Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Naturalis
Our mission is: to explore, describe and understand biodiversity for the wellbeing of man and the future of our planet.
ID: 07658399914-37
Lobbying Activity
Response to EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy
20 Jan 2020
Improved, evidence-based understanding of biodiversity-The EU strategy to stop the decline of biodiversity is essential for our future. But our efforts are hindered by the fact that we know too little of the current European biodiversity. We can identify only a fraction of existing species and cannot monitor changes in biodiversity in the different ecosystems due to enormous data gaps. Many species are currently assessed as “data deficient” and we monitor biodiversity through a few well studied species only. It cripples our ability to build robust strategies to stop biodiversity loss and makes it impossible to recognize the dynamics of changes in our ecosystems. We must advance our quantitative understanding of biodiversity using the latest insights and techniques. This will enable us to remove uncertainty and ambiguity about the state of biodiversity, and provide tools and validated reference data to monitor the effectiveness of policy measures.
Improved species discovery and identification-We need to improve our knowledge of the living world and diminish uncertainties around biodiversity data and trends. Recent studies show that only 15% of living species have been identified and described, meaning that 85% of all species are still unknown. We do not know when and where they occur, what their functions are and what role they play in our biobased economy. A strategy aimed at strengthening biodiversity needs to start with rapid identification of species and monitoring of biodiversity trends. We are now capable of using new technological approaches to accelerate the identification of all existing species. Standardized laboratory pipelines, observation networks, and bioinformatics workflows would deliver rapid and accurate species identifications for both single specimens and mixed samples from any time, place and ecosystem. This will give us insight in our biodiversity and the changes that occur. And allow us to understand how the different organisms interact and how external influences will change the communities and affect the quality of our water or the fertility of our soils.
Coherent (semi)automated monitoring systems-Most monitoring methods focus on particular taxa and report presence or absence of species in certain habitats and fail to include quantity, connectivity, interaction and mobility. Hence, these methods do not sufficiently and timely record major changes in all aspects of biodiversity. In establishing the scale of the biodiversity challenge, we are hampered by a lack of coherent monitoring systems for most groups of organisms, which in turn hinges on the difficulty of their identification. A hybrid sensor network for mapping and monitoring biodiversity over time and space using a range of standardized and automated sampling methods is needed.
Unified research infrastructure-The fundamental questions in biodiversity and ecology can only be answered by collecting standardized high-quality data across different available sources and expertise to validate, understand, analyze and finally translate the evidence for policy decision-making. A unified infrastructure is needed that allows us to access data from all connected databases in various domains or sensor systems in real-time, perform data analyses, and use services for high-performance computing. This will facilitate new research into the structure, origins, dynamics, and trends within biodiversity and ecosystems. Further development of the current EU scientific infrastructures in the biodiversity domain is therefore essential.
Addressing these gaps will allow us for the first time to identify every species, to measure and monitor biodiversity changes at fine scales through time and space, and to understand species communities. It will create new synthetic approaches to exploring biodiversity at unprecedented granularity, coverage, and speed and provide a basis for scientists, policy-makers, and businesses to work towards a balanced, biodiverse future.
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