One of the objectives of Biodiversa+ is to identify, refine and address priorities to better support research, society and policy needs. Priorities are topics that guide Biodiversa+ activities related to promotion and support of transnational biodiversity monitoring.
In 2023, priorities have been extended to include “Urban Biodiversity”, “Bats”, “Genomics & Genetics”, “Wetlands”, and “Common Species”. Finally, there is one additional special topic for “Transversal Activities”.
The initial priority “Terrestrial and marine protected areas (including Natura 2000 sites)” had a lengthy title including items of description. It has been simplified to “Protected Areas”.
The description has been expanded to explicitly include all three realms of biodiversity, while keeping the necessary mention of Natura 2000 sites.
Finally, the description is now framed within the context of “biodiversity monitoring”, as to not address other aspects of Protected Areas that are beyond the scope of this priority (e.g. legal aspects, transnational comparison of status, or evaluation of the delineation of protected areas).
Protected Areas
The initial priority “Habitats” has been kept as is.
The description has been clarified to explicitly include all three realms of biodiversity, and highlight the particular use of remote sensing within this priority. Note that remote sensing is not mentioned in an exclusive way, and does not preclude the use of field data and protocols.
Habitats
The initial priority “Offshore marine biodiversity &/or marine megafauna” had a lengthy and confusing title. It has been simplified to “Marine Biodiversity”.
The description kept plankton-related aspects on one extreme, and marine megafauna and seabirds on the other extreme. The description now includes marine biodiversity in coastal areas (not only offshore), as several proposed activities in the pilot programme are focusing on shallow areas and ports/shellfish farms.
Marine Biodiversity
The initial priority “Invasive Alien Species” has been kept as is.
A description has been added to explicitly describe what is meant by Invasive Alien Species, in all three realms of biodiversity, and the near synonymous term of Non-Indigenous Species in the marine realm (as the adverse effects of alien species necessary to qualify invasiveness are rather difficult to assess in marine environments).
Discover our pilot on monitoring invasive alien species to learn more about our work on this priority.
Invasive Alien Species
The initial priority “Soil Biodiversity” has been kept as is.
A description has been added to explicitly describe what is covered under this priority, from micro– to macrofauna.
Discover our pilot on soil biodiversity in protected, near-natural forests to learn more about our work on this priority.
Soil Biodiversity
The initial priority “Pollinators, butterflies and other insects” had a confusing title (for instance, pollinators include non-insect fauna, but the title seems to restrict it to insects, which butterflies indeed are). It has been simplified to “Insects”.
A description has been added to highlight the particular interest of pollinators, including—but not limited to—butterflies.
Insects
The initial priority “Wildlife diseases and biodiversity facets linked to health issues” had an unnecessarily lengthy title. It has been simplified to “Wildlife Diseases”.
The description further clarifies that the scope of this priority covers all health-related aspects from the points of view of both animals and humans.
Wildlife Diseases
Urban biodiversity is very overlooked, despite the various social and health benefits associated to green spaces in a broad sense (from ecosystem services to well-being and mental health), with increasing evidence that healthy urban ecosystems are more resistant to climate change and are one of key measures for adapting and mitigating climate change impacts in cities. Pressures to urban biodiversity (that encompasses strictly protected taxa) include light, noise, air, water and soil pollution to urban management that does not take into account ecological needs of taxa and urban ecosystems in order to be sustainable. In addition to that, there is limited harmonisation of methods and indicators of urban biodiversity at the European scale.
In line with the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, as well as the upcoming EU Nature Restoration Law, it is now critical to monitor the status and trends of urban biodiversity, in order to feed informed conservation measures and development of guidelines for sustainable management of green infrastructure, as well as for other biodiversity important urban areas (roosts in buildings, river banks, etc). In addition to that, 75 % of the European population live in cities, which make them a relevant medium to raise awareness about biodiversity and mobilise citizen science
Urban Biodiversity
Bats play an essential role in pest control, pollinating plants and dispersing seeds. As long-living, slowly reproducing animals they are sensitive indicators for environmental change and pressures. After a historical massive decline throughout the 20th century, some bat populations seem to partially recover, but many species remain endangered and are in unfavourable conservation status in most of European biogeographical regions. Pressures and threats include habitat loss (size and quality), collisions with wind turbines, light pollution, agriculture, road infrastructure, water management and pollution, inappropriate forest management, and diseases.
