Gael Lymer, Frederik Leliaert, Patricia Mergen, Stefaan Pijls
Mechanisms and sources of funding for European Research Infrastructure Consortiums (ERICs) are diverse, complex and can be challenging to identify and to use. This paper provides a roadmap for Research & Development (R&D) within the pre-commercial procurement (PCP) framework and the landscape of funding for ERICs available from the European Union with a perspective on other tracks of funding. Our objective is to offer a starting point and underline opportunities and challenges, for existing and future ERICs. The work presented in this paper results from the research carried-out for the business model of the DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections) ERIC, which is currently in its transition phase and will be constructed in the following years.
欧洲研究基础设施联盟(ERICs)的机制和资金来源是多样的、复杂的,并且很难识别和使用。本文为研究提供了路线图。商业前采购(PCP)框架内的开发(研发)和欧盟提供的ERICs资金前景,并从其他资金渠道的角度考虑。我们的目标是为现有和未来的ERICs提供一个起点,并强调机遇和挑战。本文所介绍的工作是对DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections) ERIC商业模式进行研究的结果,该模式目前正处于过渡阶段,将在未来几年内建成。
{"title":"Pre-Commercial Procurement framework and European funding sources for European Research Infrastructure Consortiums: Insights from the DiSSCo ERIC development","authors":"Gael Lymer, Frederik Leliaert, Patricia Mergen, Stefaan Pijls","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e113294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e113294","url":null,"abstract":"Mechanisms and sources of funding for European Research Infrastructure Consortiums (ERICs) are diverse, complex and can be challenging to identify and to use. This paper provides a roadmap for Research & Development (R&D) within the pre-commercial procurement (PCP) framework and the landscape of funding for ERICs available from the European Union with a perspective on other tracks of funding. Our objective is to offer a starting point and underline opportunities and challenges, for existing and future ERICs. The work presented in this paper results from the research carried-out for the business model of the DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections) ERIC, which is currently in its transition phase and will be constructed in the following years.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135854890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Malte Jochum, Vera Zizka, Stefan Scheu, Nico Eisenhauer, Melanie Pollierer
Global change is transforming Earth’s ecological communities with severe consequences for the functions and services they provide. In temperate grasslands, home to a mesmerising diversity of invertebrates controlling multiple ecosystem processes and services, land-use intensification and climate change are two of the most important global-change drivers. While we know a lot about their independent effects on grassland biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, little is known about how these stressors interact. Moreover, most research on biodiversity change focuses on decreasing biomass or species richness, while a major aspect is commonly ignored – altered ecological interactions. This is problematic because these interactions represent and control many important ecosystem processes, such as predation, herbivory or decomposition. Networks of trophic interactions, so-called food webs, link the structure and functioning of ecological communities and unravel mechanistic relationships between environmental change, ecological communities and ecosystem multifunctionality – the ability of a system to simultaneously support multiple processes. Consequently, we need to study how ecological interactions and the food webs they comprise respond to environmental change and to multiple interacting global-change drivers. Fortunately, novel tools offer unprecedented opportunities in studying trophic interactions and their impact on ecosystem processes. In addition, we know far more about how global change impacts the aboveground world than its belowground counterpart. However, belowground communities are just as important for the overall functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Thus, to comprehensively understand global-change impacts on temperate grasslands, we need to study above- and belowground multitrophic interactions and ecosystem processes together, also accounting for their interdependencies. Here, we propose to use the Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF, Bad Lauchstädt, Germany) to study joint impacts of land-use intensity and climate change on above-belowground multitrophic interactions and ecosystem multifunctionality in a temperate grassland global-change experiment. We will combine novel approaches to assessing trophic interactions and basal-resource dependency with an innovative method to quantify energy flux through ecological interaction networks. We will disentangle separate and interactive effects of land use and climate change and unravel how global-change driven modifications in multitrophic interactions mechanistically translate into altered ecosystem processes and multifunctionality – above and below the ground. Combining a field-experimental approach with novel molecular and quantitative techniques will allow for a leap forward in our understanding of global-change impacts on temperate grasslands, which will be crucial to manage and conserve these important ecosystems.
