Project: Open Library of Pollinator Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Scenarios

Acronym	OBServ (Reference Number: 217)
Duration	15/01/2019 - 31/03/2022
Project Topic	Biodiversity is now recognized as pivotal in maintaining ecosystem functions and providing ecosystem services with positive impacts for human well-being. Paradoxically, biodiversity is also being lost at unprecedented rates due to rapid human-induced environmental changes. Scenarios predicting the future of biodiversity and its associated services are a powerful tool to inform conservation planning but several barriers have impeded their widespread and productive use so far. A key limitation is that there is little guidance and no formal cost-benefit analysis on the use of different modeling approaches. Rather than aiming at finding one model that can be applied universally, we need tools that allow us to select the right models for each situation while taking into account model complexity and data requirements. Here we propose to use the open source environment k.LAB to develop a user-friendly open library of modeled scenarios in collaboration with stakeholders. We will focus on pollinators and the pollination service they provide given their key contributions to biodiversity maintenance and food security and their threatened status globally. Our approach will take into account different dimensions of biodiversity by capturing the responses of plant-pollinator interactions, scaling up pollinator responses to the community level and testing the transferability of umbrella species responses. Models will be validated against empirical data using baseline data collected by our group and by other researchers, as well as re-sampling of representative locations. By using a participatory approach with relevant stakeholders from four different countries we will assess the real utility of the developed models and biodiversity scenarios for the end users, including performance across scales and proper communication of uncertainty. The best models will be used to map pollination services under different environmental scenarios ranging from global trends extracted from IPCC and land use cover predictions to local potential implementations of better management practices.
Network	BiodivScen
Call	Scenarios of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas - Estación Biológica de Doñana	Coordinator	Spain
2	Basque Centre for Climate Change	Partner	Spain
3	Rutgers University	Partner	United States
4	Sede Andina, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro	Partner	Argentina
5	Wageningen University	Partner	Netherlands