WP7

APPLYING TAXONOMY TO CONSERVATION

State Museum of Natural History, Stuttgart (SMNS)
Christoph Huser & Klaus Riede
28/06/06 Kickoff Meeting

Table of contents
1- WP7 goals and objectives 2- WP7 workplan activities and deliverables 3- WP7 ATBI+M operations 4- WP7 site selection: workshop results

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Kickoff Meeting

Introduction
The Challenge: Shortage of comprehensive (scientific) information for biodiversity conservation: unknown dimensions of species/taxa still undiscovered (5 to >100 mio spp.??) no global biodiversity catalogue / register at hand ! no complete national fauna or flora available for many / most countries! no complete biodiversity inventory available yet for any protected area in the World !!

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Kickoff Meeting

The Challenge
No complete biodiversity inventory available yet for any protected area in the World !!

Species details:

No details are currently available for any species. If you know of a species which exists in this protected area please complete the comment form. 28/06/06 Kickoff Meeting

The Background
ATBIs - All Taxa Biodiversity Inventories ...attempting to record and document the entire biodiversity occurring at a specific site or area. Where ATBIs have been undertaken at some depth, they have considerably increased the knowledge of the biodiversity of the area, frequently including the discovery of dozens of new species or hundreds of species previously unknown to the region

Example: ATBI in Great Smoky Mountains National Park http://www.dlia.org/atbi/index.shtml

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Objectives
Strengthening the input of taxonomic expertise in Europe for biodiversity conservation programmes and policies, especially for inventories, assessments, and monitoring of biodiversity. Integrating user needs for taxonomic expertise from the conservation management side with research agendas for biosystematics and biogeography from leading European centres of excellence. Further development and promotion of standards, techniques and methodologies for state of the art and cost efficient biodiversity assessments including a new approach for an "All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory & Monitoring" (ATBI+M) programme. Establish a European expert task force for undertaking and supporting biodiversity inventories, assessments, and monitoring activities.
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WP7 Activities
[7.1] Assessing biodiversity inventory and monitoring needs, evaluating relevant taxonomic capacities, and raising stakeholder awareness [7.2] Mobilising taxonomic resources and establishing the ATBI+M task force network [7.3] Developing standards, protocols, and tools for conducting an ATBI+M programme [7.4] Operating the ATBI+M task force and evaluating relevant methods and techniques [7.5] Sustaining the European ATBI+M task force and long term study sites

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Milestones and Deliverables

Assessments: Needs for (taxonomic expertise for) biodiversity inventory and monitoring, particularly for selected areas of conservation concern across Europe Agreements: for operation of ATBI+M pilot sites (including management and sharing of data) - for participation in ATBI+M task force (assessment teams) Outputs: ATBI+M task force established Inventory data for European ATBI+M sites available (M18, ongoing)

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Operations [M1-18]
Select and establish first ATBI+M pilot sites: A first workshop was held at SMNS, 22-25 May 2006 Mobilize taxonomic expertise: Expressions of interest from taxonomists willing to participate in ATBI activities are available from Questionnaires distributed at the SMNS workshop. To establish the ATBI+M task force, input from the WP2 expert basis will be needed Standardise protocols for (field) data capture and web publication: Methods and tools for taxa inventories and monitoring have to be reviewed, standardised and promoted. A workshop on Methods and Protocols for Field data Capture will be held around M11. Taxa Inventories will be published by a robust mySQL database, accessible through GBIF (in cooperation with WP5s Internetplatform for cybertaxonomy). Outreach: Promote EDIT ATBI+M approach to conservation community: Mobilisation of additional funds will be needed for full All Taxa Inventories and Monitoring for conservation and the 2010 targets.
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Establishing Pilot sites

Call for Site Proposals from EDIT partners: 22 (16) proposals for Europe (and appr. 25 for Overseas sites)

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Establishing Pilot sites

22 proposals for Europe were entered into a GIS database

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Establishing Pilot Sites: Workshop

Sites and Criteria were discussed during a workshop in Stuttgart. Our pilot trip plans

40 participants from 14 countries. Results were published on CD, distributed among all EDIT Team Leaders Feedback by questionnaires (Ranking: 6-1) Database established for ranking, comments and taxonomic expertise
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Selection of Pilot Sites: Criteria

Relevance for conservation Available information on fauna &pilot trip plans Our flora state of the art of inventories, on-going monitoring Ecosystem representative of a region, heterogeneous, threatened habitats and species, pristine Logistics and Feasibility Accessibility Infrastructure (field station, accommodation, transport) Support through counterparts and local hosts, including staff Site administration interested to host ATBI (for long term) Interest to seek additional funding for ATBI Complementary data of the non-living world: existing (GIS) data on meteorology, soil, geology, topography future data collection assured Potential Regional Network
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Pilot Sites: other considerations

Based on criteria and feedback pilot EDIT partners, we plan to select Our from trip plans 4 European sites for the first phase (M1-18). Further sites can be added in the future (open, dynamic list). This selection has to be balanced geographically (incl. Eastern Europe) and taxonomically, reflecting interests and capacities of EDIT partners. Some sites are already running complementary activities, and EDIT might bestow a label, without investing much resources. Several sites have considerable potential for outreach. Other sites will not have any ATBI activity unless EDIT will take charge.

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Proposed European pilot sites

Feedback/Rating by partners
Points 83 83 82 61 49 41 36 30 29 29 21 20 17 13 12 10 13 9 6 Sitename Pelister-Presper area, Ochrid-Lake Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park Mercantour National Park Monte Perdido (France/Spain) Gemer Area: Slovensky Kras NP Sesvenna Area Bialowieza National Park El Ventorillo Spessart Danube floodplain (Szigetkz) Caldera de Taburiente Somiedo Bieszcady Mnsinger Hart Clare Island Vrtes Mountain NP Oosterschelde/Outer Delta Sea Reserve Downe House Tyresta National Park Outreach NO NO YES NO NO NO YES YES YES NO NO NO NO YES YES NO YES YES YES Complement NO NO NO NO NO NO YES YES YES YES YES NO NO YES YES NO YES YES YES

Our pilot trip plans

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Next steps and perspectives

Besides pilot visits and negotiations with European sites we need to organise and mobilise the (EDIT) taxonomic community! Our pilot trip plans We plan additional workshops on: - Methodology (sampling protocols, data capture & exchange) (Winter 06/07) - Overseas sites (early 2007) We will install a prototype database before the end of 2006, which will be improved in cooperation with users and WP5 staff

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Thank you
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