全球变化正在改变地球上的生态群落,对它们提供的功能和服务造成严重后果。在温带草原,控制着多种生态系统过程和服务的无脊椎动物的多样性令人着迷,土地利用集约化和气候变化是两个最重要的全球变化驱动因素。虽然我们对它们对草地生物多样性和生态系统功能的独立影响了解很多,但对这些压力源如何相互作用知之甚少。此外,大多数关于生物多样性变化的研究都集中在生物量或物种丰富度的减少上,而一个重要的方面往往被忽视——生态相互作用的改变。这是有问题的,因为这些相互作用代表并控制着许多重要的生态系统过程,如捕食、食草或分解。营养相互作用网络,即所谓的食物网,将生态群落的结构和功能联系在一起,并揭示了环境变化、生态群落和生态系统多功能性(一个系统同时支持多个过程的能力)之间的机制关系。因此,我们需要研究生态相互作用及其组成的食物网如何响应环境变化和多种相互作用的全球变化驱动因素。幸运的是,新的工具为研究营养相互作用及其对生态系统过程的影响提供了前所未有的机会。此外,我们对全球变化如何影响地上世界的了解远远超过对地下世界的了解。然而,地下群落对陆地生态系统的整体功能同样重要。因此,为了全面了解全球变化对温带草原的影响,我们需要一起研究地上和地下的多营养相互作用和生态系统过程,并考虑它们的相互依赖性。本文建议利用全球变化实验设施(GCEF, Bad Lauchstädt, Germany),在温带草地全球变化实验中,研究土地利用强度和气候变化对地上-地下多营养相互作用和生态系统多功能性的共同影响。我们将结合评估营养相互作用和基础资源依赖的新方法,以及通过生态相互作用网络量化能量通量的创新方法。我们将解开土地利用和气候变化的单独和相互作用的影响,并揭示全球变化驱动的多营养相互作用的变化如何在机制上转化为改变的生态系统过程和多功能性-地上和地下。将实地实验方法与新颖的分子和定量技术相结合,将使我们对全球变化对温带草原影响的理解有一个飞跃,这对管理和保护这些重要的生态系统至关重要。
{"title":"Global change in above-belowground multitrophic grassland communities","authors":"Malte Jochum, Vera Zizka, Stefan Scheu, Nico Eisenhauer, Melanie Pollierer","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e113960","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e113960","url":null,"abstract":"Global change is transforming Earth’s ecological communities with severe consequences for the functions and services they provide. In temperate grasslands, home to a mesmerising diversity of invertebrates controlling multiple ecosystem processes and services, land-use intensification and climate change are two of the most important global-change drivers. While we know a lot about their independent effects on grassland biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, little is known about how these stressors interact. Moreover, most research on biodiversity change focuses on decreasing biomass or species richness, while a major aspect is commonly ignored – altered ecological interactions. This is problematic because these interactions represent and control many important ecosystem processes, such as predation, herbivory or decomposition. Networks of trophic interactions, so-called food webs, link the structure and functioning of ecological communities and unravel mechanistic relationships between environmental change, ecological communities and ecosystem multifunctionality – the ability of a system to simultaneously support multiple processes. Consequently, we need to study how ecological interactions and the food webs they comprise respond to environmental change and to multiple interacting global-change drivers. Fortunately, novel tools offer unprecedented opportunities in studying trophic interactions and their impact on ecosystem processes. In addition, we know far more about how global change impacts the aboveground world than its belowground counterpart. However, belowground communities are just as important for the overall functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Thus, to comprehensively understand global-change impacts on temperate grasslands, we need to study above- and belowground multitrophic interactions and ecosystem processes together, also accounting for their interdependencies. Here, we propose to use the Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF, Bad Lauchstädt, Germany) to study joint impacts of land-use intensity and climate change on above-belowground multitrophic interactions and ecosystem multifunctionality in a temperate grassland global-change experiment. We will combine novel approaches to assessing trophic interactions and basal-resource dependency with an innovative method to quantify energy flux through ecological interaction networks. We will disentangle separate and interactive effects of land use and climate change and unravel how global-change driven modifications in multitrophic interactions mechanistically translate into altered ecosystem processes and multifunctionality – above and below the ground. Combining a field-experimental approach with novel molecular and quantitative techniques will allow for a leap forward in our understanding of global-change impacts on temperate grasslands, which will be crucial to manage and conserve these important ecosystems.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":"252 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135854095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dimitrios Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Eva Alonso, Wouter Addink, Maria Judite Alves, Ana Casino, Luís Curral, Henrik Enghoff, Michel Guiraud, Helen Hardy, Jana Hoffmann, Salomé Landel, Carole Paleco, Mareike Petersen, Serge Scory, Vincent Smith, Claus Weiland, Karsten Wesche, Matt Woodburn
The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) is a new world-class Research Infrastructure (RI) for Natural Science Collections. The DiSSCo RI aims to create a new business model for one European collection that digitally unifies all European natural science assets under common access, curation, policies and practices that ensure that all the data is easily Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR principles). DiSSCo represents the largest ever formal agreement between natural history museums, botanic gardens and collection-holding institutions in the world. DiSSCo entered the European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures in 2018 and launched its main preparatory phase project (DiSSCo Prepare) in 2020. DiSSCo Prepare is the primary vehicle through which DiSSCo reaches the overall maturity