Ref.: LIFEWATCH-2019-01-0MAU-01
The SUMHAL Project, “Sustainability for Mediterranean Hotspots in Andalusia integrating LifeWatch ERIC”, is part of the FEDER program of actions related to the pan-European distributed e-Science infrastructure LifeWatch ERIC, with Headquarters in Andalusia-Spain.
Its fundamental objective is to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in natural or semi-natural systems of the Western Mediterranean, an objective based on high-tech infrastructure, and the association between research personnel highly specialized and citizens. To this end, the project implements a strategy, whose main objective is to combine the results of field work with Virtual Research Environments for storage, management, analysis and dissemination. of the state of conservation of the biodiversity of Andalusian ecosystems.
The centers and institutes that make up this project are the Doñana Biological Station, the Microelectronics Institute of Seville, the Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville, the Zaidín Experimental Station, the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences and the Arid Zone Experiment Station.
Entity responsible for the project
Participating centers and institutes
Scope of action
The goal is to establish a technologically efficient and scientifically robust system that combines fieldwork, virtual research environments (VREs) for the recording, storage, analysis, and dissemination of the conservation status and threats to Andalusian biodiversity and the most common ecosystems. Virtual tools are offered not only to researchers but also to society and conservation agencies for assessing the current situation after considering the past, making informed decisions, and undertaking adaptive management actions to reduce future vulnerability and loss of natural heritage.
Since natural systems are extremely complex and require deep expertise and innovative methodologies and large facilities, this European project offers the opportunity to unite personnel, facilities, and expertise to cover and integrate a wide variety of case studies, methodological approaches, and spatial and temporal scales. The fact that Andalusia constitutes a clear example of the situation of natural systems in the Southwestern Mediterranean Basin gives it the possibility of being used as an important and very different case study from dominant Central European regions.
The project seeks the union of personnel, facilities, and expertise.
Study of the Southwestern Mediterranean Basin
The degradation, loss, and fragmentation of typically Mediterranean landscapes and habitats, where drought is one of the main threats, where many endemic species living in small populations, as well as exotic species, disrupt the balance of natural systems, make it urgent to develop a science-based conservation strategy directed at humanized landscapes typical of Mediterranean regions.
The development of a strategy for biodiversity preservation and sustainable management of these very heterogeneous and fragile natural systems implies both an "evaluation of conservation" and a "threat assessment." This strategy will not fully develop without the participation (assistance and education) of citizens. Societies need to develop easy and integrative systems to attract citizens to routine science and provide rigorous information to interact with administrators and policymakers.
This scientific project is structured around nine work packages (WP)
Of these nine work packages, seven are called "Challenge Work Packages" focused on different selected aspects of biodiversity and the environment in Andalusia, addressing specific scientific and social issues, and exploring different dimensions and approaches that allow providing a composite picture of how science can support sound decision-making for a sustainable future.
The remaining two work packages are the "Cross-Cutting Work Packages," which offer coordination, coherence, connection, and infrastructure, both internally (within the project) and externally (with LifeWatch ERIC and other related initiatives).
WP 3
The overall objective of this work package is to explore ways of mobilizing, harmonizing, and disseminating historical information about biodiversity and its management to generate reference conditions for conservation, improve research, and enhance its interface with management.
The vision of the WP is that the proposed exploratory examples serve as a basis for mobilizing and distributing historical information about biodiversity and its management at the Andalusian, Spanish, European, and global levels.
In summary, this WP aims to advance and serve as a model for the mobilization, harmonization, and dissemination of historical and long-term biodiversity records to identify useful baselines for biodiversity conservation and facilitate the development of new management approaches.
WP 5
This proposal combines knowledge from experimental field ecology, genetics and genomics of populations, conservation biology, and landscape ecology in a general framework to assess the biodiversity intercatome within the Natura 2000 Network. This proposal will offer a new conceptual framework to understand how species extinctions are related to the prior loss of key interactions across gradients of environmental deterioration.
As study cases, we will focus on plant-animal mutualisms and antagonisms (seed dispersal, predation, pollination, herbivory, parasitism, mycorrhizas), as well as information from the food web (predator-prey, host-parasite, host-parasitoid, etc.) in the Doñana National Park (Doñana Natural Space-END) and extensions of protected natural areas in Andalusia within the Natura 2000 Network (RN2000).
Additionally, we will update all existing information on ecological interactions in core study areas focused on RN2000 spaces.
WP 7
The overall objective of this work package is to advance our understanding of the impacts of global change drivers, primarily climate change and exotic pathogens, on the surface and subsurface biodiversity of Mediterranean forests and silvopastoral agroecosystems, and to use the resulting information to propose management strategies.
We will focus our research on the evergreen species forests and dehesas of Quercus (Quercus suber and Quercus ilex) in Andalusia, due to their ecological and strategic economic importance and their current vulnerability to increasing aridity and invasion by the aggressive exotic pathogen: Phytophthora cinnamomi. This general objective will be achieved through specific objectives at different spatial scales:
The general objective of this work package is to explore ways to mobilize, harmonize, and disseminate historical information on biodiversity and its management to generate reference conditions for conservation, improve research, and enhance its interface with management.
The vision of the work package is that the proposed exploratory examples serve as a basis for mobilizing and distributing historical information on biodiversity and its management at the Andalusian, Spanish, European, and global levels.
In summary, this work package aims to advance and serve as a model for the mobilization, harmonization, and dissemination of historical and long-term biodiversity records to identify useful baselines for biodiversity conservation and facilitate the development of new management approaches.
In summary, this work package aims to advance and serve as a model for the mobilization, harmonization, and dissemination of historical and long-term biodiversity records to identify useful baselines for biodiversity conservation and facilitate the development of new management approaches.
Exploring the generation, mobilization and dissemination of long-term information on biodiversity: from conservation references to management evaluation
Combining field data, citizen science and IoT to monitor anthropogenic impacts on Andalusian biodiversity and society
eLabs-BioINTERACT: Ecological interactions as components of biodiversity and ecosystem services
Development of protocols and indicators for monitoring and evaluating land condition at multiple scales
Improving the sustainability of Mediterranean forests and silvopastoral agrosystems under climate change
Use of isotopic fingerprints of Andalusian ecosystems as tools to evaluate changes in biodiversity, ecosystem management and sustainable development
Although the LifeWatch ERIC ICT Core e-Infrastructure has a distributed nature to federate existing pan-European e-Biodiversity resources, LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities hosted in Spain (particularly ICT Core), in close collaboration with CSIC and the University of Huelva, among others, have agreed to propose the establishment of a central facility for the coordination and management of the construction and operations of distributed electronic infrastructures of ICT Core. This will be formalized through the signing of the corresponding Legal Service Agreements between the participating institutions. The so-called LifeWatch ERIC e-Biodiversity Research and Innovation Center, "eBRIC," will house the essential team and technical staff of LifeWatch ERIC ICT Core. This state-of-the-art e-Science building complex, located on the Atlantic coast (Matalascañas, Huelva), closed since 2012, will be rehabilitated and directly connected to the Virtual Exhibition Center of e-Biodiversity VeBEC (formerly the Marine World Museum), also closed since then.
Both buildings are thematically and technically connected through underground wiring, and, in turn, connected to the rest of the world through the double RED.ES connection of high-capacity and availability dark fiber optic.
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