Collections

This collection hosts the outcomes from the Horizon Europe project PollinERA, grant agreement No. 101135005 (2024-2027), which aims to reverse pollinator population declines and reduce the harmful impacts of pesticides through developing a new systems based environmental risk assessment scheme, tools, and protocols. It includes a broad range of toxicological testing, feeding to in silico models (QSARS, toxicokinetic/toxicodynamic, and ALMaSS agent-based population simulations). Using a strong stakeholder co-development approach, these models will be combined in a One System framework, taking a systems view on risk assessment and policy evaluation, including an international monitoring program developed within the project. The One System framework builds on the recent EFSA Roadmap for action on the environmental risk assessment of chemicals for insect pollinators (IPol‐ERA) project. It expands the environmental risk assessment tools currently used for honey bees to include wild bees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies.  

As the PollinERA project progresses, the RIO Collection will continue to expand, serving as a repository for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners and offering a diverse array of reports, protocols, methodologies, and research papers. 

This collection hosts the outcomes from the Horizon Europe project PollinERA, grant agreement No. 101135005 (2024-2027), which aims to reverse pollinator population declines and reduce the harmful impacts of pesticides through developing a new systems based environmental risk assessment scheme, tool ...

The European Union's 2030 Biodiversity Strategy aims to place species and ecosystems on the recovery path by 2030, preserving and restoring Europe's natural capital, and positioning Europe at the forefront of global biodiversity conservation efforts. These commitments urgently respond to the decline of species and the deterioration of nature. A key component of this Strategy is the development of a Trans-European Nature Network (TEN-N) that protects ecosystems and their contributions to people against threats from climate change and unsustainable land use. The TEN-N is expected to increase the resilience of natural ecosystems, supported by the existing Natura 2000 Network and other nationally designated protected areas. New designations are expected to contribute to achieving protected land, including inland waters, comprising 30% of the territory, increasing the network's ecological representativeness, and incorporating novel strictly protected and ecological connectivity areas. Implementing the TEN-N faces major challenges in defining criteria and planning tools to maximize the network's representativeness and connectivity at the European level.

The TEN-N should create a functionally connected system, assimilating biodiversity conservation goals with nature-based solutions for societal needs, such as green and blue infrastructure. In the face of global change, the Network should also ensure that species communities can adapt, providing sufficient and connected spaces for nature. Achieving these goals requires innovative planning approaches, integrating models of biodiversity and ecosystem change with conservation prioritization tools and participatory processes. The TEN-N must be based on SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) conservation and management objectives and monitoring methods.

NaturaConnect aims to support the development of the TEN-N through transdisciplinary research. Participatory processes are central to its activities, involving stakeholder engagement at regional, national, and international levels. Predictive biodiversity and ecosystem service models form the backbone for analyzing protected area representativeness and connectivity, taking into account multiple prioritization criteria and the diverse perspectives and needs of nature conservation. NaturaConnect seeks to develop data, analytical tools, and knowledge to support solutions —namely, the blueprint for TEN-N configurations. It also analyses best practices for governance of area-based conservation measures and potential funding mechanisms to provide the European Commission and Member States with a comprehensive set of planning and implementation support tools.

Only publications directly resulting from the NaturaConnect project are accepted in this collection.

The European Union's 2030 Biodiversity Strategy aims to place species and ecosystems on the recovery path by 2030, preserving and restoring Europe's natural capital, and positioning Europe at the forefront of global biodiversity conservation efforts. These commitments urgently respond to the decline ...

LifeWatch ERIC has embarked on its new destination towards upgrading and (co-)constructing its Infrastructure as a response to the needs of its target communities and stakeholders. Through an industrialization process, all independent data, software components, publications and other types of research products contributed by the Member Countries will be consolidated and integrated to enable collaborative development. The Technology Readiness Level of LifeWatch ERIC will be soaring to TRL9. This process is described in its new Strategic Working Plan on its second implementation period (2022-2026). Accordingly, this topical collection of papers includes articles which describe the main outcomes, that is the deliverables of this new Strategic Working Plan. The deliverables published in this topical collection are of not confidential nature and are developed in the form of a standard, structured template.

LifeWatch ERIC has embarked on its new destination towards upgrading and (co-)constructing its Infrastructure as a response to the needs of its target communities and stakeholders. Through an industrialization process, all independent data, software components, publications and other types of resear ...

This collection hosts the outcomes from the Horizon Europe project B-Cubed, grant agreement No 101059592 (2023-2026), which aims to transform biodiversity monitoring from a disconnected, labour-intensive activity into an agile and responsive process, tailored to the needs of decision-makers.

To do that, B-Cubed works closely with existing biodiversity initiatives to identify and address policy needs. It leverages the concept of data cubes to standardise access to biodiversity data using the Essential Biodiversity Variables framework. These cubes are the basis for models and indicators of past, current and future biodiversity. The models will be accessible to users in real-time and on-demand in a cloud computing environment, delivering information on biodiversity status and change. To ensure its results can be reused, the project creates exemplar automated workflows for modelling using biodiversity data cubes and for the calculation of change indicators. The effectiveness of B-Cubed’s solutions is demonstrated in four case studies, varying in geographic extent, biodiversity richness and data availability.

