Line of action:

Drivers of biodiversity loss

Status:

En ejecución

Execution date:

2023

Total budget:

210.100,00 €

Amount of aid from the Biodiversity Foundation:

168.080,00 €

The threat of climate change requires combined management and research measures to propose solutions that guarantee the sustainability and conservation of ecosystems. To this end, it is essential to develop long-term climate change experiments organized in systematic monitoring networks that include complete environmental gradients.

The existence of these infrastructures is critical for generating knowledge and mitigating the negative effects of climate change on ecosystems, maximizing their biodiversity and preserving their uses and services. These initiatives must be continuously improved and analyzed, and integrated into national and supranational networks.

This project is included in the actions aimed at integrating the Spanish scientific community into the European research infrastructure AnaEE-ERIC(Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems – European Research) through the creation of a national node.

The general objective is to inventory, characterize and homogenize the infrastructures that manipulate climate change agents in order to study their effects and analyze their threats on agricultural and forest ecosystems in Spain.

Specifically, it has these specific goals:

• Creation and consolidation of the Spanish node of the European research infrastructure AnaEE-ERIC to advance in the monitoring and understanding of the impact of climate change agents on the dynamics, functioning and biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems in Spain.
• Compilation and analysis of information generated to date on existing infrastructures to be integrated into the AnaEE-Sp network. Elaboration of a qualitative and/or quantitative synthesis of knowledge, including an integrated approach with the different functional characters and processes measured at the edaphic, ecophysiological and vegetation dynamics levels.
• Characterization and analysis of edaphic biodiversity patterns (microbiome and microfauna) in response to climatic manipulation in experiments of the AnaEE-Spain network along an environmental gradient in the Iberian Peninsula.
• Raise awareness and communicate to the competent authorities, the scientific community and the general public the importance and need to develop experiments and networks of plots for observation and monitoring of climate change impacts on terrestrial ecosystems in plots for experimental manipulation of the effects of CC.

• Inventory of existing climate change plots in Spain. Characterization of the network of experimental climate change plots of the AnaEE-Sp. node. Identification of climate manipulation experiments in Spain, integration of groups and infrastructures to create an organized and systematic thematic network at national level (AnaEE-Sp). Assessment of the state of knowledge and the experimental and infrastructure needs to understand and mitigate the effects of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems in Spain in the identified existing plots.
• Identification of the possibilities and limitations of the existing network of experimental plots in order to propose solutions for ecosystem management and conservation in the face of climate change. Discussion of limitations and possibilities with information from existing plots developed so far individually: potential for integration and synthesis of information.
• Analysis of characterized data and discussion of results integrating the entire network of identified plots. Compilation of generated data and identification of knowledge gaps with existing infrastructures. Bibliographic review of the results obtained to date in the different existing experimental sites. Interconnection and integration of existing information from different experimental sites to assess knowledge and impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. Identification of parameters andproxiesfor early detection of climate change threats to ecosystems.
• Soil sampling in the different experimental plots and different types of ecosystems along identified geographical gradients. Analysis of modifications in microfauna, microbiome and physicochemical properties in response to climate change agents in existing plots of the AnaEE-Sp network. Comparison of control soils with soils under manipulative plots of precipitation exclusion and heating.
• Processing of sampled soil samples. Pre-treatment (sieving and milling) and physical and chemical analysis (moisture, pH, electrical conductivity, bulk density, organic carbon, texture, macro- and micro-nutrients) of samples.
• Analysis of edaphic diversity (microbiome and microfauna) by taxonomic and functional approaches and massive sequencing in climate change experiments. Discussion of evolution and changes in soils due to climate change patterns. Data analysis and writing of a scientific article.
• Dissemination and communication of the project. Transfer and dissemination activities to different social and technical agents on the importance of monitoring the impact of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems through collaborative multidisciplinary networks, grouping different entities along wide geographical gradients.