necessary for its construction and eventual operation. DiSSCo Prepare raises DiSSCo’s implementation readiness level (IRL) across the five dimensions: technical, scientific, data, organisational and financial. Each dimension of implementation readiness is separately addressed by specific Work Packages (WP) with distinct targets, actions and tasks that will deliver DiSSCo’s Construction Masterplan. This comprehensive and integrated Masterplan will be the product of the outputs of all of its content related tasks and will be the project’s final output. It will serve as the blueprint for construction of the DiSSCo RI, including establishing it as a legal entity. DiSSCo Prepare builds on the successful completion of DiSSCo’s design study, ICEDIG and the outcomes of other DiSSCo-linked projects such as SYNTHESYS+ and MOBILISE. This paper is an abridged version of the original DiSSCo Prepare grant proposal. It contains the overarching scientific case for DiSSCo Prepare, alongside a description of our major activities.
{"title":"DiSSCo Prepare Project: Increasing the Implementation Readiness Levels of the European Research Infrastructure","authors":"Dimitrios Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Eva Alonso, Wouter Addink, Maria Judite Alves, Ana Casino, Luís Curral, Henrik Enghoff, Michel Guiraud, Helen Hardy, Jana Hoffmann, Salomé Landel, Carole Paleco, Mareike Petersen, Serge Scory, Vincent Smith, Claus Weiland, Karsten Wesche, Matt Woodburn","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e113906","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e113906","url":null,"abstract":"The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) is a new world-class Research Infrastructure (RI) for Natural Science Collections. The DiSSCo RI aims to create a new business model for one European collection that digitally unifies all European natural science assets under common access, curation, policies and practices that ensure that all the data is easily Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR principles). DiSSCo represents the largest ever formal agreement between natural history museums, botanic gardens and collection-holding institutions in the world. DiSSCo entered the European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures in 2018 and launched its main preparatory phase project (DiSSCo Prepare) in 2020. DiSSCo Prepare is the primary vehicle through which DiSSCo reaches the overall maturity necessary for its construction and eventual operation. DiSSCo Prepare raises DiSSCo’s implementation readiness level (IRL) across the five dimensions: technical, scientific, data, organisational and financial. Each dimension of implementation readiness is separately addressed by specific Work Packages (WP) with distinct targets, actions and tasks that will deliver DiSSCo’s Construction Masterplan. This comprehensive and integrated Masterplan will be the product of the outputs of all of its content related tasks and will be the project’s final output. It will serve as the blueprint for construction of the DiSSCo RI, including establishing it as a legal entity. DiSSCo Prepare builds on the successful completion of DiSSCo’s design study, ICEDIG and the outcomes of other DiSSCo-linked projects such as SYNTHESYS+ and MOBILISE. This paper is an abridged version of the original DiSSCo Prepare grant proposal. It contains the overarching scientific case for DiSSCo Prepare, alongside a description of our major activities.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135923417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Helen Hardy, Laurence Livermore, Paul Kersey, Ken Norris, Vincent Smith
UK natural science collections hold over 137 million items, an unrivalled source of data about 4.56 billion years of planetary development and hundreds of years of biological change, including the differences made by humans — but the scientific, commercial, and societal benefits of these collections are constrained by the limits of physical access, and by highly fragmented digitisation efforts with less than 10% digitally available. Following work with Frontier Economics in 2021, which showed potential for £2 billion in benefits to the UK economy from digitising all UK natural science collections, in 2022–23 the Natural History Museum London worked, with analytical support from McKinsey and Company, to understand the impact of what has already been digitised and shared by UK natural science collections — what is the demand for these data, what are they used for, and how does this deliver efficient, effective and impactful research? This study focuses on usage via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the largest source of relevant usage data, examining 7.6 million records from twelve UK institutions. While these UK collections data are just 0.3% of total GBIF occurrences, they are cited in 12% of peer reviewed publications citing GBIF data, showing the disproportionate impact of UK collections data and the historical, geographical, and taxonomic richness that they bring. Researchers have already benefited from more than £18 million of efficiency savings from digital UK specimen data. Data from natural science collections held in the UK are uniquely impactful resources, vital to a future in which people and planet thrive, and a step change in the pace of digitisation is needed to unlock their potential for researchers, policymakers, and society.
