HORIZON-NATURE-2027-01-01: Biodiversity Hub ICM-CSIC

Potential contribution:

1. Assess and rank direct and indirect drivers: Marine case studies on invertebrate communities, assessing how multiple stressors (climate change, human impacts, resource flows) shape community structure across trophic levels and habitats, from coastal to deep-sea systems.

2. Understand spatial/temporal variation and attribute causality: Long-term series and historical baselines (from plankton observatory data to deep-time records) to separate natural variability from anthropogenic decline, plus harmonised protocols (Methods@ICM) that make the approach transferable to other settings.

3. Provide recommendations and prioritisation frameworks: Evidence on the role of microbiomes and climate refugia in conservation and restoration outcomes, to help prioritise protection measures where invertebrate resilience is greatest.

4. Add an anticipatory and predictive dimension: Forecasting of ecosystem responses using deep-time baselines, and insight into adaptive capacity (epigenetic regulation, phenotypic plasticity) under marine heatwaves, feeding early-warning indicators and stress tests.

5. Feed decision support tools for primary producers: Transfer of results to fisheries and aquaculture users and competent authorities, supported by taxonomic consultancy (TaEx) and knowledge-exchange events.

Transversal: FAIR-by-design data, cooperation with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity; Biodiversity data infrastructure and taxonomic expertise to standardise and mobilise data, including for understudied taxa.none