Abstract
The conceptual framework of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) aims to capture the major dimensions of biodiversity change by structuring biodiversity monitoring and by ruling data collection amongst different providers. Amongst the research infrastructures adopting and implementing the EBV framework, LTER-Europe - the European node of ILTER (International Long-Term Ecological Research) - follows the approach to compare site-based biodiversity observations within and across its networks. However, a synoptic overview of their contributions with EBVs-relevant data is still missing, since data are not made available for several reasons. In this paper, we assess the capacity of LTER-Italy, one of the richest and heterogeneous networks of LTER sites in Europe, to provide data to “Species Distribution” and “Species Abundance” EBVs without inspecting and downloading their contents. To this aim, we mine the EBVs information which is publicly structured and shared by LTER site managers through DEIMS-SDR, the LTER-Europe online metadata repository. We classify the sites according to two types of contributions: (i) the actual contribution, based on metadata of datasets and (ii) the potential contribution, based on metadata of sites. Through these assessments, we investigate if LTER-Italy monitoring activities can provide EBVs measures and which sites currently provide datasets. By comparing the two contributions, we pinpoint the factors hampering the accessibility of LTER-Italy data and suggest solutions to increase the discoverability and reusability of LTER-Italy EBVs measurements. The research provides the first overview of EBVs monitored in LTER-Italy and the corresponding data management practices, as well as an evaluation of the interoperability of this network with respect to other research organisations for legal and technical aspects.
Highlights
Despite its indisputable role for human well-being and for ecosystem functioning (Díaz et al 2006), biodiversity is threatened by anthropogenic stressors (Barnosky et al 2011; Dirzo et al 2014)
The objective of our study is to demonstrate the capacity of LTER-Italy to provide Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) data through the analysis of its metadata resources, by considering that: (I) data has not always been published for several reasons; (II) not all LTER sites measure the biodiversity components, but monitoring occurs according to the ecological research focus of the programme
It is possible to group the sites in accordance to the biome they declare to monitor as explained in subsection “Mapping EBV information”
Summary
Despite its indisputable role for human well-being and for ecosystem functioning (Díaz et al 2006), biodiversity is threatened by anthropogenic stressors (Barnosky et al 2011; Dirzo et al 2014). The conceptual framework of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) was endorsed by the CBD (UNEP CBD 2010, 2016) to address this issue, wherein it defines a minimum set of essential measurements to facilitate the reporting of data amongst practitioners (Pereira et al 2013) and to quantify the major dimensions of biodiversity change. This is supported by different works (Pereira et al 2013; Weltzin et al 2014; Geijzendorffer et al 2016), where the EBVs framework is used as an abstraction layer of measurements by means of which the primary observations captured from any biodiversity initiative can be related to Aichi Targets. The comprehensive nature of this conceptual framework enables providers at any scale of study to help cover the six levels and allows prioritising data mobilisation if essential measurements are lacking in monitoring
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