Large-scale Research Infrastructures to assist in understanding and managing our Planet’s Biodiversity

Understanding the biodiversity system requires a “systems biology” approach in addition to the reductionist method with experiments on small components of the system. This methodological approach requires the availability of large-scale databases based on intensive observations and measurements, together with advanced analytical and modelling software in a high performance computing environment. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures selected the ‘LifeWatch e-science and technology infrastructure for biodiversity research’ as a promising development to construct facilities for this new approach. It will allow collaborative networks the integrated use of public resources, such as data repositories, sensors and computational capacity through a service-oriented architecture. Likewise the biodiversity policy domain will benefit from new dedicated decision-support services.