Shows
LifeWatch ERIC#49 Biodiversity responses, human well-being and climate changeAlberto Basset, Professor of Ecology at the University of Salento and Director of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre in Italy, in this fourth podcast on biodiversity issues, entitled "Biodiversity responses, human well-being and climate change" explores how biodiversity loss and climate change, which are both having profound impacts on societies around the world, relate to each other, while focusing on the most important impacts of climate change and global warming on ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services, and living organisms. The importance of the Convention on Biological Diversity '30x30' target is also analysed while highlighting its potential future developments...2024-01-1926 minLifeWatch ERIC# 48 The British Ecological Society: a personal viewPaul Bower, left the British Ecological Society in October 2023, after 7 years as Senior Development Manager. In this podcast "The British Ecological Society: a personal view", he speaks freely of the pride and gratitude he feels at having worked with outstanding ecologists in what was the world's first ecological society, founded in 1913, and which boasts an impressive range of professional peer-reviewed journals. BES is not just British, though. It has around 7,500 members, in 119 countries, and although based in London, is a global organisation, with something like 35% of the membership living outside the United Kingdom. In this lead-up to th...2023-12-0623 minLifeWatch ERIC#47 The need to conserve and manage biodiversityAlberto Basset, Professor of Ecology at the University of Salento and Director of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre in Italy, in his third podcast "The need to conserve and manage biodiversity" argues there is no longer much wilderness left in the world. Large areas of our planet have been rebuilt, ecosystems fragmented and forests destroyed in Europe and much of North America, where we have actually rebuilt our own human ecosystem, changing the landscape and importing alien species from elsewhere. This not only affects biodiversity that developed over millions of years, but also ecosystem services that are essential for...2023-11-2721 minLifeWatch ERIC#46 How is biodiversity organised and maintained?This second interview with Alberto Basset, Professor of Ecology at the University of Salento and Director of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre in Lecce, Italy, concerns "How biodiversity is organised and maintained". The organisation doesn't vary simply according to the species found in a given system, how many are primary producers, how many are consumers or predators, the space available or the resources on hand; it is related to fundamental drivers on energy availability, disturbance intensity and periodicity, the degree of openness and a few others . If species feed on different resources they can co-exist, but the body size...2023-11-0816 minLifeWatch ERIC#45 Polychaete research offers environmental and commercial opportunitiesWhen Izwandy Idris fell in love with polychaete - baitworms or bloodworms - during his PhD, many people wondered why he wanted to specialise in worms, instead of more iconic marine species like whales and dolphins. Now, as Professor at the Institute of Oceanography and Environment at the Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, he is still a passionate advocate for the many virtues of the humble bloodworm. "They can be very useful and perhaps make you rich as well," he says. Fish farms, the biosynthesis of nanoparticles, and applications in human medicine could transform what at present is a 4D job...2023-10-2521 minLifeWatch ERIC#44 What is Biodiversity?Alberto Basset, Professor of Ecology at the University of Salento and Director of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre in Lecce, Italy, features in this podcast 'What is Biodiversity', the first of our podcast series focused on biodiversity issues. Starting with the foundation concepts of biology - the science of life, or more operationally, whatever concerns life and living organisms - and diversity, in terms of the diversity of the species, populations collected at a single sampling station, taxonomical diversity, genetic diversity, of species inside an ecosystem, and the diversity of species and ecosystems within a landscape or biogeographical...2023-10-1120 min
LifeWatch ERICEOSC: the European Open Science CloudEOSC, the European Open Science Cloud, is a web of FAIR data and services for science that offers visualisation and analytics, long-term information preservation and monitoring of the uptake of open science practices. It provides researchers, innovators, companies and citizens with a federated and open multi-disciplinary environment where they can publish, find and re-use data, tools and services for research, innovation and educational purposes. It is recognised by the Council of the European Union as pilot action to deepen the new European Research Area.Ron Dekker, principal consultant at the Technopolis Group in Belgium, who leads the...2023-09-2714 min
