Marine Coastal Biodiversity Long-term Observations

General Information

MARCO-BOLO (MBO) 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 MBO will establish and engage with a Community of Practice (CoP) to determine end-user needs with the aim of optimising marine data flows, knowledge uptake, and improving governance based on biodiversity observations. By exploiting synergies with concurrent projects MBO 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 Programmes (Marine Life 2030, OBON, ODIS, Ocean Practices for the Decade) to align the MBO work programme to global CoP, ensuring European participation and leadership in global biodiversity monitoring and global science. MBO 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.

Hereon will lead together with the Senkenberg Gesellschaft für Naturfoschung the Work Package 3 about linking land and sea biodiversity observation. Within this WP serval case studies in four exemplary land-river-sea systems across Europe will be conducted to develop a recommendation for a harmonized monitoring strategy.

EU-Programme Acronym and Subprogramme Area	HORIZON-CL6-2022-BIODIV-01-01
Project Type	Research & Innovation Action (RIA)
Contract Number	Grant Agreement 101082021
Co-ordinator	European Marine Biological Resource Centre Eric (FR)

Funding for the Project (€)	Funding for Hereon (€)
7,255,037	230,906

Contact Person at Hereon

Dr Tina Sanders and Dr Kirstin Dähnke, Department Aquatic Nutrient Cycles (KCN), Institute of Carbon Cycles, Phone +49(4152)87-1898 E-mail contact

Participants

Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung AWI (DE), Autoridad Portuaria de Sevilla (ES), Centro Interdisciplinar De Investigacao Marinha E Ambiental (PT), CNRS (FR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche (IT), E-Science European Infrastructure For Biodiversity And Ecosystem Research (ES), ERINN Innovation Limited (IE), European Marine Biological Center European Research Infrastructure Consortium (FR), Göteborg Universitet (SE), Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH - UFZ (DE), Marine Biological Association (UK), Marine Scotland (UK), National Institute of Marine Geology and Geo-Ecology (RO), National Oceanography Centre (UK), NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS (NO), SEASCAPE Belgium (BE), Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung (DE), Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (IT), Technical University of Denmark (DK), Ukrainian Scientific Centre of Ecology of the Sea (UA), UNESCO (FR), Universidad de Sevilla (ES), Universitatea din Bucuresti (RO), Universität Wien (AT), Universite Sorbonne (FR), University of Tromsoe (NO), Vlaams Instituut Voor de Zee (BE)

Last Update: 08. January 2024