LifeWatch ERIC Training Platform

Rules

1. The game will open on Friday, 22 May 2026 at 09:00 and close on 17:00 CEST. Check your timezone.
2. You have max 1 hour to complete the game.
3. Only teachers can log in and play: you are tutoring your students and facilitating their interaction with the serious game.
4. Each teacher can play only once with the same group of students. More than one teacher per school can play, but they must tutor different groups of students.
5. You must answer each question before moving on to the next one.
6. You have multiple attempts for each question but the number of available points decreases after each try.
7. The final score takes into account the total number of earned points and the completion time.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the Marine SABRES School Competition 2026, your students will be able to:

1. Describe the relationship between us and the ocean;
2. List rules or tools we can adopt to protect the ocean;
3. Discuss ideas to help people act better toward the ocean.

Who is invited to participate

Why participate

• Discover how strong the link between us and the ocean is; 
• Improve awareness and attitude towards the marine environment – to which we all belong! 
• Meet teachers and students from across Europe and learn from peers; 
• Find the support of a European network of researchers.

This School Competition is an informal and playful education activity designed to introduce your classroom to basic concepts of marine biology and coastal ecology.

A series of online quizzes for school students will be launched between 2024 and 2026 as part of the dissemination and engagement activities of the project Marine SABRES.

Biodiversity and Ecosystems is a serious game designed to turn learning biology into a field adventure. Step into the shoes of a young researcher and discover the secrets of life on Earth. If you want know the general characteristics of the ecosystems and learn more on the biodiversity, play this Scientific game. The resource was developed as part of ENVRIplus, a Horizon 2020 project that brings together Environmental and Earth System research infrastructures, projects, and networks.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the serious game, players will be able to

• Demonstrate a foundational knowledge of the game's key scientific topics;
• Deepen their understanding of specific species, biological processes, and ecosystem dynamics;
• Differentiate accurately between qualitative and quantitative scientific issues.

If you are a middle school student and want test your knowledge on the management and conservation of resources at the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano, play here. This Scientific game has been created in collaboration with Castelporziano Presidential Estate, National Academy of Sciences.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this game, players will gain in-depth knowledge of::

• European legal instruments designed for the protection and conservation of natural resources in Castelporziano;
• Effective management and conservation practices used to preserve the high-value habitats and species within the estate;
• Protected and endangered species of flora and fauna that rely on Castelporziano as their native home.

Your travel in the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano starts here. If you want explore the artistic and cultural aspects of Castelporziano, traveling into its past and its history, play this Scientific game. This Scientific game has been created in collaboration with Castelporziano Presidential Estate, National Academy of Sciences.

Learning Objectives

By playing this serious game, players will be able to:

• Explore the estate's heritage by initiating a virtual journey to discover the territory of Castelporziano;
• Test multidisciplinary knowledge by completing challenges on the artistic, historical, cultural, and naturalistic significance of the reserve;
• Identify local wildlife and flora by actively engaging with and deepening their understanding of the estate's rich ecological biodiversity.

Are you interested in the impacts about the Mediterranean Sea? Do you want contribute to its protection? Play this Scientific game. This interactive serious game guides players in discovering marine biodiversity and major human-induced threats, such as pollution and overfishing. Through dedicated quizzes, the experience allows players to test their knowledge of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and understand the fundamental importance of protecting our oceans. The resource was developed as part of the MEDREGION project, which aims to coordinate the monitoring and protection of the ecological status of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, thereby supporting Member States in implementing the second cycle of the Marine Strategy.

Learning Objectives

To successfully complete the serious game, players must achieve the following learning objectives:

• Demonstrate mastery of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) by correctly applying its principles and mechanisms throughout gameplay;
• Identify and explore marine biodiversity to understand the complex ecological relationships among diverse ocean life forms;
• Assess the impact of human activities on ocean health and formulate strategies to mitigate harm to marine ecosystems.

Challenge yourself with an interactive adventure exploring the underwater world! This serious game will guide you step-by-step through the secrets of marine biodiversity, helping you understand our oceans' resources and the importance of protecting them. Play here. The game was developed within the CASCADE Interreg Italy-Croatia project.

Learning Objectives

By playing, you will be able to:

• Assess foundational knowledge of marine ecosystem principles through interactive learning tools;
• Identify key characteristics and patterns of marine biodiversity;
• Analyze the impacts of human activities on marine ecosystems and ocean health.

Dive into marine science with an interactive challenge designed to test and expand your oceanographic skills. The resource was developed as part of ENVRIplus, a Horizon 2020 project that brings together Environmental and Earth System research infrastructures, projects, and networks.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this interactive challenge, learners will develop key oceanographic skills by completing the following objectives:

• Assess baseline marine science knowledge to establish a foundational understanding of key ocean concepts;
• Identify advanced observational tools and solutions used by modern scientists to monitor and measure the ocean;
• Distinguish between short-term ocean processes and long-term trends using real-world data analysis.

