ANTENNA

Context

In the light of ongoing pollinator declines and their exceptional relevance for human food security, economy, and the functioning of ecosystems, the EU Pollinators Initiative has defined ‘establishing a comprehensive monitoring system’ as its first action. The currently developed European Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (EU PoMS) will represent a stronghold of transnational monitoring, though several major gaps remain. Modern technologies, such as robotics, computer vision, and molecular methods, can complement such approaches to overcome key monitoring gaps by increasing taxonomic and geographic coverage, speed, efficiency of identification, and temporal resolution. However, technology readiness differs among available tools and further research is needed to design, advance and adapt technology towards integrated pollinator monitoring, together with context-specific guidance on how to best combine approaches based on their synergistic value and cost-efficiency.

Main objectives

ANTENNA aims to fill key monitoring gaps through advancing innovative technologies that will underpin and complement EU-wide pollinator monitoring schemes. ANTENNA will:

1. advance automated sample sorting and image recognition tools from individual prototypes to systems adoptable by practitioners;
2. expand pollinator monitoring to under-researched taxa, ecosystems, and pressures;
3. quantify the added value of novel monitoring systems relative to economic costs;
4. provide a framework for combining multiple data streams and for developing near real-time forecasting models;
5. upscale from local demonstrations to large-scale implementation of novel methods and provide context-specific guidance for the choice and combination of monitoring methods and indicators for policy and end users.

Main activities

ANTENNA will identify stakeholder needs in terms of usability and design, current limitations, opportunities for improvement, and desired outcomes to improve the adoptability and added value of novel monitoring approaches. On this basis, we will improve methods for automated sample sorting and classification, and develop a new pollinator camera trap ready-for-use by citizen scientists to increase public awareness and harness the increased power of widespread data collection. We will test the applicability and complementarity of several novel methods in relation to traditional sampling methods across a large biogeographical gradient within and outside the EU. Novel analytical methods will be developed to inform near-real time forecasting models. Based on developed frameworks, data standards and pipelines to integrate multiple monitoring data streams, we will provide a roadmap for enhanced European- wide pollinator monitoring.

ANTENNA builds on a close integration of stakeholders such as citizen scientists, practitioners, NGOs, and policy makers by applying a theory of change model addressing co-design, feedback on results from field-testing, and co-implementation. The results of ANTENNA will contribute to and be actively promoted in major European and global initiatives such as the EU Pollinators Initiative, Biodiversity Strategy, Nature Restoration Law, and the CBD Plan of Action 2018-2030.