The global biodiversity crisis that is affecting ecosystems worldwide is a major subject of concern and is expected to worsen with ongoing global changes. Climate change together with other anthropogenic factors will lead to the displacement of many favorable environments in the next decades owing to fast altitudinal and latitudinal shifts, with greatest predicted impacts in "biodiversity hotspots". These shifts will lead to an increase in Habitat Loss and Fragmentation (HL&F), the main threats to Biodiversity worldwide. There is therefore a need to understand the consequences of HL&F, and to identify the barriers to gene flow at various spatial and temporal scales. We will study HL&F in the context of past and future environmental changes, across taxa and regions. I particular, we will (i) identify ancient and recent barriers to gene flow based on genomic datasets, (ii) develop freely available software to study (quantify and date) HL&F events in the recent and ancient past, and (iii) simulate management scenarios of reconnection that increase genetic diversity. We use Madagascar as a model region and (iv) will use comparative genomic analyses to infer generalizable critical features of ecological networks (e.g. invasive Rattus versus endemic Eliurus rodents; small nocturnal Microcebus versus large diurnal Propithecus, humid North-East versus dry Northwest habitats, etc.). We divide the project in six WP which correspond to a) sampling, b) genetic/genomic analyses, c) spatial analysis across habitats with various features, d) spatial simulations and modelling, e) stochastic modelling and inference, and f) dissemination.

The Erasmus+ Project Strategic Partnership Hybrid educational and research training on the use of marine models in life science (DigitalMarine) deals with the marine biology training and specifically with the marine organisms. The consortium gathered around the project for three years is composed by Sorbonne Université (SU) – the coordinator, Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover (TiHo), Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn – Naples (SZN), Università del Salento – Lecce (USL), Université de Fribourg (UF) and the Australian National University (ANU).The project starts from two observations: 1/ Structuring training through research: the need to develop an academic training through research and in research in the field of marine organisms in life science. 2/ Pedagogical innovation: the need to elaborate new teaching and learning methods. Indeed, the marine organisms research in biology has led to numerous advances in the area of cancer, neuroscience, molecular and cellular biology, showing the value of a high-quality teaching about these organisms in the universities. Additionally, the instauration of new educational approaches, such as flipped classrooms and blended learning, needed to be reinforced in this field in the partner universities. For all these reasons mentioned above, we have developed an international partnership assembling a big number of teachers and scientific experts coming from European and extra-European universities.Thanks to the Erasmus+ financing, this partnership has created a platform of digital learning that explains the importance of marine organisms in the biology research. The use of each marine organism in the biology research is clarified to the students through digital contents such as short videos, interactive diagrams, recorded conferences, narrated slideshows, interviews with scientists who are not participating in the project. All in all, 71 videos have been published on this platform, which constitutes 8 hours and 30 minutes of watching.This platform is an Open Educational Ressource (OER). It is accessible to everyone, no user profile is needed. This platform allows every person who is interested in marine organisms, professionally or not, to discover this Erasmus+ project and to inform themselves about this scientific field and get some training in it. Students, which are enrolled in a Master program at one of the partner institutions, are now able to learn in an autonomous way thanks to the platform, which is used as a support for the practical course welcoming European students at a marine station during 15 days every year (Schmid Training Course, STC). This course took place three times in the frame of the project and 41 students in total participated in it. It is a blended course that combines a virtual learning through the platform and an in-person intensive practical course at a marine station with teachers and other students. This way, students are able to obtain the theoretical knowledge in an autonomous way before coming to the in-person class, where a priority is given to practical works and discussions with teachers and other students. The future editions of the STC, the next one being planned in 2022 in Roscoff, France will be in a fully blended training mode, using the project’s results.Finally, the consortium has also published a handbook of marine model organisms, which contains 500 pages and focuses on the same disciplinary field as the platform. Containing 24 chapter on 24 different marine organisms, this handbook is one of the most comprehensive ones on this thematic. It will soon be available in Open Access.In the long term, the project’s results fills the gap that existed in teaching and research on marine organisms in life science. They will allow the future generations of young biologists, as well as experimented biologists, to obtain key knowledge in this field, thus enabling them to make future discoveries and advances in cancer, neuroscience and molecular and cellular biology.