LifeWatch ERICThe IAGOS Research Infrastructure & the ENVRI infrastructure projectAndreas Petzold from the Department of Global Observation at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research – 8 Troposphere of Forschungszentrum Jülich is a great believer in Research Infrastructures. As well as lecturing at the University of Wuppertal, he coordinates the Research Infrastructure IAGOS and the infrastructure project ENVRI-FAIR. IAGOS, the In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System delivers a time and spatially resolved multi-component dataset on atmospheric Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) and air pollutants. The data provide information on distribution and long-term changes in the troposphere and lowermost stratosphere, including regular vertical profiles over major cities. IAGOS is u...2023-09-1325 min
LifeWatch ERICDiSSCo: the Distributed System of Scientific Collections Natural Science Collections have been at the heart of addressing fundamental questions in science, innovation and discovery for centuries. They are the foundational layer of information and expertise for taxonomy, for biodiversity and ecosystem research and, increasingly, for climate change data. More recently, natural science collections made important contributions to accelerate and sustain multidisciplinary research in developing vaccines for the Covid-19 pandemic, drawing on objects in the microorganisms and viruses collections. Niels Raes from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands represents the Dutch node of DiSSCo, the Distributed System of Scientific Collections, which is taking the in...2023-08-2918 min
LifeWatch ERICThe Global Biodiversity Information FacilityThe Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international network and data infrastructure funded by the world's governments that works closely with data-holding institutions, natural history museums, universities, government agencies, researchers and citizen scientists. As an intergovernmental organisation focused on biodiversity, it gathers data on species occurrences and makes the information available online. GBIF manages a network of nodes in 64 countries worldwide with over 80,000 different datasets and nearly 2.3 billion records.Executive Secretary Joe Miller, the guest of this episode, emphasises the importance of standardising machine-driven data that might come from camera traps or the enormous quantity of...2023-08-0715 min
LifeWatch ERICDanubius Research InfrastructureThe International Centre for Advanced Science on River-Sea Systems is known as the "Danubius Research Infrastructure". In reality, it's not about the Danube River, although the scientific idea started in the Danube Delta-Black Sea system, as a Romanian initiative. Then it quickly became an international, pan-European initiative to develop a distributed RI, comprising 13 countries, that seeks sustainable solutions for complex river-sea systems. The waters coming from a river have a strong impact on the sea that receives them, so proper management at a basin-scale needs to look at the way in which the waters, including snow melt, tributaries and g...2023-07-2625 min
LifeWatch ERICThe Integrated Carbon Observation SystemThe Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) produces standardised, high-precision and long-term observations and facilitates research to understand the carbon cycle – which is how carbon atoms circulate through Earth’s land, air and ocean. In particular, ICOS reports on fluxes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) itself is located in Finland, while the three thematic centres - atmospheric, ocean and ecosystem - have separate centres throughout Europe. Dario Papale, Professor at Tuscia University, is Director of the Ecosystem Thematic Centre in Viterbo, Italy. In this third episode in Season Four of the 'A...2023-07-1216 min
LifeWatch ERICThe European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and Water Column Observatory.The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and Water Column Observatory is the European Research Infrastructure Consortium that specialises in monitoring and reporting the state of the ocean. That ocean that covers about 70% of the planet's surface, is essential for life on Earth, in regulating the climate and supplying food, but about which we know very little. EMSO ERIC, as it's usually referred to, is a network of 14 different multi-sensor platforms -some in deep sea water, others in shallow water sites, some cabled and others free-standing - that keep an eye on marine ecosystems, monitoring ocean acidification, marine resources exploitation a...2023-06-2824 min