This collection will evolve alongside B-Cubed, providing access to the project’s results and serving as a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners.

This collection hosts the outcomes from the Horizon Europe project B-Cubed, grant agreement No 101059592 (2023-2026), which aims to transform biodiversity monitoring from a disconnected, labour-intensive activity into an agile and responsive process, tailored to the needs of decision-makers.

To d ...

This collection hosts outcomes from Safeguard, a Horizon 2020 funded European Research Consortium (grant agreement No 101003476). Safeguard is a 4-year funded project (2021-2025) that brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe’s capacity to reverse the losses of wild pollinators. Safeguard will significantly expand current assessments of the status and trends of European wild pollinators including bees, butterflies, flies and other pollinating insects. The collection includes a range of outputs, including reports, protocols, methodologies, and research papers.

This collection hosts outcomes from Safeguard, a Horizon 2020 funded European Research Consortium (grant agreement No 101003476). Safeguard is a 4-year funded project (2021-2025) that brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe’s ...

This collection presents significant findings and outcomes from the Horizon Europe project - MAMBO (Modern Approaches to the Monitoring of Biodiversity). The project addresses the crucial need for comprehensive and unbiased biodiversity data in Europe. By developing cutting-edge monitoring tools and integrating advanced technologies, MAMBO aims to enhance our understanding of species and habitats with limited knowledge.

MAMBO brings together experts in computer science, remote sensing, social sciences, environmental economics, citizen science, species biology, ecology, and conservation biology, fostering collaboration and leveraging existing research infrastructure.

As the MAMBO project progresses, the RIO Collection will continue to expand, providing a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners.

This collection presents significant findings and outcomes from the Horizon Europe project - MAMBO (Modern Approaches to the Monitoring of Biodiversity). The project addresses the crucial need for comprehensive and unbiased biodiversity data in Europe. By developing cutting-edge monitoring tools and ...

The mission of the Earth Metabolome Initiative is to reveal and safeguard the life-sustaining chemistry of all known species on Earth, map its patterns and functions, and make this knowledge open.

The largely unexplored metabolic diversity of life on Earth, which orchestrates living systems and supports human health and nutrition, is disappearing rapidly as species go extinct. The Earth Metabolome Initiative aims to launch an unprecedented collaborative global sampling and digitization effort to reveal and preserve this vital natural resource. We will develop resources and technologies to accelerate global metabolome discovery for the benefit of human societies and protection of biodiversity. We will make our findings open, accessible and interoperable within an electronic resource that will connect metabolites with their roles in living systems, functional networks and importance for human societies. This will constitute an Earth Metabolome Knowledge Base for sustainable innovations now and in future. We will thus achieve the following scientific, societal and environmental aims:

1. Advance life sciences by systematically expanding knowledge on global chemodiversity and placing it in the context of biosphere processes and functions.

2. Benefit human society through the development of novel, sustainable solutions in agriculture, medicine and other fields. 3. Protect biodiversity by providing critical information for monitoring, developing novel metrics, and informing predictive tools to prioritize protection and incentivising conservation.

The Digital Botanical Gardens Initiative (https://www.dbgi.org/) has been designed as a pilot for the EMI. 

This is the RIO topical collection gathering the research outcomes of the Earth Metabolome Initiative, feel free to propose your ideas and contribute!

The mission of the Earth Metabolome Initiative is to reveal and safeguard the life-sustaining chemistry of all known species on Earth, map its patterns and functions, and make this knowledge open.

The largely unexplored metabolic diversity of life on Earth, which orchestrates living systems and s ...

The Digital Botanical Gardens Initiative (DBGI) ambitions to explore innovative solutions for the collection, management and sharing of digital information acquired on living botanical collections. A particular focus is placed on the large scale characterization of the chemodiversity of living plants collections through mass spectrometric approaches. The acquired data is structured, organized and connected with relevant metadata through semantic web technology. The gathered knowledge can then be exploited to inform ecosystem functioning research and orient biodiversity conservation projects. The DBGI initially aims to take advantage of the readily available living collections of Swiss botanical gardens to establish robust and scalable chemo- and biodiversity digitization workflows. The ultimate goal is to apply these approaches in the field and at the global scale in wild ecosystems. In this sense, the DBGI is a pilot for the larger Earth Metabolome Initiative (EMI) see https://www.earthmetabolome.org/

This topical collection will gather and share the reserach outcomes of the DBGI.

The Digital Botanical Gardens Initiative (DBGI) ambitions to explore innovative solutions for the collection, management and sharing of digital information acquired on living botanical collections. A particular focus is placed on the large scale characterization of the chemodiversity of living plant ...