{"title":"Understanding the users and uses of UK Natural History Collections","authors":"Helen Hardy, Laurence Livermore, Paul Kersey, Ken Norris, Vincent Smith","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e113378","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e113378","url":null,"abstract":"UK natural science collections hold over 137 million items, an unrivalled source of data about 4.56 billion years of planetary development and hundreds of years of biological change, including the differences made by humans — but the scientific, commercial, and societal benefits of these collections are constrained by the limits of physical access, and by highly fragmented digitisation efforts with less than 10% digitally available. Following work with Frontier Economics in 2021, which showed potential for £2 billion in benefits to the UK economy from digitising all UK natural science collections, in 2022–23 the Natural History Museum London worked, with analytical support from McKinsey and Company, to understand the impact of what has already been digitised and shared by UK natural science collections — what is the demand for these data, what are they used for, and how does this deliver efficient, effective and impactful research? This study focuses on usage via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the largest source of relevant usage data, examining 7.6 million records from twelve UK institutions. While these UK collections data are just 0.3% of total GBIF occurrences, they are cited in 12% of peer reviewed publications citing GBIF data, showing the disproportionate impact of UK collections data and the historical, geographical, and taxonomic richness that they bring. Researchers have already benefited from more than £18 million of efficiency savings from digital UK specimen data. Data from natural science collections held in the UK are uniquely impactful resources, vital to a future in which people and planet thrive, and a step change in the pace of digitisation is needed to unlock their potential for researchers, policymakers, and society.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135790322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sharif Islam, James Beach, Elizabeth R. Ellwood, Jose Fortes, Larry Lannom, Gil Nelson, Beth Plale
In the first decades of the 21 st century, there has been a global trend towards digitisation and the mobilisation of data from natural history museums and research institutions. The development of national and international aggregator systems, which focused on data standards, made it possible to access millions of museum specimen records. These records serve as an empirical foundation for research across various fields. In addition, community efforts have expanded the concept of natural history collection specimens to include physical preparations and digital resources, resulting in the Digital Extended Specimen (DES), which also includes derived and related data. Within this context, the paper proposes using the FAIR Digital Object (FDO) framework to accelerate the global vision of the DES, arguing that FDO-enabled infrastructures can reduce barriers to the discovery and access of specimens, help ensure credit back to contributors and increase the amount of research that incorporates biodiversity data.
