Programme: Horizon Europe HORIZON-CL6-2022-BIODIV-01 (Biodiversity and ecosystem services)
Project title: MARine COastal BiOdiversity Long-term Observations
Acronym: MARCO-BOLO
Duration: 01/12/2022 – 30/11/2026
Project budget: € 8.614.089
ISMAR budget: € 181.188
Web site: http://marcobolo-project.eu/
Summary:
MARCO-BOLO aims to structure and strengthen European coastal and marine biodiversity observation capabilities, linking them to global efforts to understand and restore ocean health, hence ensuring that outputs respond to explicit stakeholder needs from policy, planning and industry. To this end it will establish and engage with a Community of Practice (CoP) to determine end user needs with the aim of optimizing marine data flows, knowledge uptake, and improving governance based on biodiversity observations.By exploiting synergies with concurrent projects MARCO-BOLO will develop and demonstrate new autonomous technology for biodiversity mapping and monitoring, and data streams from remote sensing, eDNA, robotics, optical and acoustic observations. Protocols for eDNA-based biodiversity observations are established and validated across applications, taxa and ecosystems. The sequence of the analytical and technical processes for the different use cases will be incorporated into operational Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and included into online reusable workflows, contributing to the free and open access of EU and global biodiversity information facilities, and to support major EU biodiversity directives and global initiatives.
The project partnership will leverage its international activities (MBON, GOOS, OBIS) and participation in UN Ocean Decade Programs (Marine Life 2030, OBON, ODIS, Ocean Practices for the Decade) to align the MARCO-BOLO work programme to global CoP, ensuring European participation and leadership in global biodiversity monitoring and global science. MARCO-BOLO results will be designed to build upon existing capability and infrastructures, and to be relevant to existing frameworks so that outputs can be easily integrated into national, regional (EU and adjacent sea basins), and global observation systems, with no delay ensuring the reusability of the investments Europe is already making in data generation.
Contact person in ISMAR: caterina.bergami@ismar.cnr.it
Partnership:
- European Marine Biological Resource Centre European Research Infrastructure Consortium (France)
- Vlaams Instituut Voor De Zee (Belgium)
- Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon GMBH (Germany)
- E-Science European Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research (Spain)
- Senckenberg Gesellschaft fur Naturforschung (Germany)
- Universitetet I Tromsoe – Norges Arktiske Universitet (Norway)
- Marine Scotland (United Kingdom)
- United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (France)
- Goeteborgs Universitet (Sweden)
- Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (United Kingdom)
- Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare Pentru Geologie si Geoecologie Marina GEOECOMAR (Romania)
- Autoridad Portuaria de Sevilla (Spain)
- Universidad de Sevilla (Spain)
- Universitatea din Bucuresti (Romania)
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche CNR (Italy)
- Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (Italy)
- Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (Denmark)
- Ukrainian Scientific Centre Of Ecology Of The Sea Ukraina
- Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique CNRS (France)
- Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum fur Polar- und Meeresforschung (Germany)
- Seascape Belgium (Belgium)
- Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigacao Marinha e Ambiental (Portugal)
- Erinn Innovation Limited (Ireland)
- National Oceanography Centre (United Kingdom)
- Helmholtz-Zentrum fur Umweltforschung GMBH – UFZ (Germany)
- Universitat Wien (Austria)
- Norce Norwegian Research Centre AS (Norway)
- Sorbonne Universite (France)