LifeWatch ERICEnvironmental Research Infrastructures: LifeWatch ERIC.A Research Infrastructure is a facility that provides FAIR data, reproducible analytics and communities to its users. Not in order to make research, but in order to help those who are doing research by providing them with the right tools, to help them develop and extend their own projects by bringing together not just new assets, but broader communities too.Christos Arvanitidis, LifeWatch ERIC Chief Executive Officer is the first interview in this fourth Season of 'A Window on Science' podcasts, which focuses on European Environmental Research Infrastructures, whose data are open and free to use for...2023-06-1414 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E20: Publications in the Biodiversity Data Journal.Publications have always been used as measures of research outcomes, especially in the academic research, and it is a common assumption that publications are, in fact, the output of research. This is however a simplistic vision of the role of publication in science. It is a vital part of the research cycle, which includes hypothesis formulation, securing future fundings to continue the study, the research process itself and the dissemination of results. For empirical subjects like biodiversity, authors can persuade readers that their results are accurate, verifiable and repeatable because they have been validated through application of the scientific m...2023-05-3111 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E19: Nanosatellite remote sensing in Andalusia - eyes in the sky!The Andalusia Agency for Agriculture and Fisheries Development is preparing to launch a 10 kg nanosatellite in October 2023 and the mission will be managed by LifeWatch ERIC. Made possible under the European Union's Smartfood programme, the satellite is equipped with a high-resolution remote sensing optical camera that will monitor invasive species and agricultural crops in the Doñana region. An additional Internet of Things payload integrates data gathered from sensors on the ground and relays timely information to a Mission Control Centre under the watchful eye of Jaime Lobo Dominguez-Roqueta, Satellite and HAPS Operation Manager at Federtech, the LifeWatch ERIC I...2023-05-1717 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E18: Acoustic telemetry: tracking fish migrations.Acoustic telemetry consists of a tag, a transmitter, implanted in fish, that sends a signal which can be picked up by receiving instruments, fixed hydrophones under water, that listen for these sounds. When a tagged fish is close to a receiver, it gives a time stamp of when that particular fish was passing by, at a certain location. Jan Reubens at VLIZ, the Flanders Marine Institute, specialises in marine observations, while Pieterjan Verhelst, at the Aquatic Management team at INBO, the Research Institute for Nature and Forest in Brussels, monitors freshwater and rivers. Together they present this Season 3, Episode 18...2023-05-0322 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E17: Europe - Latin American and Caribbean partnerships.The Horizon 2020 project "Towards a New EU-LAC partnership in Research Infrastructures” known to everyone involved as just ResInfra, set up bi-regional Open Science collaboration between Europe and Latin American and Caribbean countries to establish how Research Infrastructures can cooperate to address environmental issues, including deforestation, the collateral effects of mining, animal and plant species threatened with extinction, drought, the melting of the glaciers, rising sea levels, amongst others, and to learn from each other. In Season 3, Episode 17 of the 'A Window on Science' podcast - "Europe -Latin American and Caribbean partnerships" - Maite Irazábal Plá, the LifeW...2023-04-1913 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E16: Agroecology: applying ecological processes to agriculture.Agriculture has for fed the world for thousands of years and supplied enormous quantities of food to meet the needs of Earth's burgeoning population. But conventional agriculture has also caused a lot of problems, called externalities, such as massive deforestation, water scarcities, biodiversity loss, soil depletion, and greenhouse gas emissions. Because of these externalities, agricultural practices are often less than sustainable. Agroecology, the subject of the Season 3, Episode 16 'A Window on Science' podcast, strives to balance productivity with the health of people and the environment. José Manuel Ávila-Castuera, Agroecology Coordinator at the LifeWatch ERIC ICT-Core in Seville, exp...2023-04-0514 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E15: What it's like to be an Early Career Researcher?Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research is what LifeWatch ERIC exists to support, providing online computing facilities to accelerate that research and making available data and tools to produce reliable knowledge that can then be employed by decision-makers to safeguard the planet. But what is it like being a researcher? 'A Window on Science' podcast Season 3, Episode 15 "Early Career Researchers" is a conversation with Cristiano Tamborrino, CNR, the Italian National Research Council in Bari, and Daniel Crespo, the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies and the Department of Biology at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. They speak freely about th...2023-03-2215 min
LifeWatch ERICVoices of Women IWD: Nataša Pipenbaher (SI) and Ana Filipa Filipe (PT).To celebrate International Women’s Day 2023, LifeWatch ERIC created this podcast series in which scientists from our eight EU member states talk, two at a time, candidly about their work and experience. These ' Voices of Women @LifeWatch ERIC for International Women's Day' conversations elegantly complement the reflections of our International Gender Officer Africa Zanella on the importance to science and to society of implementing the European Union's Gender Equality Strategy. This fourth interview with Ana Filipa Filipe, Researcher at the School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon in Portugal, and Nataša Pipenbaher from the Department of Biol...2023-03-1016 min
