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Biodiversity change across time and space in the Anthropocene: Leveraging metacommunity modelling, land-use change, and open data to achieve deeper understanding

Project description

Analysing changes in biodiversity through data synthesis

Biodiversity faces relentless erosion due to anthropogenic pressures, yet understanding the link between metacommunity-level processes and these pressures remains a challenge. Aimed at uniting science and policy, the ERC-funded MetaChange project will combine metacommunity theory with cutting-edge analytical tools and data collection. The project will unveil the complex dynamics of biodiversity change, offering insights vital for informed biodiversity policy decisions. With the MetaChange project, a wealth of data will be synthesised, drawing from the largest compilation of metacommunity time series. Additionally, researchers will resurvey zooplankton metacommunities, analyse habitat restoration's impact, and utilise machine learning to project biodiversity change scenarios.

Objective

Despite connections between metacommunity level processes that maintain biodiversity and anthropogenic pressures that erode those processes, these have not been well integrated. I propose a multifaceted approach that
(1) builds on metacommunity theory to develop expectations for the influence of anthropogenic drivers on scale-explicit biodiversity change;
(2) uses this theory to develop an analytical pipeline to disentangle local and landscape factors driving this change;
(3) use the derived results to develop scale-explicit projections of future biodiversity change that can aide biodiversity policy decisions.

With theoretical expectations and analytical procedures in hand, we will synthesize biodiversity change across scales, and the relative influence of local versus landscape-level drivers on those changes. We will apply our analytical pipeline to the largest compilation of metacommunity time series to provide a comprehensive analysis of biodiversity change. We will complement this with a data collection campaign to resurvey zooplankton metacommunities from ponds that had been surveyed 10-50 years previously, but which have experienced different levels of background change (e.g. loss of nearby habitat). We will also compile a database to explore the potential influence of habitat restoration via local and landscape processes, and its influence on scale-explicit biodiversity change. We will analyse these synthetic datasets together with geospatial driver data using our novel analytical pipeline. Finally, we will develop a unique pipeline integrating metacomunity theory with our synthetic results and machine learning to develop projections of biodiversity change in the face of scenarios of anthropogenic change.

With the information gained, we will contribute not only to a better understanding of the most important feature of life on this planetits biodiversitybut by developing this understanding, we can provide an avenue to mitigate the changes.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2022-ADG

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Host institution

MARTIN-LUTHER-UNIVERSITAT HALLE-WITTENBERG
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 314 071,00
Address
UNIVERSITATSPLATZ 10
6108 HALLE
Germany

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 314 071,00

Beneficiaries (2)

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