Ecosystem research: towards an integrated research infrastructures paradigm

Terrestrial ecosystems represent a critical zone that provide key ecological services to human populations in the form of food, fibre and energy, climate protection and nutrient recycling, to name a few. In this critical zone, human activities are directly or indirectly generating major environmental pressures, such as pollution, global warming, and the destruction and alteration of natural habitats. Altogether, these global changes result in a rapid erosion of biodiversity and a major perturbation of ecological systems and services. It is therefore vital to understand how ecological systems respond and adapt to such pressures and perturbations and to test sustainable land use and innovative green technologies in order to address the main societal challenges we face today. Nowadays, a major focus in ecological and agricultural sciences is on the production of quantitative, experimentally reproducible and testable approaches using advances in our ability to characterize complex ecological systems from genes to ecosystem levels. The talk will provide an overview of a new ESFRI FP7 distributed research infrastructure called AnaEE (Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems) as an integrated experimental approach to better understanding ecosystems functioning. Furthermore the need for complementary experimental (field studies/ ecotron facilities) that require sophisticated equipment and instruments, technological advances, and strong theoretical foundations through conceptualization and modelling of ecosystem functioning will be also addressed