Embark on an interactive journey across Europe's coastal wetlands and unlock the secrets of these extraordinary habitats! As you conquer the three game missions, you'll dive deep into their ecology, geography, and biodiversity restoration, uncovering why they are essential for our planet, and how we can protect them from the threats facing them today. You are about to discover why a sustainable management of European wetlands matters for all of us. Ready? Play now. This game was created in the context of the RESTORE4Cs project.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the course, you will be able to:

• Define the concepts of ecosystem and ecosystem services;
• Describe the structural and functional characteristics of wetlands;
• Assess the current extent and status of European wetlands.

This serious game is dedicated to Earth sciences and guides users through an exploration of our planet's internal structure, tectonic plate dynamics, and seismic phenomena. Users test their knowledge of earthquakes, seismic waves, and the geological timescale. The resource was developed as part of ENVRIplus, a Horizon 2020 project that brings together Environmental and Earth System research infrastructures, projects, and networks.

Learning Objectives

At the end of the game, users will be able to:

• Consolidate fundamental knowledge of Earth's geology and plate tectonics;
• Understand the physics of earthquakes, seismic wave propagation, and the operation of seismographs;
• Acquire the theoretical skills to measure and assess seismic magnitude and interpret the dynamics of continental faults.

Do you know how the scientific method is applied? Here, you can find notice. Research Game is a game produced in a Comenius Project (The European Scientific Research Game) which aims at motivating secondary school students through the experience of the excitement of scientific research.

MEDCIS Scientific Gaming allows to study and apply the method of scientific research applied to the monitoring of ecological and environmental status of Mediterranean marine ecosystems in an entertaining way through the use of a video game focused on ecological tools useful to describe the marine ecosystem status, such as biodiversity, water noise, eutrophication, alien species and on the approach of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

If you are interested to protected areas and Earth observations visit this section devoted to ECOPOTENTIAL project. It focuses its activities on a targeted set of internationally recognised Protected Areas, blending Earth Observations from remote sensing and field measurements, data analysis and modellng of current and future ecosystem conditions and services. It include a Scientific game.

Background

Species Distribution Modelling (SDM) is a technique widely used in many fields of natural and biological sciences to infer the ecological requirements of species and to predict their geographic distributions (Elith & Leathwick, 2009). Species distribution models can be used to support conservation decision making (Guisan et al., 2013). Forecasting endangered species distribution under climatic change scenario is increasingly used in conservation biology (Muñoz et al., 2013), while forecast the spread of invasive species is receiving a growing interest in invasion biology (Verbruggen et al., 2013). The aim of SDMs is to infer the probability of occurrence of a taxon given a set of variables (climate, elevation, soil type, etc.) that are assumed to be related to the distribution and habitat preferences of the taxon under study. 

This resource is a technical guide aimed at providing the basic elements needed to build a Species Distribution Model. 

Specific knowledge of the topic is not mandatory. However, in order to have a correct understanding of the information contained in the tutorial, and even more for a proper interpretation of the output, some basics of statistics (e.g., notions of modelling like GLM, GAM, etc.) and a sound knowledge of the statistic environment of R is recommended.

Learning Objectives

It is expected that, with this tutorial, participants will be better positioned to:

1. Illustrate distribution model concepts and how it applies to ecology, evolutionary biology and conservative biology;

2. Discuss procedures to obtain free occurrence database and techniques for cleaning and validating occurrency data;

3. Examine algorithms for modelling species occurrence and tests for evaluating robustness of the analysis;

4. Assess validity and correctness of output interpretation;

5. Simulate all the steps needed to realize a species distribution model (SDM) of a species of choice.

Contents and Structure

Training Blocks:

1. Occurrence data;

2. The environmental variables;

3. Running the analysis;

4. The output interpretation and test of robustness;

5. Survey of available software.

Target Audience

The tutorial is aimed at both students and researchers, that have the need or the interest to acquire the basic knowledge on how to realize a distribution model.

Production

Background

The Autumn Data School is an 3-day training workshop designed and host in collaboration between LifeWatch, its Belgian, Greek and Italian National Nodes and EMODnet Biology. EMODnet provides access to data from a wide range of sources and pursues inclusion of new and historical data sets.

Learning Objectives

It is expected that, by the end of the workshop, participants will be better positioned to:

• Understand the FAIR principles by explaining why sharing data is important and why data standards are beneficial;
• Discuss Darwin Core principles and recognise Darwin Core terms;
• Apply Darwin Core standards to your own dataset's format;
• Experiment with Citizen Science online tools as the LifeWatch Citizen Science Platform and Zooniverse.