LifeWatch ERICVoices of Women IWD: Dessislava Dimitrova (BG) and Priscilla Licandro (IT).Priscilla Licandro, from the Integrative Marine Ecology Department, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, Italy and Dessislava Dimitrova, from the Institute of Biology and Ecosystem Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, get together in the fourth podcast in the mini-series 'Voices of Women @LifeWatch ERIC for International Women's Day'. They exchange ideas on women in science, women in society, role models they have had and - from their different perspectives - give the same advice to young women starting out in their careers: "follow your heart and go for it!" 2023-03-0923 min
LifeWatch ERICVoices of Women IWD: LifeWatch ERIC International Gender Officer Africa Zanella.The centerpiece in the 'Voices of Women @LifeWatch ERIC for International Women's Day' podcasts is this interview with International Gender Officer Africa Zanella, hosted by Chief Communication Officer Sara Montinaro, and published today 8 March 2023 - Happy International Women's Day to all our listeners!As such, this podcast draws on the other four interviews in which scientists invited from our eight EU member states talk openly in pairs about their work and experiences. Ms. Zanella discusses progress made in the last year at LifeWatch ERIC, gender bias, gender balance, and the importance of implementing the European Union's Gender E...2023-03-0823 min
LifeWatch ERICVoices of Women IWD: Britt Lonneville (BE) and Wanda Plaiti (GR).LifeWatch ERIC has created a podcast miniseries to celebrate International Women’s Day 2023, featuring candid interviews with women working in science, called Voices of Women @LifeWatch ERIC for International Women's Day. The scientists we invited from our eight member states talk openly in pairs about their work and experiences, and provide insights from their varied backgrounds. The resultant podcasts are an enriching panorama of the contributions of women to science and to society. In this second Women in Science IWD interview, Britt Lonneville, Science Officer in the Data Centre in VLIZ, The Flanders Marine Institute in Belgium, disc...2023-03-0722 min
LifeWatch ERICVoices of Women IWD: Iria Soto (ES) and Yifang Shi (NL).To celebrate International Women’s Day 2023, LifeWatch ERIC has created a podcast miniseries that investigates the authentic experiences of women working in science, called Voices of Women @LifeWatch ERIC for International Women's Day. We invited scientists from our eight member states to talk candidly about their work and experience, and interviewed them in pairs, which produced some spontaneous and insightful conversations. A range of ages and a diversity of backgrounds are represented, which makes the end result an enriching range of experiences and contemporary points of view of women working in research today. This first Women in Scie...2023-03-0621 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E14: Non-indigenous and Invasive Species in Ports and Marinas.Dr. Giorgos Chatzigeorgiou and Ioannis Rallis from the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research in Crete, are scientific divers who investigate 'Non-indigenous and Invasive Species in Ports and Marinas', despite the challenges of poor visibility, ropes, chains and unpredictable marine traffic. Their research shows a surprisingly high species richness in these extreme environments, but also a high number of non-indigenous species, mostly introduced to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal, attached to ships' hulls or transported and discharged in ballast waters. Human disturbances lead to great fluctuations in salinity, turbidity, d...2023-03-0113 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E13: Invasive Crustaceans: can the threat become a resource?According to the World Wildlife Fund, the Mediterranean Sea is one of the most plastic-polluted seas on the planet. And because of its busy commercial shipping routes, it is adversely affected by the presence of Non-indigenous and Invasive Species (NIS). Our S3, E 13 podcast "Invasive Crustaceans 2.0" discusses these invasions from a gastronomic and management point of view. Featuring Mouna Rifi, Assistant Professor at INRAT, the National Institute of Agronomic Research in Tunis, Tunisia; and Maria Irene Prete, Professor of Business Management and Marketing at the University of Salento in Italy. Besides the negative impacts of NIS on bi...2023-02-1517 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E12: Agrobiodiversity: food security joins hands with sustainability.Vladislav Popov, Professor at the Department of Agroecology at the Agricultural University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, explains in S3, E12 that "Agrobiodiversity" regards the abundance of plants and animals, and their varieties, on farm land. Unlike the perspective of producers and consumers, agrobiodiversity studies