Our planet is changing rapidly. To understand and forecast how ecosystems are affected by global change, ecology should become a predictive science. We will build a unique virtual research environment that will facilitate this transformation, capitalizing on recent advances in Big Data science. This will enable ecologists to link scattered long-term data on plants, animals, and the environment; share methods for data analysis, modelling, and simulation; and build digital replicas of entire ecosystems (“Digital Twins”). This will transform our ability to understand and predict how ecosystems will respond under different scenarios and mitigation measures, fostering scientific breakthroughs and societal impact.

Increasing transparency and reproducibility are key objectives of Open Science. To support an open and transparent research landscape, CoreBirds will link datasets, analytical codes, and publications resulting from long-term studies of wild bird populations. We will build upon an already existing database and network of researchers (SPI-Birds), and will create a library of peer-reviewed codes. This will greatly stimulate reuse of code, enhance the transparency of scientific outputs and thereby broaden the potential user base of SPI-Birds. Once implemented, this working model will encourage other research communities in the long tail of life sciences to close their research life cycle.

Climate change is fastest in the Arctic. Here migratory birds have to arrive in time to breed successfully. We found that pink-footed geese, that traditionally breed on Spitsbergen, have recently developed a whole new migration route to Novaya Zemlya. Novaya Zemlya lies 1000 km to the east and spring starts later there, enabling the geese to still arrive in time. Changes in agriculture in the wintering areas have caused goose populations and hence conflicts with farmers to increase. Our individual-based model of foraging geese suggests that total economic costs are lowest when geese are not scared off.

Insect populations worldwide are dramatically declining. Especially insects that overwinter as eggs are in decline, as egg development strongly depends on temperature. To survive climate change, the temperature response of egg development needs to adapt. This project investigates the adaptive potential of wild insects by determining which genes underly how egg development responds to temperature in wild populations. We will investigate 12 different species to determine whether the same genes are involved in different insects. We will use this information to assess whether wild insect populations harbor variation for these genes, which is an important determinant of their adaptive potential.

Protecting nature is increasingly challenging, because reserves and organisms are subject to a variety of anthropogenic pressures that vary in extent, time and space. Although some pressures are individually well studied, it is unknown how pressures accumulate and what their relative importance is for the viability of protected species. This lack of knowledge is a major hurdle for organizations involved in economic activities, legislation and nature conservation. Our solution is to develop and validate a framework of interlocking models that integrate the vast knowledge of existing studies as well as perform targeted field measurements using a wild bird as a model system. We will quantify the cumulative impact of human activities on population numbers and identify the most efficient mitigating or compensatory actions, which is crucial to substantiate future permit applications for economic activities. Our framework will also assess the efficiency of conservation actions on a national scale.