All bat species are listed in Annex IV of the Habitat Directive (providing strict protection across their entire natural range), and 14 of them are further listed in Annex II (core areas of their habitat are designated as sites of Community importance, included in the Natura 2000 network, and managed in accordance with the ecological needs of bats with specific conservation goals and measures). Collecting harmonised data on status and trends of bats across Europe is a necessary step towards informed conservation actions and regulatory requirements in order to improve their conservation status and/or conservation trend.
Bats
Within just a decade, the cost of genetic tools has dropped to allow for high-throughput ecosystem-wide assessments and monitoring in most environments, most often using non-invasive sampling techniques. Genomics (e.g. DNA barcoding and metabarcoding) and genetics (e.g. reduced representation DNA sequencing) techniques are now mature enough to be deployed at a larger scale towards standard multi-taxa biodiversity monitoring covering vertebrates, plants, fungi, protists and nematodes, and bacteria.
Applications target identification at the species level on the one hand (i.e. metagenomics), and estimation of intraspecific parameters such as effective population size, genetic diversity, inbreeding, population structure, and gene flow at large spatio-temporal scales on the other hand (i.e. macrogenetics). For instance, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for the monitoring and restoration of genetic diversity within populations of wild and domesticated species. However, practical considerations remain, and applications of genetic tools need to be guided and facilitated at the European scale.
Genomic and Genetic Monitoring
Wetlands have undergone a strong decline globally in the past century, and are currently under threat from urbanisation and pollution. Despite being a small portion of Europe, they are increasingly recognized as critical ecosystems.With sites present in all European countries from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean Sea, wetlands host a high biodiversity (e.g. up to 40 % of plant species), but existing policy frameworks at the European scale are not enforced or comprehensive. There is thus a need for harmonised monitoring of wetland biodiversity across taxa over Europe.
Wetlands
Species abundance and persistence are key components of biodiversity, especially from a functional perspective. A lot of effort has been devoted to rare, threatened and endangered, or emblematic species. However, common species play a critical role as they are likely to contribute disproportionately more than rare ones to ecosystem structure, function, and services. Yet, little attention has been given to common species, and no harmonised approach is currently in place to monitor common biodiversity as a whole across Europe.
A transnational multi-taxa approach is necessary to overcome national and subnational differences, and provide comparable data on ecosystems’ health at the continental scale. There is also a good methodological opportunity to monitor those species that are, by definition, common across Europe, and adequate to be captured using a broad, cost-efficient, harmonizable, sampling scheme.
Common Species
The title of the initial priority “Transversal activities (Information systems)” has been simplified to “Transversal Activities”.
Further clarification of the scope indicates that this topic covers all aspects of biodiversity monitoring that are not related to specific biodiversity monitoring objects, such as governance, information systems (data systems), or biodiversity metrics (e.g. Essential biodiversity variables, aggregative or composite indicators).
This topic however still posed a conundrum: as emphasised in the description, transversal activities are not an object of biodiversity monitoring by themselves, that can be the focus of a priority. Instead, they refer to actual activities that are nevertheless crucial for the advancement of biodiversity monitoring at the European scale—so much so that they are indeed the focus of current Biodiversa+ activities, notably through the pilot programme.
Transversal Activities
More information on these priorities is available in the report Shared goals and priorities for biodiversity monitoring within Biodiversa+.
Go further with the report that gives an overview of the main policies and initiatives related to biodiversity indicators across Europe and globally, and shows the key areas for indicator work within Biodiversa+.