concern what is below the ground more than what is visible to the naked eye: the bioactive components in the soil, fruit and vegetables. It interfaces with farmers to help restore organic matter to the soil so they can substitute chemical fertilisers, and help maximise crop yields without compromising biological diversity.The food security...2023-02-0124 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E11: Discovering the Marine Caves of the Mediterranean.Vasilis Gerovasileiou, Assistant Professor at the Department of Environment at the Ionian University and Research collaborator at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, the leading partner in LifeWatch Greece, together with Markos Digenis, PhD student also at the Ionian University and HCMR,, describe their work in the well-hidden ecosystems of 'Marine Caves in the Mediterranean', Season 3, Episode 11 of our podcast series, 'A Window on Science'.Marine caves in the Mediterranean are protected by the European Union’s Habitats Directive and the Barcelona Convention under the Dark Habitats Action Plan, yet surprisingly little is known about them, compared with...2023-01-1812 min
LifeWatch ERICThe underground Karst caves of Postojna: biodiversity and vulnerability.Season 3, Episode 10 of 'A Window in Science' regards the demanding and sometimes dangerous biodiversity and ecosystem research in the underground Karst caves of Postojna, Slovenia. Karst is a special type of landscape that is formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks, including limestone and dolomite, and Karst regions contain aquifers that are capable of providing large supplies of water. More than 25 percent of the world's population either lives on or obtains its water from karst aquifers, but human incursions are threatening these vulnerable environments. Owing to their steepness and relative inaccessibility, Karst landscapes act as natural refuges fo...2022-12-1419 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E9: Sandy Beaches are at risk because of human overexploitation.The somewhat confronting content of S3, E9, 'Sandy Beaches at Risk' is the result of research by Professor Omar Defeo at the Laboratory of Marine Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of Uruguay. More than a third of the world's ice-free ocean coastline is composed of sandy beaches, which function as social-ecological systems in that the quality of services provided by the ecosystem benefit humans, and human activities affect the ecological side of the equation, often adversely, with urban and industrial developments moving seawards. Coastal recession, driven by sea level rise, could well result in the extinction of almost half...2022-11-2922 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E8: The Azorean Biodiversity Portal helps conserve island habitats.The Azores are a semitropical archipelago of volcanic islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, about 1,400 kms west of Lisbon and 1,500 kms northwest of Morocco. The islands have some very impressive fauna and flora, but about 60% of the endemic species are vulnerable, or endangered according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List. Our guest, professor Paulo Borges, leads the development of the Azorean Biodiversity Portal, a node of Porbiota, or LifeWatch Portugal. The mission of the Biodiversity Portal is to collect, store, standardise, disseminate and make available computing resources to a wide range of stakeholders, so t...2022-11-1615 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E7: The Louisiana Crayfish: an invasive alien species in European waterways.In a departure from our regular interviews, Series 3, Episode 7 of the LifeWatch ERIC podcast 'A Window in Science' features a guest podcaster, Federica Gerini, who is completing her Masters in Science Communication at SISSA, the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, in Trieste, Italy. Consistent with our core themes of biodiversity and ecosystem research, Open Science and Invasive Alien Species, however, Federica brings us a report on another troublesome invasive crustacean, Procambarus clarkii, the Louisiana Crayfish.As well as painting an evocative picture of the crayfish presence in waterways in Spain and Italy, Federica includes material from an...2022-11-0215 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E6: LiDAR - Light Detection and Ranging laser technologies.In the LifeWatch ERIC on-going catalogue of interesting acronyms, LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. It is an active remote sensing technique that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges to the Earth. The light pulses can penetrate through the canopy of a forest and – combined with other information (e.g. intensity, GPS time) recorded by the LiDAR system carried by aircrafts or drones - generate very precise 3D information about the characteristics of Earth's surface. In this Series three, Episode six podcast in our 'A Window on Science' interviews, Yifang Shi...2022-10-1911 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E5: The ENVRI Project: Research Infrastructures work together to combat climate change.ENVRI is a network, a community of Environmental Research Infrastructures that