The overall goal of this project is the establishment of a common procedure for valid longitudinal assessment of knowledge, skills and competences (progress testing) within European Veterinary Schools with reference to subjects defined in EU Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications (Directive 2013/55/EU) and the Day One Competences and Underpinning Knowledge and Understanding required by European Association of Veterinary Establishment (EAEVE; see ESEVT Standard Operational Procedures; https://www.eaeve.org/esevt/sop.html) and approved by the Federation of Veterinarians in European (FVE).Progress testing offers both valid longitudinal formative assessment of the individual students' cognitive skills growth within the tested subjects areas as well as a tool for educators to monitor potential educational gaps and mismatches within the curriculum in relation to the basic veterinary learning outcomes defined by EAEVE. Evidence from European and North American Medical Schools show that periodic formative assessments enhance learning by providing objective evidence based cumulative feedback to students, and/or reduce stress-related reduction in students learning.In this project, six renowned veterinary institutions from Denmark (School of Veterinary and Animal Science, University of Copenhagen), Norway (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Norwegian University of Life Sciences), Finland (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki), Germany (University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover), Sweden (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) and the Netherlands (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Utrecht) will in cooperation with EAEVE establish a long-desired collaboration to implement a common procedure for valid longitudinal assessment of knowledge, cognitive skills and competences in their curricula. The main shared goals are to reduce skills gaps at three levels within veterinary programs of participating partners : (i) at the personal student level, (ii) the curricular level and (iii) between curricula of the participating veterinary establishments. During this project the applicants, in close collaboration with teachers from the participating institutions, will: (i) establish a common quality assurance system for validation and blue-printing of test items for formative progress testing covering the subjects areas defined in Directive 2013/55/EU and in compliance with the EAEVE competence and assessment standards; (ii) develop a large shared test item repository for formative progress testing containing psychometrically validated questions (e.g. MCQ, Cloze, Matrix items) in accordance with the established QA-system; and (iii) implement a common assessment procedure in their curricula using a commercially available progress test software system. Teachers will be continuously trained in constructing valid test items and will be familiarized with psychometric data analysis for validation purposes using an on-line mini-MOOC, which will be developed as part of this project. In addition, hands-on training will be provided through two planned staff training events in 2020 and 2021 of three days each. Students will be informed about progress testing and it's use in higher health educations through a You-Tube based instruction movie, which will developed within the beginning of the project.For proper dissemination of the outcomes of this project, we aim to publish our experiences and results in three scientific papers in veterinary/medical educational journals aimed at veterinary and other professional health science educators. In addition, a satellite symposium will be organized in conjunction with the EAEVE 2023 General Assembly to propagate this initiative and to recruit more veterinary institutions into the consortium.The outputs of the project will be created through 6 project work packages: (1) Project organization, management and Quality assurance; (2) Production of learning and information materials; (3) Writing of test items; (4) Validation of test items for formative linear and adaptive progress testing; (5) Development of the common progress testing system; and (6) Dissemination of results.After completion of the project, it is expected that the shared databank will be expanded under continuing supervision of the quality assurance board chaired by EAEVE. At least, once a year, i.e. during the general assembly of the EAEVE, partners will meet and discuss diverse topics regarding item data banking and progress testing. It is expected that the EAEVE as well as the participating institutions will take over the funding to sustain this initiative and that more EAEVE accredited veterinary institutions will join this consortium. This will ultimately lead to standardization of both assessment procedures as well as an optimal alignment of veterinary curricula to the EU directive under supervision of the EAEVE.

Tetrapods, or bony animals with limbs instead of fins, evolved the ability to support their body weight and move on land sometime in the Middle to Late Devonian period - around 350-400 million years ago. However, the ability to stand on all four legs seems to have evolved after the appearance of fully developed limbs with digits and other skeletal features which are now thought to have arisen in aquatic animals. Our prior NERC-funded work focused on the locomotor behaviours of two key Devonian animals, Ichthyostega and Acanthostega, to reconstruct how early tetrapods transitioned from swimming in water to walking on land. Through the use of 3D modelling and simple static biomechanics, we found these evolutionary pioneers had limited capacity to move their limbs in certain directions which hindered their ability to walk like a modern land animal. This raises the question: when and how did modern walking styles evolve? Furthermore, were all tetrapods similarly sedate or could some forms move more quickly than others? The technology and biological understanding now exists to answer such fundamental evolutionary questions. To answer them, we need to determine what kinds of forces and speeds that different tetrapods could generate. We aim to reconstruct dynamic motions in a series of early tetrapods bracketing the water-to-land transition using the latest computer simulation techniques. These animals include the mainly aquatic Ichthyostega and Acanthostega and two more recent Carboniferous forms that seem to have been more terrestrial, Pederpes and Proterogyrinus. To validate the simulation technique, cutting-edge 3D experimental data will be collected on walking/trotting modern salamanders for the first time. We will also measure how land-adapted salamanders change their speed capacity as they grow, which by analogy should give insights into the evolutionary progression of walking capabilities in progressively more terrestrially adapted early tetrapods. These experimental studies will test (1) how important the limbs and backbone are in supporting movements on land and (2) whether maximal speed capacity is constant or changes during growth. The experimental data from salamanders will be fed into a computer model in which a novel, high-fidelity dynamic simulation of how muscles drive locomotion will be created. In addition, whole body 3D models of the early tetrapods will be constructed with simplified, abstract representations of the major limb/backbone muscles. The salamander data will then be used as a template to simulate locomotion in the extinct animals; how each species of tetrapod moved and how quickly they could do it will be estimated. Locomotor abilities of each animal will then be compared to determine the sequence of evolutionary events that ultimately gave rise to walking capabilities, made possible because each species is successively more closely related to living tetrapods. The evolutionary changes will also be compared to the walking aptitude of growing salamanders to see if the two are mutually informative -- i.e. broadly speaking, does 'ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny' in tetrapod locomotion? This project will uncover how evolutionary changes in anatomy impacted the ways in which early tetrapods could move, ultimately illuminating how vertebrates eventually conquered the terrestrial realm. It is curiosity-driven science that aims to tackle one of the most awe-inspiring and pivotal evolutionary events in Earth's history. As such, it will engender a great deal of public interest (as demonstrated by our previous NERC grant), which we will vigorously capitalize upon by creating interactive public/scientific fora to communicate and disseminate our research. Further, it will advance the field of evolutionary biomechanics by creating a novel simulation approach, firmly grounded in empirical data, which will be distributed to scientists studying locomotion in living and extinct organisms.