The European Biodiversity Partnership, Biodiversa+, a consortium in which the Fundación Biodiversidad of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge participates, has resolved its call for proposals to improve the transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change (BiodivMon), which will support a total of 33 projects.
The BiodivMon call, endowed with more than 41 million euros, is aimed at biodiversity monitoring. The management committee of this international call for proposals has approved the financing of 33 transnational projects, 17 of which include a Spanish partner, and which will start soon. A complete list of projects can be found at the Biodiversa+ website. The Spanish projects will be funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación, which is supporting 11 proposals, and the Fundación Biodiversidad, which will provide the necessary funding to support another 6 proposals that will improve transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change.
The DNASense project aims to advance, integrate and harmonize the use of electronic DNA, community DNA and remote sensing techniques to monitor multiple dimensions of benthic biodiversity. It will be implemented through the University of Barcelona, which will work in the Mediterranean Sea area.
The Instituto de Ciencias del Mar-CSIC will implement the MoSTFUN project, which aims to fill the knowledge gaps on the diversity of aquatic fungi across Europe. In Spain, work will be carried out in the coastal areas of the northern Mediterranean Sea and in the estuary at the mouth of the Ebro River. The EMPHATIC projectwhich will be implemented by the Marine Research Institute together with the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, proposes to generate and implement a cetacean population monitoring toolbox suitable for use in routine environmental assessments, and to develop distribution indicators and health status indicators, applicable under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, the Habitats Directive, and regional agreements. The work will focus on the subregions of the Bay of Biscay, the Iberian coast and the western Mediterranean.
SEAGHOSTS aims to bring together the limited knowledge of the spatial and trophic ecology of storm-petrel species(Hydrobatidae and Oceanitidae) and their breeding populations in Europe to assess the main threats they face at sea. In Spain, work will be carried out in the Bay of Biscay, the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, the Levante coast and the Cantabrian Sea.
CAMBioMed assess change in marine ecosystems in terms of biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services across the Mediterranean; guide schemes that combine classical observation methods with new technological tools that enable timely change detection and adaptive management; and incorporate social perspectives into monitoring to assess the perception of impacts by humans within a broader socio-ecological context. It has two Spanish partners, CSIC and the University of Vigo, who will work along the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
Finally, BioBoost aims to increase the frequency and spatial scales of species composition monitoring of marine plankton, benthic invertebrates, habitat-forming plants and animals, fish, marine mammals and birds by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) for digital imagery and cost-effective remote monitoring technologies, in situand airborne. Fundación AZTI will be the Spanish partner working in the Atlantic Ocean focusing on the Bay of Biscay.
European Biodiversity Partnership, Biodiversa+
The European Biodiversity Partnership (Biodiversa+) is one of the key actions of the European Union (EU) EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 under the research and innovation (R&I) framework program for the period 2021 -2027, Horizon Europe.
Biodiversa+, action 81 of the European Biodiversity Strategyaims to put European biodiversity back on the path to recovery by 2030, through the implementation of an ambitious program of actions including: funding research projects of excellent quality and high societal impact; establishing a harmonized European network of biodiversity observatories; supporting the implementation of Nature-Based Solutions by the private sector; better connecting R&I with governance; and promoting the EU’s role in biodiversity R&I globally.