{"title":"Assessing the FAIR Digital Object Framework for Global Biodiversity Research","authors":"Sharif Islam, James Beach, Elizabeth R. Ellwood, Jose Fortes, Larry Lannom, Gil Nelson, Beth Plale","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e108808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e108808","url":null,"abstract":"In the first decades of the 21 st century, there has been a global trend towards digitisation and the mobilisation of data from natural history museums and research institutions. The development of national and international aggregator systems, which focused on data standards, made it possible to access millions of museum specimen records. These records serve as an empirical foundation for research across various fields. In addition, community efforts have expanded the concept of natural history collection specimens to include physical preparations and digital resources, resulting in the Digital Extended Specimen (DES), which also includes derived and related data. Within this context, the paper proposes using the FAIR Digital Object (FDO) framework to accelerate the global vision of the DES, arguing that FDO-enabled infrastructures can reduce barriers to the discovery and access of specimens, help ensure credit back to contributors and increase the amount of research that incorporates biodiversity data.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135879276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Fouilloux, Elisa Trasatti, Federica Foglini, Alejandro Coca-Castro, Jean Iaquinta
The numerous benefits of Open Science (OS) and of the four FAIR foundational principles - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable - are increasingly valued in academia, although what OS and FAIR entail is still largely misunderstood. In such conditions, putting into practice OS and applying the FAIR principles is challenging and underrated. However, realising OS is perfectly within our grasp provided that an infrastructure supporting the management of the research lifecycle is available. ROHub (https://www.rohub.org/) is a Research Object (RO) management platform implementing three complementary technologies: Research Objects, Data Cubes and Text Mining services. ROHub enables researchers to collaboratively manage, share and preserve their research while they are still working on it (rather than after the work is finished). In this paper, three communities from Earth Sciences, namely Geohazards, Sea Monitoring and Climate Change, demonstrate how ROHub helped them to understand each other and to work openly and, more importantly, how communities of practice play an important role in facilitating reuse and interdisciplinary collaboration. These findings are illustrated with several use cases from these various communities.
{"title":"FAIR Research Objects for realising Open Science with the EOSC project RELIANCE","authors":"A. Fouilloux, Elisa Trasatti, Federica Foglini, Alejandro Coca-Castro, Jean Iaquinta","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e108765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e108765","url":null,"abstract":"The numerous benefits of Open Science (OS) and of the four FAIR foundational principles - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable - are increasingly valued in academia, although what OS and FAIR entail is still largely misunderstood. In such conditions, putting into practice OS and applying the FAIR principles is challenging and underrated. However, realising OS is perfectly within our grasp provided that an infrastructure supporting the management of the research lifecycle is available. ROHub (https://www.rohub.org/) is a Research Object (RO) management platform implementing three complementary technologies: Research Objects, Data Cubes and Text Mining services. ROHub enables researchers to collaboratively manage, share and preserve their research while they are still working on it (rather than after the work is finished). In this paper, three communities from Earth Sciences, namely Geohazards, Sea Monitoring and Climate Change, demonstrate how ROHub helped them to understand each other and to work openly and, more importantly, how communities of practice play an important role in facilitating reuse and interdisciplinary collaboration. These findings are illustrated with several use cases from these various communities.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44189977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Stefano Larsen, J. Álvarez‐Martínez, J. Barquín, M. Bruno, Laura Concostrina Zubiri, L. Gallitelli, M. Jonsson, Monika Laux, G. Pace, M. Scalici, R. Schulz
Europe has committed to upscale ecosystems protection to include 30% of land and sea. However, due to historical overexploitation of natural assets, the available area for biodiversity protection is severely limited. Riparian zones are natural ecotones between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, contributing disproportionately to regional biodiversity and providing multiple ecosystem functions and services. Due to this and their branching geometry, riparian networks form a vast system of ‘blue-green arteries’ which physically and functionally connect multiple ecosystems over elevation gradients, despite covering a relatively small area of the basin. Hence, RIPARIANET argues that developing approaches able to optimise the spatial conservation of natural stream-riparian networks represent a flagship example of biodiversity protection in the EU. Although the integrity of riparian zones is fundamental for the achievement of multiple EU environmental objectives, the lack of a standardised framework for biodiversity assessment and protection across Member States has led to extensive impairment of riparian areas and frequent stakeholder conflicts. The main objective of RIPARIANET is to leverage the increasing resolution of remote sensing information to provide practitioners with evidence-based guidance and approaches to biodiversity conservation. Key questions include: i) how can we remotely assess riparian integrity and identify areas which provide effective connectivity allowing species biodiversity and ecosystem functions to persist through meta-ecological processes? ii) how can we disentangle the influence of local- and network-scale stressors and processes on riparian biodiversity to better implement river basin management schemes? iii) to what extent do currently existing protected areas in rivers account for the geometry of riparian networks and their multifunctionality? We will address these questions in riparian networks within six river basins in Europe, including Boreal, Continental, Alpine, Temperate and Mediterranean systems. First, we will gather local needs and interests from key stakeholders together with satellite imagery and GIS environmental data for all basins. Then, riparian and river ecosystems functions will be modelled and ecological hotspots will be identified through a GIS-based multi-criteria approach, including stakeholder inputs. Then, we will collect in situ data to assess multiple biodiversity and stressors at the local scale and, subsequently, scale-up this information to the network scale using geostatistical tools and advanced modelling. This knowledge will be conveyed to managers at local and EU scales in the form of decision-support tools allowing decision-makers to identify protection gaps and ecological hotspots along riparian networks, based on multiple biodiversity, functional and connectivity criteria.
