Biodiversity: methodological approaches and measurements in the eLTER network of long-term ecological research sites

The first online training meeting of the 2024/2025 year for Ocean Schools invites teachers of all levels, educators, and cultural mediators to explore the art of observation in both the scientific method and everyday life, in collaboration with the Institute for BioEconomy of the National Research Council (CNR-IBE) and the Italian Network for Long Term Ecological Research (Rete eLTER).

Speaker: Giorgio Matteucci, Director of the Institute for BioEconomy of the National Research Council (CNR-IBE), which focuses on the bio-economy of agriculture, forests, the forest-wood system, and environmental sustainability.

The Italian Network for Long-Term Ecological Research (eLTER-Italy) currently includes 79 organized sites, distributed across terrestrial, freshwater, transitional, and marine environments. It also features 7 extraterritorial sites located in Antarctica and the Himalayas. The research is supported by numerous scientific institutions, universities, and national and local administrations. Additionally, eLTER-Italy maintains strong connections with other European research infrastructures and regions.

Its activities span multiple scientific disciplines, adopting a socio-ecological approach to address key issues such as biodiversity, climate change, environmental education and training, and the pressing environmental challenges facing society.

The webinar will introduce the eLTER-Italy network and the main methodological approaches for measuring biodiversity and ecological processes at the network's research sites, located in ecosystems of various domains (terrestrial, inland and transitional waters, marine) across our country.

Giorgio Matteucci is director of the Institute for BioEconomy of the National Research Council (CNR-IBE). Graduated in Forest Sciences, PhD in Forest Ecology, since 1991 he has been involved in national and European research projects dealing with forest ecosystem dynamics, ecology and management. Since 2012 he coordinates the Italian Network of Long Term Ecological Research (eLTER-Italy). He has published more than 230 papers extensively and is active in communication and science with citizens.

The eLTER-Italy network was conceived and realised as a common platform for ecological research, facilitating the comparison of results and the preservation of the data generated, in order to build a body of information and observations that is accessible and usable for future generations. The members of eLTER-Italy study ecosystems, their dynamics and evolution, the relationships between biodiversity and ecological functionality, and environmental responses to external natural and anthropogenic stimuli. Within the Network, fruitful scientific collaborations are initiated and maintained, interdisciplinary activities and cross-ecosystem research are encouraged, and ecological data of historical interest, the temporal extent of which is, at some sites and for some observations, centuries old, are enhanced. Since 2015, work has been underway to integrate eLTER-Italy into the nascent European infrastructure eLTER-RI (European Long-TermEcosystem, critical zone and socio-ecologicalResearchInfrastructure).

The event is reserved for the entire teaching staff at all levels, educators and cultural mediators.

Participation is free of charge with required registration at the following link.

The meeting will be held exclusively online on the Zoom platform. The link to the meeting will be sent to participants by email on Thursday 5 November.