collaborate to observe the Earth as a whole. Every single research infrastructure, be it from the atmosphere or marine, solid Earth or ecosystems domain, contributes to this community. We collaborate so we can provide open, FAIR, environmental data, tools and other services that everybody can use for free. ENVRI empowers the advancement of scientific knowledge which is necessary to be able to deal with rapid global changes that affect our planet. Anca Hienola, Senior Researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, is an expert on atmospheric a...2022-10-0514 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E4: Essential Biodiversity Variables are the most useful data for stakeholders.Season Three of 'A Window on Science' features interviews with individuals who contribute to Open Science and the study of Invasive Alien Species. In S3, E4, Joris Timmermans from the University of Amsterdam, part of LifeWatch Netherlands, talks about EBVs, Essential Biodiversity Variables and why they are useful.We live in a world of big data, enormous amounts of information collected from numerous satellites that circle the Earth at a distance of 800 kilometres, data which far exceeds the average person's capacity to interpret them. To make clear to policy makers which data, from where, are important, the...2022-09-2116 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E3: The Critical Zone, the Earth's outer skin, needs better care.The Critical Zone is the Earth's outer skin, where we all live: the space between the top of the vegetation canopy and the bottom of the surface aquifers, down to the undisturbed rock. It's a very thin layer, where rock meets life, and it is essentially the support system for all terrestrial ecosystems. It's called the Critical Zone because it's critical to ecosystem functioning but it's also critically endangered. Climate change, increases in temperature, pollution, land degradation and invasive alien species are all anthropogenic pressures that are impacting the moisture levels and carbon fluxes, biodiversity, and the integrity of...2022-08-3014 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E1: The World Register of Marine Species is the #1 authority.Season Three of the LifeWatch ERIC podcast 'A Window on Science' starts with a close-up on WoRMS, the World Register of Marine Species, hosted and curated by the Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ), the Flanders Marine Institute, in Ostend. The interview with Stefanie Dekeyzer, data management specialist at VLIZ, takes us from how the Institute was founded by Pierre-Joseph Van Beneden in 1843, to its current operations, the citizen science events, and the Editorial Board, Steering Committee and the Data Management Teams who ensure that it remains the "authoritative and comprehensive list of all the names of marine organisms...2022-07-0715 min
LifeWatch ERICS3, E2: Ocean Optimism: restoring health to the Ocean must not wait.The original title of 'Ocean Optimism' does not imply that nothing is wrong with the Ocean, just that progress made in solving marine conservation challenges shows that there are grounds for hope for the future. Increased industrialisation and urbanisation, increased exploitation of resources, and a decreased resilience to larger threats like climate change have certainly led to a dramatic decline in ocean health, as has been well documented. The UN Decade of Ocean Science (2021-2030) and the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration provide a top-down framework for work to prevent, halt and reverse the degradations of marine ecosystems, but...2022-07-0524 min
LifeWatch ERICS2, E5: Biotope: assessing natural capital to protect Europe's habitats.The Biotope validation case is possibly the most complex workflow developed by LifeWatch ERIC within the framework of the Internal Joint Initiative. A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals, for which 'habitat' is probably the closest equivalent in English. The workflow is the aggregation of high-resolution satellite imagery with statistics across large geographical areas in Europe, to determine what trends can be found in the extent of Non-indigenous and Invasive Species as against the condition and vulnerability of various ecological communities. As Heliana Te...2022-06-1420 min
LifeWatch ERICS2, E4: Ailanthus altissima: the invasive tree threatening Protected Areas.The Non-indigenous and Invasive Species in S2, E4 is not an aggressive crustacean or insect, it's a pungent, invasive tree, called Ailanthus altissima, the 'Tree of Heaven', known to horticulturalists as the 'Tree from Hell'. It excretes toxins to displace other plants, produces millions of seeds a year and extends underground suckers that grow into thick clusters of trees, which makes it difficult to eradicate. Native birds and animals can’t nest or feed anywhere near it, which makes its presence in the Alta Murgia National Park in southern Italy particularly worrying. Carmela Marangi from the National Resea...2022-06-0914 min
