AnaEE-Flanders: Integrated infrastructure for experimental ecosystem research: 2021-2024 (R-11896)

The emerging field of ecosystem-based adaptation uses knowledge of ecosystem functioning to counter threats to natural resources and food security. Yet, the infrastructure in Flanders and Europe is not optimized for unravelling the effects of multiple, interacting environmental pressures on ecosystem functioning and the subsequent testing of innovative solutions. This challenge is tackled using a new generation of experimental facilities embedded in the European infrastructure AnaEE. Various state-of-the-art platforms are used to study effects of global changes on terrestrial ecosystems with continuous tracking of responses. Impacts can be assessed in isolation, in combination (interactive effects) and along gradients of change (to detect nonlinearity and threshold responses). In addition to terrestrial facilities, we also focus on the aquatic component, where environmental problems such as pollution and changes in hydrology occur. Funding is used to manage and exploit the existing new facilities, to ensure that AnaEE-Flanders reaches its full potential within a European infrastructure of open-access platforms to experimentally manipulate, analyse and model ecological systems.

Keywords:research infrastructure

Disciplines:Climate change, Community ecology, Terrestrial ecology, Ecosystem services

Project type:Collaboration project