ExpeER: challenges and overview of an infrastructure for ecosystem research

1. ExpeER: challenges and overview of an infrastructure for ecosystem research • Speaker name • Affiliation • Name and date of the conference.

2. European programs for ecosystems infrastructures ANAEE: a Preparatory Phase Program (2012- 2016) goal: building of new infrastructures and European integration 2011 2009 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 I3 Implementation I3 call YES Soumission ExpeER ExpeER: an Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (2011-2014) goal: coordination of existing infrastructures 2011 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 Design project Preparatory phase ? YES Project emergent Soumission ANAEE ESFRI new call Call Prep. phase Construction phase

3. ExpeER Societal issues

4. Challenges in Ecosystem Research Ecosystem Research is increasingly vital to addressing policy issue facing Europe and the globe, mainly concerning : Climate (i.e. temperature, rainfall, increase of the frequency of extreme events…), Biodiversity (i.e. species loss, distribution, invasive species…), Ecosystem services (i.e. carbon sequestration, climate regulation, water storage and provisioning, nutrient cycling…), Food security (ExpeER partners: please at some details, i.e. increasing population).

5. ExpeER Scientific issues

6. Understand ecosystem processes • Examples: • Functional role of biodiversity. • Scale integration : 100m 102m 10-1m 10-4m 106m 10-9m Courtesy: Martin Gerzabek, BOKU, Wien

7. Predict ecosystem changes • Examples: Exposure to higher [CO2] Role of climate extremes CO2increase in free air Effectof drought on leaftemperature dry wet

8. Improve ecosystem management • Examples: • Development of tools and methods to observe climate change effects on ecosystems at different spatial scales (e.g. spatial and temporal dynamics of soil moisture). MeasuredprecipitationandSoilMoisturedynamicswithin a Cosmic Ray Moisture Probe footprint. Villarreyes, C, G. Baroni, and S. Oswald, 2011.

9. Provide collective expertise • Example: • To help develop and disseminate common protocols for use in ecosystem research across Europe.

10. Integrate different research types Overcome Ecosystems European Research fragmentation Use of modeling and information system • Extensive acquisition of large data sets across ecosystem diversity, climate and soil conditions… for data mining and statistical approaches. • Modelling and information system should be a mean for interfacing these two types of approaches • Intensive experiments approach in a restricted number of well characterized situations… for process analysis or towards anticipated future conditions.

11. ExpeER challenges Environnemental and society changes What will happen if… Mitigation / adaptation strategies Distributed infrastructures Forecasting capacities Data integration

12. ExpeER What is ExpeER ?

13. Coordinating and improving existing highly instrumented European infrastructures in the field of ecosystem research.

14. 37 partners from 19 countries across Europe X Experimental site X Observational site X Ecotron X Analytical platform X Other site

15. A variety of experimental approaches and scientific objectives Biodiversity experiments Climate change experiments Ecological Agriculture Rotation agricultural systems Forest and grassland management

16. Three types of activities • Coordination activities (5 workpackages) • Analysis of current resources and roadmap for the integrated infrastructure. • Standardization of core variables and protocols. • Information management and data access. • Creating a sustainable network. • Communication and dissemination. • Research activities (4 workpackages) • Develop and test new methods to overcome current limitations in understanding ecosystem processes. • Development of improved environmental control techniques and new experimental approaches. • Development of ecosystem models and provision of a model toolkit. • Development of upscaling and data interpretations methods of biogeochemical and ecological processes. • TNA activities (1 workpackage)

17. ExpeER Coordination Evaluation of European infrastructure Standardization of variables and protocols Management of data information and data access Creating of sustainable network

18. WP1Analysis of current resources and roadmap for the ExpeER integrated infrastructure Aims: to have a detailed description of instrumentation, methods, experimental design, and coverage of ecosystem types and geographic regions of ExpeER infrastructures. Example: Synthetic diagrams of site characteristics.

19. WP2Standardization of core variables and protocols Aims: Ecosystem research across Europe deals with variables measured in different ways in different places. A standardization is necessary. Example: List of variables under standardization. • Leaf area index • Plant biomass • Soil macrofauna • Soil moisture • Phenology • Soil organic matter • Soil respiration • Evapotranspiration • Land use type • Soil nutrients (NPS concentration)

20. WP3Information management and data access Aims: to provide a common domain data model and shared vocabularies and common distributed system architecture for storing and exchanging data. Example:ExpeER partners: please, give example and/or picture.