{"title":"RIPARIANET - Prioritising riparian ecotones to sustain and connect multiple biodiversity and functional components in river networks","authors":"Stefano Larsen, J. Álvarez‐Martínez, J. Barquín, M. Bruno, Laura Concostrina Zubiri, L. Gallitelli, M. Jonsson, Monika Laux, G. Pace, M. Scalici, R. Schulz","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e108807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e108807","url":null,"abstract":"Europe has committed to upscale ecosystems protection to include 30% of land and sea. However, due to historical overexploitation of natural assets, the available area for biodiversity protection is severely limited. Riparian zones are natural ecotones between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, contributing disproportionately to regional biodiversity and providing multiple ecosystem functions and services. Due to this and their branching geometry, riparian networks form a vast system of ‘blue-green arteries’ which physically and functionally connect multiple ecosystems over elevation gradients, despite covering a relatively small area of the basin. Hence, RIPARIANET argues that developing approaches able to optimise the spatial conservation of natural stream-riparian networks represent a flagship example of biodiversity protection in the EU. Although the integrity of riparian zones is fundamental for the achievement of multiple EU environmental objectives, the lack of a standardised framework for biodiversity assessment and protection across Member States has led to extensive impairment of riparian areas and frequent stakeholder conflicts.\u0000 The main objective of RIPARIANET is to leverage the increasing resolution of remote sensing information to provide practitioners with evidence-based guidance and approaches to biodiversity conservation. Key questions include: i) how can we remotely assess riparian integrity and identify areas which provide effective connectivity allowing species biodiversity and ecosystem functions to persist through meta-ecological processes? ii) how can we disentangle the influence of local- and network-scale stressors and processes on riparian biodiversity to better implement river basin management schemes? iii) to what extent do currently existing protected areas in rivers account for the geometry of riparian networks and their multifunctionality?\u0000 We will address these questions in riparian networks within six river basins in Europe, including Boreal, Continental, Alpine, Temperate and Mediterranean systems. First, we will gather local needs and interests from key stakeholders together with satellite imagery and GIS environmental data for all basins. Then, riparian and river ecosystems functions will be modelled and ecological hotspots will be identified through a GIS-based multi-criteria approach, including stakeholder inputs. Then, we will collect in situ data to assess multiple biodiversity and stressors at the local scale and, subsequently, scale-up this information to the network scale using geostatistical tools and advanced modelling. This knowledge will be conveyed to managers at local and EU scales in the form of decision-support tools allowing decision-makers to identify protection gaps and ecological hotspots along riparian networks, based on multiple biodiversity, functional and connectivity criteria.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45305730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Monique R. E. Janssens, Stefan Gaillard, Judith de Haan, Wim de Leeuw, Matthew Brooke, Maura Burke, Jacques Flores, Iris Kruijen, Julia M L Menon, Adrian Smith, I. Tiebosch, F. Weijdema
Open science in its broadest sense can make better science and provide benefits to researchers. When applied to animal experimentation, it can prevent unnecessary use of animals, because knowledge and experiences about past animal experimentation are shared openly to be consulted and used by other researchers. By extension, open science can accelerate the much anticipated transition towards animal-free innovations or New Approach Methodologies (NAMs). The purpose of this paper is to bring together and further share the preparations and findings of a symposium held at Utrecht University on aspects of open science that researchers doing animal experiments can and should take into account to improve their research and benefit themselves. The paper offers a one-figure guideline for that purpose.
