LTER-LIFE meeting

LTER-LIFE

In the Netherlands, Large Scientific Infrastructure is funded though the co-called GWI program of NWO. This is not an open call, only Infrastructure that is on the GWI Road Map can apply. For the round that closes early 2022 we are allowed to submit a grant to fund the LTER-LIFE instrument (see below). Grants should be at least 10 Meuro with an additional 2.5 Meuro co-financing. There will be 20 proposals for which 100 Meuro is available. 

LTER-LIFE will provide a state-of-the-art instrument to facilitate research on biodiversity. It brings together long-term biodiversity data (LTER-NL), environmental data (NemNet), and open analysis methods (LifeWatch). The instrument is intended to be used for both research on understanding the functioning of ecosystems as well as to take in silico mitigation measurement to evaluate their effects on biodiversity. We are currently in the process of developing the grant and an essential component is to build a research community that wants to help develop LTER-LIFE, contribute to building it if it gets funded and is interested to use the instrument for their research on ecological and evolutionary processes shaping biodiversity. 

The draft idea is to develop four work packages. In WP1 we will make the long-term data sets on wild animal and plant populations from, initially three, Long Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) sites available (by making them Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reproducible; FAIR). These data will be stored by the institutions that collect the long-term ecological and environmental data, and by making the data FAIR they become machine readable and can be harvested. In WP2 we will integrate these (often heterogenous) data using an open source data integration portal, making them accessible for researchers. In WP3 we will use these integrated data, together with our ecological knowledge, to create digital twins (i.e. a digital model of the species and their interactions with each other and the environment) for the, initial, three LTER sites. The digital twins will, among others, be used to identify any essential data that is currently missing at the LTER sites and we will set up new long-term measuring program for that. Finally, in WP4 LTER-LIFE will provide analysis methods of the digital twins in the virtual research environments of LifeWatch. This will be a crucial spring board towards large scientific programs, such as the Gravity program, that will do ground-breaking science using the LTER-LIFE instrument. This will include enhancing our fundamental knowledge on how biodiversity is shaped and maintained, and allowing in silico mitigation measurements to assess the impact of these on biodiversity. Together, LTER-LIFE provides a new and unique instrument facilitating break-through research on the fundaments of biodiversity and the resilience of (semi)-natural systems.     

The LTER-LIFE long-term data will be integrated with data from other biodiversity instruments, such as the GWI ARISE (Authoritative and Rapid Identification System for Essential biodiversity information) infrastructure, and key relationships will be tested for causality using the GWI XL-EFES (Large-scale Experimental Facilities for Ecosystem Simulations). This will result in an effective workflow to facilitate answering crucial question on the preservation and the reinforcement of biodiversity. LTER-LIFE will strengthen the position of the Netherlands within Europe, with close links with the ESFRI Road Map collaboration between LTER-Europe and LifeWatch, European cluster projects (ENVRI-FAIR, EOSC-FUTURE) and with the future European program for monitoring biodiversity (EuropaBon). 

We are now looking for scientists and other interested that want to be part of the research community around LTER-LIFE. If you either (1) have long-term data on plant or animal populations (on the abundance of populations, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that determine this abundance), or (2) are interested in doing research on understanding the functioning of ecosystems or on the effect of possible mitigation measurement to evaluate their effects on biodiversity, or (3) are a stake-holder interested in the outcome of this research we welcome you to join the research community. We will have a start-up on-line meeting on the morning of Friday 29 October. If you want to join please e-mail LTER-LIFE2022@nioo.knaw.nl and then we will send you the details of the meeting later. 

With best wishes,
Astrid Souren, Peter van Tienderen & Marcel Visser
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