like geographic coordinates? Could you interpret the data correctly on the basis of the information available? Probably not, as unfortunately not all data produced is published in a way that it is easy to find by users. Moreover, data may often be accessible, but hard to find and interpret because it does not have enough metadata or the metadata is not structured in a standardised way.
Joana reveals how making biodiversity data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable is transforming conservation research and enabling effective Digital Twins.

Watch now to discover how the BioDT project is ensuring valuable biodiversity data doesn’t just exist but can be found, understood, and used effectively!

BioDT is a research project funded by the European Union that aims to develop a digital twin prototype for the study and analysis of biodiversity, in support of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. The Biodiversity Digital Twin prototype provides advanced models for simulation and prediction capabilities, through practical use cases addressing critical issues related to global biodiversity dynamics.
The BioDT Talks is the new 6-part series illustrating how data science and technology are transforming our approach to the biodiversity crisis.
More information on the BioDT Project HERE.
Watch the full playlist on YouTube and find out more!

Transforming data into new knowledge: data pipelines for biodiversity research

Transforming data into new knowledge data pipelines for biodiversity research

“As a little girl, I was roaming around in the forest in spring, enjoying the fact that the snow had melted.
I grew up in Norway; we have long winters and looking for the spring flower was one of the favourite activities for kids
And looking for Epatica nobilis (Liver leaf) was one of the most important things we did because we got to get in the local newspaper if you were the first ones. We knew about specific places where the snow melted first and we had some hints of leaves etc that indicated that this is the place where we could find this precious flower.”

Remember searching for the first spring flowers as a child?

In our third BioDT Talks episode, Bente Lilja Bye, founder of the research and consulting company BLB, shares how her childhood quests for Hepatica nobilis in Norway and her mother’s meticulous nature diaries evolved into groundbreaking work in biodiversity data science!
The information about the first Epatica nobilis of the year and the “metadata” around these spring flowers, carefully handwritten in her mother’s diary, were her first experience collecting data, and the first repository of her life. An important channel for her to get involved in her current job.

In her talk, Bente Lilja Bye explains in particular why is worth learning about data pipelines and to build Digital Twins for biodiversity.
So, first of all, what is a Digital Twin? A Digital Twin for biodiversity is a sophisticated digital representation of ecosystems, species, and their interactions with the environment. This technology integrates various data sources to create a dynamic simulation that mirrors real-world biological systems. “A simple representation of a Digital Twin is that you have a physical system and a virtual system”, Bente Lilja Bye says. “Data or observations of the physical system are used to create the virtual system. Now, the virtual system is running models etc giving feedback into the physical system and in this way we have a loop called Digital Twin”.

The data is the core of a Digital Twin, we would not have Digital Twins without data. There are currently many sources and many types of data, and the challenge is to collect, harmonise, standardise, processing all this amount of information to put all these different types of data together. Data pipelines are essential for efficiently processing vast amounts of data and providing real-time insights for Digital Twins. In simpler words, they are systems leading from the collection and acquisition of data, to their final transformation into new knowledge or possible decisions. Moreover, data pipelines enable industry, academia, and the public sector to more efficiently share data, facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration.

“By being a foundational component of a Digital Twin, a data pipeline represents a transformative approach to biodiversity conservation, offering enhanced monitoring capabilities, improved decision-making processes, predictive insights, and fostering collaboration among stakeholders. And these benefits are instrumental in addressing the pressing challenges facing global biodiversity today”.
Watch the video, and find out how we can transform data into new knowledge.

BioDT is a research project funded by the European Union that aims to develop a digital twin prototype for the study and analysis of biodiversity, in support of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. The Biodiversity Digital Twin prototype provides advanced models for simulation and prediction capabilities, through practical use cases addressing critical issues related to global biodiversity dynamics.
The BioDT Talks is the new 6-part series illustrating how data science and technology are transforming our approach to the biodiversity crisis.
More information on the BioDT Project HERE.
Watch the full playlist on YouTube and find out more!

Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience and the Triple Planetary Crisis: the LifeWatch ERIC Community meets in Heraklion at BEeS 2025!

The BEeS Conference 2025 is approaching! From 30 June to 3 July, Heraklion, Crete, will host the 2025 edition of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience Conference (BEeS), LifeWatch ERIC’s flagship event, hosted this year by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) and the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture (IMBBC). The event will gather researchers, policy-makers and ecosystem experts to discuss some of today’s most urgent global challenges.

Under the overarching theme of the Triple Planetary Crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution), BEeS 2025 will explore how eScience and European Research Infrastructures (RIs) can contribute to understanding and addressing its complex impacts.

This year, contributions have been structured around six thematic areas, reflecting the priorities identified by LifeWatch ERIC in collaboration with its National Distributed Centres, and coordinated by the corresponding Thematic Services Working Groups:

  • Biodiversity & Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change
  • Mapping Life on Planet Earth: Biogeography in a Changing World
  • Taxonomy: Identifying the Units of Diversity in Life
  • Exploring Boundaries of Life Hosting Spaces: Habitat Mapping
  • Biodiversity Observatory: Smart Systems for a Living Planet
  • Tracking the Wild: Animal Movement, Behaviour, and Biologging

The Call for Abstracts closed in May, and the submissions are currently under evaluation by the Working Group coordinators. These abstracts will shape the content of the oral and poster presentations distributed across the four-day programme.

The event will begin with a closed round table for representatives of European Research Infrastructures, aimed at identifying complementarities and synergies between their activities. The session brings together infrastructures working on biodiversity, ecosystems and the social components of the biosphere, under the lens of the One Health approach.

The first day will be fully dedicated to Research Infrastructures and presentations from the plenary speakers:

  • Prof. Anastasios Eleftheriou (HCMR), “Man and the Sea”
  • Prof. Carole Goble (University of Manchester), “Sharing and Re-using Computational Workflows – WorkflowHub and FAIR Workflows in Biodiversity”
  • Dr. Nikos Kyrpides (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), “The Dark Matter in Biology”.

The thematic sessions in the following days of the conference, will see the participation of Dr. Richard Field, (University of Nottingham), and Dr. Tammy Horton, (National Oceanography Centre).
In addition to scientific sessions and poster presentations, the conference will offer hands-on workshops focused on key LifeWatch ERIC services, including its Virtual Laboratories (vLabs) and Virtual Research Environments (VREs). The final day will be dedicated entirely to training activities.

Participation in BEeS 2025 is free of charge but subject to registration via the online form. The conference also offers special networking opportunities, including joint lunches and a social dinner with wine tasting and a vineyard tour at the stunning Scalarea Estate.

BEeS 2025 is supported by sponsors including Pensoft and Cretan Rhizotomists, and will see the participation of several related projects and initiatives.

Stay updated via the conference page, and keep an eye out for the upcoming publication of the Book of Abstracts through our website and newsletter.

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change Workshop

biodiversity ecosystem responses workshop (2)

Lecce, Italy

The LifeWatch ERIC Working Group on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change and the National Biodiversity Future Center organise the workshop on “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change“, to be held in Lecce, Italy, on 12 and 13 June 2025.

Climate change is profoundly affecting biodiversity and ecosystem processes, with implications at the global scale for primary productivity, standing biomass as well as potential impacts on human well-being and the achievement of SDGs. Biodiversity and ecosystem responses span ecological scales, encompassing structural and functional components, from individual life cycles and energetics to inter-individual interactions, population and species densities and distributions, to ecological networks and ecosystem services.

A proposal for a Special Issue including a selection of the workshop contributions has been presented to Ecological Indicators. Contributions will be presented as short talks of 10 minutes.

To find out more about our speakers, register and submit your abstract, please visit the following page:

https://www.lifewatch.eu/thematic-services-working-groups/wg-climate-change/meetings/workshop-biodiversity-and-ecosystem-responses-to-climate-change

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). JoaquĂ­n LĂłpez LĂ©rida 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 BogotĂĄ, 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.