m@rble ELectronic conference on MARine Biodiversity in Europe

contents of the e-conference

The e-conference consisted of three main discussion themes (fora), which were discussed in three consecutive weeks.

main issues in marine biodiversity research

European scientists are more and more joining forces in order to study biodiversity patterns in Europe, by sharing logistics and exchanging expertise. The BIOMARE concerted action, based on the Implementation Plan of Marine Biodiversity Research in Europe of the Marine Board, will eventually propose a mechanism to achieve at least the large scale and hopefully the long-term research as well. Its implementation will require a vast effort of the marine community in Europe. This can only be achieved if a sense of purpose and an agreement on the main scientific issues is created. Although a number of documents are now in the making, especially the ESF Marine Science Plan, the definition and solution of the main issues and special problems in marine biodiversity research require this concertation.

Some examples of discussion topics that have already been suggested are:

• What are the large-scale patterns of marine biodiversity in Europe?
• What are the ecosystem engineers and key-species?
• What is the function of biodiversity in biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem functioning?
• What are the links between taxonomical and functional biodiversity?
• What is the role of species redundancy?
• What is the importance of life cycles in the evaluation of biodiversity?
• What are the differences between marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems?

implementation and application of biodiversity research

Undoubtedly, biodiversity has become a hot political item. One of the major problems in implementing research on marine biodiversity appears to be the changing concepts of what biodiversity really involves. The term seems to be used in different contexts: in the UN framework biodiversity is treated as a resource that has economic value. To most biologists biodiversity means species diversity, but in UN language it involves the total of genetic, species and habitat diversity.

m@rble will discuss what the term 'biodiversity' means for the different stakeholders in the marine biodiversity issue in Europe, what information science can provide and how that relates to the format and kind of information the end users need from the researcher providing the knowledge.

Part of the discussion must involve the tools that are required for applying biodiversity science in issues such as marine conservation. The first occasion where the results from m@rble could already be discussed in such a forum is the meeting of the European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy on the Scientific tools for in situ biodiversity conservation (monitoring, modelling and experiments), which is organized by the Belgian EU presidency in Brussels on 2-4 December 2001. Some other possible discussion items are:

• Is 'Biodiversity' a scientific concept, or a political issue? If the latter, what are the right scientific concepts to use in the biodiversity debate
• A debate between the producers of biodiversity related information (marine biologists) and the end users (experts involved in policy making, management, conservation, fishery etc).
  • What kind of information do the end users need?
  • What are the bottlenecks for the production of the required information?
• What kind of tools can the research community and the agencies responsible for monitoring and managing European waters provide for the implementation of large-scale and long-term biomonitoring?
• Information systems in marine biodiversity research

the future of marine biodiversity research

In general, research is not doing well. Europe is not only investing less and less of its resources in progress of knowledge, the image that Europeans have of science is also less positive than it was. Scientific progress seems to inspire as much anguish as hope, and the gap between the scientific world and the people at large is growing. Environmental problems appear to be less high on the public agenda than they used to be. On the other hand, the interest in nature and in the sea is still very high. The sense of excitement and discovery that marine biodiversity can provide must be fed by scientists as much through to journalists and television shows, but increasingly to the Internet as well. Marine biodiversity research can and should be interesting and attractive to the public and thus to politicians but it must make much better use of the media and the web.

Within the political framework, the recognition that marine biodiversity research serves a purpose is growing but still weak. The point that the seas are not the land and that many biodiversity problems are specific for the marine environment has until now not been made clearly enough. However, marine biodiversity has good visibility in the Marine Science Plan of the European Science Foundation and this now requires translation into the mechanisms that the EU is developing for supporting marine research in the EU in the coming new framework programme. We believe that marine sciences in general and marine biodiversity in particular are ideally suited to make good use of the new opportunities arising within the European Research Area now being constructed, and that the kind of outline and synthesis that the e- conference can provide will be very useful for that purpose.

But we must also look outside Europe. A world-wide networking of biodiversity research, involving MARS in Europe, NAML in the US, DIWPA in Asia can perhaps be organized through the DIVERSITAS programme or through the Census of Marine Life, an US initiative that is now being expanded to include other parts of the world. There is already a good bilateral relationship between MARS and NAML and trans-Atlantic cooperation in science may be supported within the new framework programme.