{"title":"How open science can support the 3Rs and improve animal research","authors":"Monique R. E. Janssens, Stefan Gaillard, Judith de Haan, Wim de Leeuw, Matthew Brooke, Maura Burke, Jacques Flores, Iris Kruijen, Julia M L Menon, Adrian Smith, I. Tiebosch, F. Weijdema","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e105198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e105198","url":null,"abstract":"Open science in its broadest sense can make better science and provide benefits to researchers. When applied to animal experimentation, it can prevent unnecessary use of animals, because knowledge and experiences about past animal experimentation are shared openly to be consulted and used by other researchers. By extension, open science can accelerate the much anticipated transition towards animal-free innovations or New Approach Methodologies (NAMs). The purpose of this paper is to bring together and further share the preparations and findings of a symposium held at Utrecht University on aspects of open science that researchers doing animal experiments can and should take into account to improve their research and benefit themselves. The paper offers a one-figure guideline for that purpose.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41460217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Konrad U. Förstner, A. Becker, J. Blom, P. Bork, T. Clavel, M. Dieckmann, A. Goesmann, B. Götz, T. Gübitz, Franziska Hufsky, Sebastian Jünemann, Marie-Louise Körner, M. Marz, U. N. da Rocha, Jörg Overmann, A. Pühler, D. Rebholz-Schuhmann, A. Sczyrba, J. Stoye, Justine Vandendorpe, T. Van Rossum, A. Mchardy
Microbes – bacteria, archaea, unicellular eukaryotes, and viruses – play an important role in human and environmental health. Growing awareness of this fact has led to a huge increase in microbiological research and applications in a variety of fields. Driven by technological advances that allow high-throughput molecular characterization of microbial species and communities, microbiological research now offers unparalleled opportunities to address current and emerging needs. As well as helping to address global health threats such as antimicrobial resistance and viral pandemics, it also has a key role to play in areas such as agriculture, waste management, water treatment, ecosystems remediation, and the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of various diseases. Reflecting this broad potential, billions of euros have been invested in microbiota research programs worldwide. Though run independently, many of these projects are closely related. However, Germany currently has no infrastructure to connect such projects or even compare their results. Thus, the potential synergy of data and expertise is being squandered. The goal of the NFDI4Microbiota consortium is to serve and connect this broad and heterogeneous research community by elevating the availability and quality of research results through dedicated training, and by facilitating the generation, management, interpretation, sharing, and reuse of microbial data. In doing so, we will also foster interdisciplinary interactions between researchers. NFDI4Microbiota will achieve this by creating a German microbial research network through training and community-building activities, and by creating a cloud-based system that will make the storage, integration and analysis of microbial data, especially omics data, consistent, reproducible, and accessible across all areas of life sciences. In addition to increasing the quality of microbial research in Germany, our training program will support widespread and proper usage of these services. Through this dual emphasis on education and services, NFDI4Microbiota will ensure that microbial research in Germany is synergistic and efficient, and thus excellent. By creating a central resource for German microbial research, NDFDI4Microbiota will establish a connecting hub for all NFDI consortia that work with microbiological data, including GHGA, NFDI4Biodiversity, NFDI4Agri and several others. NFDI4Microbiota will provide non-microbial specialists from these consortia with direct and easy access to the necessary expertise and infrastructure in microbial research in order to facilitate their daily work and enhance their research. The links forged through NFDI4Microbiota will not only increase the synergy between NFDI consortia, but also elevate the overall quality and relevance of microbial research in Germany.
