The GYPWORLD project has been the first integrated global study of the ecology and evolution of plant and lichen life on gypsum, including nine gypsum-rich regions from five continents that differ in geological origin, climate, and flora. Eleven different expeditions to the gypsum ecosystems of Iran, Argentina, USA Mexico, Australia, Chile and South Africa-Namibia have been undertaken within the GYPWORLD project, significantly improving our knowledge on these poorly explored ecosystems. More than 4200 plant samples, 1400 herbarium plant specimens, ca. 4000 lichen specimens and over 1600 soil samples have been collected in the largest study of an edaphic specialist flora ever conducted. As a result of these expeditions, several taxa potentially new for science are currently being studied. This impressive exploratory work has been complemented with several individual stays, where both early stage and experienced researchers from 19 different institutions located in 13 different countries in five continents have been able to exchange knowledge, improve their scientific skills and career prospects through the acquisition of new analytical techniques or the development of new shared projects.
Among the key results achieved by the GYPWORLD project are the development of a preliminary global checklist of gypsophiles, with information on 77 countries and more than 1200 taxa included. This checklist will be a landmark in the study of gypsum ecosystems globally. The structure of plant and lichen communities has been explored in 122 plots, rendering the largest global database ever compiled on the plant communities of atypical substrates. Further, the database on ionomic information of gypsum plants includes information on ca. 1000 plant taxa from gypsum ecosystems of 12 different countries (5 continents). While it will keep growing in the future years, this database linked to the phylogenetic information on these taxa constitutes a key state-of-the-art resource to study plant adaptation to gypsum soils. As a result of this ground-breaking research, 40 SCI papers have already been produced (many of them in Q1 journals) and more than 160 contributions have been presented in national and international conferences. Nine PhD Theses have been or are being developed n relation to some of the tasks of the project.
The GYPWORLD project has been crucial for the development of a scientific community devoted to the study of gypsum ecosystems. Thanks to the various training, networking and knowledge-sharing actions developed within the project, a vibrant community of scientists has emerged. Two Gypsum Ecosystem Research Conferences and two international GYPWORLD Workshops were held. Seven training courses have been offered, providing important skills for the career development, not only of GYPWORLD participants, but also to the scientific community as a whole. The spectrum of skills covered has been remarkably broad, combining transversal skills, like the identification of gender biases in science, with more specific tools highly demanded in ecological studies, like the analysis of phylogenies, niche modelling or functional traits analyses.
Finally, the project has also had a strong impact on transmitting the importance of science and the aims of the project to the society as a whole. Through an intense communication and outreach activity, participant researchers of the GYPWORLD project have undertaken more than 165 different communication and outreach actions, reaching from nursery to university students and the society as a whole. Including TV, press, radio and internet interviews, press releases, outreach talks, seminars, workshops, conferences, guided excursions and training actions. Taking into account the attendance, readership and audience of the different forums and communication channels used (including media and social networks), it is estimated that these actions might have reached more than 1,000,000 people.
