Biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems, including those precious services sustaining our life and our societies, are at risk, affecting the ecological sustainability of our Planet, our well-being and our future. LifeWatch-ERIC, the European e-Science Infrastructure of Biodiversity and Ecosystem research (www.lifewatch.eu) has organised a m…
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“LifeWatch Italy: the e-science infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research supporting “Cammini LTER” is the title of the contribution authored by Alberto Basset (LifeWatch Italy JRU Manager and Interim Director of LifeWatch-ERIC Service Centre) and Sara Montinaro (LifeWatch ERIC Interim Chief Communication Officer), featured in the mono…
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The report of the 1st Working meeting on “Metadata, Controlled vocabularies and Ontologies” is now available on line at this link, after the approval of the executive board of LifeWatch ERIC. The main aim of the meeting, organised the last November in Lecce by the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre, was to set a roadmap for a common strategy to be adop…
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In the framework of LifeWatch Italy activties, the Bio-Molecular Laboratory (MobiLab) is in charge to build curated collections suitable to conduct molecular biodiversity studies of a wide range of organisms along the tree of life. Considering the state of the art, the taxonomic composition of complex biological and ecological matrices can be optim…
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LifeWatch Italy calls for proposals to develop study cases in/at:
1) the Phyto VRE and Alien Species VRE – LifeWatch Italy invites the interested researchers to submit projects proposals involving the re-use and/or the customization of resources produced by LW-ITA or by other initiatives (including infrastructures and projects), their integration with resources available to the project proponents, and the implementation of new e-services required to address the specific project questions – please download the full call
2) the distributed Laboratory of “Molecular Biodiversity” – LifeWatch Italy invites the interested researchers to submit projects proposals involving the production of molecular data through “Next Generation sequencing” technologies (e.g. sequencing of amplicons, genomes, metagenomes, transcriptomes and meta-transcriptomes) and their bioinformatic analysis – please download the full call.
Proposals shall be drafted using our application form and submitted via email (lifewatchitalia[at]unisalento.it) by 21 December 2018.
Please visit the dedicated page.
Documents:
1) Call for study cases proposals in Virtual Research Environments – download
2) Call for study cases proposals at the distributed Laboratory of “Molecular Biodiversity” – download
3) Application form – download
On November 12th & 13th, the LifeWatch-ERIC Service Centre organised the first working meeting on “Metadata, Controlled Vocabularies and Ontologies” in Lecce, Italy. The aim of the meeting was to set a roadmap for a common strategy to be adopted on metadata, controlled vocabularies and ontologies within the LW-ERIC community and in accordance …
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A fourth paper was recently published taking into consideration terrestrial habitats and plant alien species (https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.03.038), defined within the Alien Species Thesaurus as having been introduced after ca. 1500, both deliberately or accidentally, regardless of their invasion status. By using the LifeWatch Ita…
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The 10th International Conference on Ecological Informatics (ICEI2018) took place in Jena, from September 24th to 28th, aiming at bringing together researchers interested in data-intensive ecology from both an ecological and a computer science point of view. The Conference was held at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität and was articulated in plena…
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The school year recently began with the awarding ceremony of the MEDCIS Scientific Gaming 2017/2018 Competition, held in Lecce, on 28 September 2018. The ceremony was attended by representatives of the winning teams of Senior and Junior categories, who had the chance of presenting their projects and sharing their enthusiasm about this experience. MEDCIS scientific game participants were asked to deepen the objectives of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), enabling the acquisition of knowledge related to the Mediterranean Sea and triggering students’ interest and attention in biodiversity, marine noise and marine litter.
The new school year also sees the start of the new editions of the Serious Game competitions, supported by LifeWatch Italy, addressing different aspects of the study of biodiversity and ecosystems.
The initiatives proposed for 2018/2019 have been organised together with the National Academy of Sciences, University of Salento and Horizon 2020 projects ENVRIplus and Ecopotential. Students are invited to make experimental projects, aimed at the comprehension and application of the scientific method on ecologically related themes, and to challenge each other through an online competition based on a serious game.
The initiatives will have both national and international dimensions, starting with EcoLogicaCup, targeting the Italian landscape with an exclusively online competition, and following with the Scientific games promoted by ENVRIplus and Ecopotential.
The competitions will be going on for the whole school year, offering materials to learn more about the subject, and proposing intermediate steps, such as training sessions and/or the experimental project delivery and evaluation. The final phase, the online competition, will be held during spring 2019, and the exact dates will be communicated on the related platform in the upcoming says.
The Scientific Games are played in teams, competing in Junior or Senior category according to the students’ age. Registration is free of any charges and (shortly) available on the respective web platforms.
Invasive alien species (IAS) are one of the worst threats to the conservation and restoration of ecosystems of our times. Human mediated introductions of plants and animals into new environments caused and are causing massive environmental and economic losses. Globally, it is estimated that more than 1.4 trillion dollars are spent every year for mitigating their damages. More than a half of global extinctions are related to alien species.
Global problems require global solutions. Preventing and mitigating impacts of IAS thus requires international collaborations. Scientists, citizens and practitioners worldwide need to join their efforts to provide a solid scientific knowledge base underpinning best practices for managing IAS.
Therefore, LifeWatch Italy welcomes the recent launch of INVASIVESNET International Association for Open Knowledge on Invasive Alien Species (please visit the website www.invasivesnet.org and the page gathering the related publications).
LifeWatch Italy is indeed very active in this field of research, with its dedicated Virtual Research Environment and case study on Ecosystem vulnerability to Alien Species arrival, providing access to data resources and species lists, environmental and climatic data, and numerous other layers of information for the study of Alien Species distribution, including a Thesaurus for the definition of alien species, additional metadata, workflows, tools for statistical analysis, and on line services.
Likewise LifeWatch Italy, INVASIVESNET aims to strengthen scientific knowledge about biodiversity and provides tools to help better manage ecosystems. Both the network and the infrastructure can support each other in reaching this goal, sharing data, tools and activities, facilitating new collaborations and exchange of ideas and maximizing visibility.
INVASIVESNET facilitates access to high quality and open source knowledge and data on IAS, promoting global exchange of information among those involved in research and management. The International Council, led by Francis Lucy, consists of internationally renowned experts from five continents, and INVASIVESNET members include individuals and organisations.
Lastly, INVASIVESNET offers discounted article processing charges to their members for publishing in one of the open access journals of the Association (Aquatic Invasion IF 1.976, BioInvasions Records IF 1.189, and Management of Biological Invasions IF 2.037).
For more information visit the website: www.invasivesnet.org or follow INVASIVESNET on Facebook or Twitter.
Contact person:
Angela Boggero
LifeWatch Italy
CNR-Water Research Institute (IRSA)
Tel. +39 0323 518300, e-mail: angela.boggero@irsa.cnr.it