{"title":"NFDI4Microbiota – national research data infrastructure for microbiota research","authors":"Konrad U. Förstner, A. Becker, J. Blom, P. Bork, T. Clavel, M. Dieckmann, A. Goesmann, B. Götz, T. Gübitz, Franziska Hufsky, Sebastian Jünemann, Marie-Louise Körner, M. Marz, U. N. da Rocha, Jörg Overmann, A. Pühler, D. Rebholz-Schuhmann, A. Sczyrba, J. Stoye, Justine Vandendorpe, T. Van Rossum, A. Mchardy","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e110501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e110501","url":null,"abstract":"Microbes – bacteria, archaea, unicellular eukaryotes, and viruses – play an important role in human and environmental health. Growing awareness of this fact has led to a huge increase in microbiological research and applications in a variety of fields. Driven by technological advances that allow high-throughput molecular characterization of microbial species and communities, microbiological research now offers unparalleled opportunities to address current and emerging needs. As well as helping to address global health threats such as antimicrobial resistance and viral pandemics, it also has a key role to play in areas such as agriculture, waste management, water treatment, ecosystems remediation, and the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of various diseases. Reflecting this broad potential, billions of euros have been invested in microbiota research programs worldwide. Though run independently, many of these projects are closely related. However, Germany currently has no infrastructure to connect such projects or even compare their results. Thus, the potential synergy of data and expertise is being squandered. The goal of the NFDI4Microbiota consortium is to serve and connect this broad and heterogeneous research community by elevating the availability and quality of research results through dedicated training, and by facilitating the generation, management, interpretation, sharing, and reuse of microbial data. In doing so, we will also foster interdisciplinary interactions between researchers. NFDI4Microbiota will achieve this by creating a German microbial research network through training and community-building activities, and by creating a cloud-based system that will make the storage, integration and analysis of microbial data, especially omics data, consistent, reproducible, and accessible across all areas of life sciences. In addition to increasing the quality of microbial research in Germany, our training program will support widespread and proper usage of these services. Through this dual emphasis on education and services, NFDI4Microbiota will ensure that microbial research in Germany is synergistic and efficient, and thus excellent. By creating a central resource for German microbial research, NDFDI4Microbiota will establish a connecting hub for all NFDI consortia that work with microbiological data, including GHGA, NFDI4Biodiversity, NFDI4Agri and several others. NFDI4Microbiota will provide non-microbial specialists from these consortia with direct and easy access to the necessary expertise and infrastructure in microbial research in order to facilitate their daily work and enhance their research. The links forged through NFDI4Microbiota will not only increase the synergy between NFDI consortia, but also elevate the overall quality and relevance of microbial research in Germany.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49110583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Composing training data for Machine Learning applications can be laborious and time-consuming when done manually. The use of FAIR Digital Objects, in which the data is machine-interpretable and -actionable, makes it possible to automate and simplify this task. As an application case, we represented labeled Scanning Electron Microscopy images from different sources as FAIR Digital Objects to compose a training data set. In addition to some existing services included in our implementation (the Typed-PID Maker, the Handle Registry, and the ePIC Data Type Registry), we developed a Python client to automate the relabeling task. Our work provides a Proof-of-Concept validation for the usefulness of FAIR Digital Objects on a specific task, facilitating further developments and future extensions to other machine learning applications.
手动为机器学习应用程序编写训练数据可能既费力又耗时。FAIR数字对象的使用,其中的数据是机器可解释和可操作的,使得自动化和简化这项任务成为可能。作为一个应用案例,我们将来自不同来源的标记扫描电子显微镜图像表示为FAIR数字对象,以组成训练数据集。除了我们的实现中包含的一些现有服务(Typed PID Maker、Handle Registry和ePIC Data Type Registry)外,我们还开发了一个Python客户端来自动化重新标记任务。我们的工作为FAIR数字对象在特定任务中的有用性提供了概念验证,促进了其他机器学习应用程序的进一步开发和未来扩展。
{"title":"From implementation to application: FAIR digital objects for training data composition","authors":"Nicolas Blumenröhr, R. Aversa","doi":"10.3897/rio.9.e108706","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.9.e108706","url":null,"abstract":"Composing training data for Machine Learning applications can be laborious and time-consuming when done manually. The use of FAIR Digital Objects, in which the data is machine-interpretable and -actionable, makes it possible to automate and simplify this task. As an application case, we represented labeled Scanning Electron Microscopy images from different sources as FAIR Digital Objects to compose a training data set. In addition to some existing services included in our implementation (the Typed-PID Maker, the Handle Registry, and the ePIC Data Type Registry), we developed a Python client to automate the relabeling task. Our work provides a Proof-of-Concept validation for the usefulness of FAIR Digital Objects on a specific task, facilitating further developments and future extensions to other machine learning applications.","PeriodicalId":92718,"journal":{"name":"Research ideas and outcomes","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44979006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}