LifeWatch ERICS2, E3: Metabarcoding: eDNA analysis identifies invasive freshwater species.Meet Ana Filipa Felipe from the University of Lisbon and Christina Pavloudi from the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research in this third episode of the second season of the LifeWatch ERIC podcast, 'A Window on Science', focused on Metabarcoding. According to the Living Planet Index, populations of freshwater vertebrate species are declining faster than terrestrial or marine communities. They fell by 81% between 1970 and 2012. That’s a danger signal that researchers at CIBIO-InBIO at the University of Porto, part of LifeWatch Portugal, have been responding to for many years, studying the commercially busy Douro River. Analysis of m...2022-05-2712 min
LifeWatch ERICS2, E2: The ARMS sampling network monitors the health of hard-bottom communities.Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures placed in European coastal waters and retrieved on a regular basis provide the sampling and data collection context to this second episode in season two of the LifeWatch ERIC podcasts. The ARMS research case that helped validate our ground-breaking Virtual Research Environment is presented by Katrina Exter of the Flanders Marine Institute and Matthias Obst from the University of Gothenburg, and concerns hard-bottom communities. To find out exactly what hard-bottom communities are, and why they are important for the resilience of marine ecosystems, grab some headphones and have a listen. Available now in streaming on...2022-05-1914 min
LifeWatch ERICS2, E1: Diary of an invasion: the Atlantic Blue Crab in the Mediterranean.Season Two of the LifeWatch ERIC podcast series 'A Window on Science' looks at the research cases that validated the development of the virtual research environment - the online tools and services that enable biodiversity and ecosystem research at scales never before achieved. The first episode concerns the Atlantic Blue Crab validation case, the story of Callinectes sapidus, a colourfully aggressive non-indigenous invasive species that over the last 50 years has moved into the Mediterranean Sea big-time, feeding on mussel and oyster farms and displacing local brachyura (decapod crustaceans). The interview with Giorgio Mancinelli, researcher at the University of...2022-05-0418 min
LifeWatch ERICS1, E3: The Virtual Research Environment to help fight climate change.LifeWatch ERIC Chief Technology Officer, Juan Miguel González-Aranda, is the guest in the third episode of this introductory season of "A Window on Science". A Virtual Research Environment is a complex online platform that allows biodiversity and ecosystem researchers to access/ upload data and analyse them to produce visual representations of how species – in this case, Non-indigenous and Invasive Species – are impacting the environment and affecting our own well-being. An insight into the charismatic energy behind the development of LifeWatch ERIC's e-services and tools. 2022-03-2910 min
LifeWatch ERICS1, E2: Non-indigenous and Invasive Species and their effects on ecosystems.The LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative is the development of innovative online resources and tools designed to further the investigation of Non-indigenous and Invasive Species (NIS), and their impact on ecosystem functioning and services. But what are these ecosystem services and functions, and what are invasive species? Giving us the answers is Alberto Basset, Professor of Ecology at the University of Salento, who explains all this and more in this easy-to-follow interview, pitched at the non-initiated. The next time someone mentions NIS, you'll know exactly what they mean. Duration: 15'. Impact on helping us to mitigate further biodiversity loss: hi...2022-03-1615 min
LifeWatch ERICS1, E1: Introducing LifeWatch ERIC: the Next-Generation Research Infrastructure.The first season of the LifeWatch ERIC podcast series 'A Window on Science' outlines the steps forward that the European e-Science infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research has made in the last two years, developing cutting-edge services for researchers. Our CEO, Christos Arvanitidis, opens the series, walking us through terminology that may seem challenging to non-scientific audiences: Research Infrastructures, the Joint Internal Initiative, and virtual servers. The conversation places LifeWatch ERIC clearly in the context of the European Research Area and outlines not only the progress already made, but strategic plans for the next five years - becoming 'the n...2022-03-1616 min
LifeWatch ERICVoices of Women - Africa Zanella; Gender, Equity and Research.In conversation with Africa Zanella, LifeWatch ERIC International Gender Officer, for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.2022-02-1118 min
LifeWatch ERICTrailer: 'A Window on Science' - the forthcoming podcast series from LifeWatch ERIC. LifeWatch ERIC, the European e-Science Infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research, is starting up a free podcast series, called 'A Window on Science'. We have chosen this easy-access podcast interview format, because reliable information on the environment is of relevance to everybody. The knowledge produced through the LifeWatch ERIC e-Services can inform political decisions and assist businesses in transitioning to a green economy. Have a listen and subscribe to our forthcoming episodes of 'A Window on Science'! 2022-02-0202 min