21. WP4Creating a sustainable network Aims: to establish links with related infrastructures on the network level, including integration in broad scale site networks (observational power, representativeness). Example: Interactive network strategic mind map:

22. WP5Communication and dissemination Aims: to disseminate the ExpeER results to all stakeholders ; to establish, maintain and update the general communication tools of ExpeER ; and to stimulate communication between ExpeER partners and with a broad variety of external bodies. Example: Logo, website, flyer, internal bulletins, posters…

23. WP6Management of the calls for Access Aims: to improve and facilitate access to research facilities ; and to promote observational, experimental, analytical, and modeling approaches. 18 TA visits have been funded on various research topics. • Extreme event effects on grassland soil respiration. • Water limitation of canopy and understorey in a Maritime Pine Forest. • Spruce seedlings recruitment. • Characterisation of organo-mineral associations in soil by NanoSIMS. • Long-term effects of Nitrogen deposition on lichen ecophysiology. • Molecular Determination of Trees (MDT). • Biodiversity and ecology of forest-associated Diptera. • Etc.

24. ExpeER Research Overcoming limitation in understanding ecosystem Improvement of ecosystem experimental methods Development of modelling Upscaling and interpretation of ecological processes

25. WP7Develop and test new methods to overcome cur- rent limitations in understanding ecosystem processes Aims: to develop new measurement techniques (with regards to soil moisture, structure, metagenomics and canopy activity). Combined novel DNA re-sequencing approach and field scale experiment techniques to explore soil moisture impacts on soil biodiversity. Soil moisture as a driver of soil interface architecture and function – developing new approaches for testing at laboratory, experimental and field scale. New sensor technologies for integrated observation of soil moisture at the field scale and landscape scale. Remote sensing platform to assess the relationship among plant primary production, and phenology.

26. WP7Develop and test new methods to overcome cur- rent limitations in understanding ecosystem processes Tandem-L Examples: New technologies - Mobile geophysical platforms and Cosmic Ray Moisture Probes – tools for monitoring and time-lapse imaging of subsurface processes at the field scale. Soil Moisture related signals at Point and Plot Scale Soil-Moisture related proxies remotely sensed by satellites Soil Moisture at Point and Plot Scale www.experimental-hydrology.net

27. WP8Development of improved environmental control techniques and new experimental approaches • Aims: to improve environmental control systems (warming and CO2 enrichment) in terms of realism of simulated atmospheric scenarios and cost ; and to design and test new experimental approaches. • Example: A new control system for infrared heating in order to reflect natural processes (e.g. interaction with drought).

28. WP9Development of ecosystem models and provision of a model toolkit. Aims: to predict the effects of global changes on terrestrial ecosystems. Example: ExpeER partners: please, give example and/or picture.

29. WP10Development of upscaling and data interpreta- tions methods of biogeochemical and ecological processes Aims: to assess the potential of the ExpeER infrastructures to upscale ecosystem responses to environmental changes and to develop new monitoring strategies. Example:upscalingof biogeo- chemical processes. Satellite data(LAI, Soil Miosture, fAPAR...) Ecosystem data Atmos. Conc.(ICOS) Validation Data assimilation (CLM, ORCHIDEE) Optimized model parameters + error Upscaling using optimized model Carbon & Water & Nitrogen balances… (all time scales) Plot-scale Regional-scale Continental-scale

30. Conclusion ExpeER is a first step to improve and coordinate the European infrastructures involved in ecosystem research and to stimulate their international access. Additional such infrastructures need building and a long term entity is needed for their coordination and integration. An improved capacity to tackle large issues at the European level also implies better use of the information collected on ecosystem. The preparatory phase program ANAEE will benefit from the experience of ExpeER and will provide the needed long term structuration of ecosystem research infrastructures

31. ExpeER The anaee project Coordinator: Abad Chabbi, INRA France abad.chabbi@lusignan.inra.fr

32. The ANAEE components and services ANAEE will integrate complementary experimental, analytical and modeling platforms to deliver services to various end-users.

33. What is a preparatory phase program ? • It is not a program funding infrastructures but indirectly, by inciting nations to join the program, it stimulates national funding for these infrastructures. • Its objective is to propose development plans for : • the building of new infrastructures, • the access and data policy, • the innovation, • the legal governance, • the financial and human resource planning.

34. Complementarity of the European Infrastructures With its process oriented, experimental approach, ANAEE will provide the missing information to predict fluxes and biodiversity responses in complementarity with ICOS and LIFEWATCH approaches.