Contents and Structure

Training sessions:

1. Policy, Scientific, and Technical context;
2. Data Standardization and Data Quality;
3. Data Rescue via Citizen Science Platforms.

The first two days are organized as a DATAthon focusing on transferring knowledge on data lifecycle management best practices. A group of researchers from the African Mediterranean countries will bring their own dataset to work on and follow all the steps up to its final submission to Marine Research Repositories, such as MedOBIS and the LifeWatch ERIC Metadata Catalogue, with the focus on facilitating its reuse. The third day focuses on teaching participants how to use Citizen Science platforms, such as Zooniverse and the LifeWatch Citizen Science Platform. The purpose of this training session is to create a Citizen Science project and engage volunteers in the historical data rescue and standardization process. For this session two historical datasets and a new dataset are selected by the organizers to work with, based on the work done in the previous phase of the EMODnet Biology IV.

Target Audience

This resource is dedicated to marine biologists, ecologists, data stewards, data managers, citizen science practitioners.

Production

LifeWatch ERIC, EMODnet Biology 

Background

The 5th edition of the ENVRI-FAIR and LifeWatch ERIC Summer School is an intensive, 6-day in-person training event (July 10–15) held in Lecce. The course focuses on the complete lifecycle of digital services for research combining theoretical lectures with individual and group practical activities. Through the ENVRI-Hub reference model, participants learn to design, document, develop, and validate digital services with high interoperability and reusability for environmental research infrastructures.

Learning Objectives

The main objectives of the school are:

• Provide practical skills for end-user requirements gathering and user-centered design;
• Promote the development of interoperable and reusable services using community standards and open operating environments;
• Structure high-quality documentation to ensure service adoption;
• Provide tools for validation, technological maturity measurement, and systematic stakeholder feedback collection.

Contents and Structure

The structure of the school follows a sequential path along the service lifecycle:

1. Learning to know end users and their expectations: requirements elicitation;
2. Creating high quality documentation and usage examples to support service end users;
3. Developing services and fostering reusability/interoperability among them;
4. Validating and evaluating your services;
5. Participants’ project presentations, school evaluation and certificates.

Target Audience

This resource is dedicated to early-career and senior researchers focused on data science, bioinformatics, and environmental sciences; software developers and data engineers in the environmental and scientific sectors; and technical leads of Research Infrastructures.

Production

ENVRI-FAIR, LifeWatch ERIC

Background

This fourth edition of the ENVRI FAIR School represents another unmissable opportunity to learn about FAIRness in the framework of Research Infrastructures. After dealing with Data FAIRness and Data Management during previous editions, this edition of the school focuses on Services for FAIRness, from their design to their development and publication.

Learning Objectives

It is expected that, by the end of the course, participants will be better positioned to:

• Examine approaches and methodologies to webservices for data;
• Map tools and their related characteristics;
• Illustrate potential security threats and related solutions;
• Design (step by step) data services;
• Develop and publish a data service.

Contents and Structure

Training sessions:

1. Overview on the ENVRI project and goals;
2. Design webservices for data;
3. Develop webservices for data;
4. Publish and secure data services by means of APIs;
5. Best practices and lessons learned (experts panel).

Target Audience

The resource is aimed at ENVRI data centres staff, RIs representatives, IT experts, researchers and PhD candidates and individuals interested in developing webservices.

Production

ENVRI-FAIR, LifeWatch ERIC

Background

The MARBEFES Autumn School 2025 is an intensive three-day training event (October 8–10, 2025, Seville) organized within the framework of the MARBEFES project and managed in collaboration with the European Research Infrastructure LifeWatch ERIC. The school combines theoretical sessions, practical exercises, case study analysis, and IT tools to provide an integrated understanding of marine biodiversity, covering topics ranging from ecological structure and functioning to socio-cultural and economic valuation, up to Decision Support Systems (DSS) for the sustainable management of marine ecosystems.

Learning Objectives

The resource aims to:

• Provide advanced knowledge on the assessment of marine ecological structure and functioning;
• Promote the use of IT tools and advanced methodologies for biodiversity analysis and management;
• Structure integrated socio-cultural and economic valuation frameworks of marine natural capital to support decision-making;
• Develop practical application skills through case study analysis and team reporting activities.

Contents and Structure

Training sessions:

1. Introduction and basic ecological assessment;
2. Risks, taxonomic indices, and economic and social valuation;
3. Management, Decision Support Systems (DSS), and final assessment.

Target Audience

This resource is intended for researchers in the fields of marine science, ecology, and environmental economics; postgraduate and doctoral students in biological and environmental disciplines; research infrastructure managers; marine and coastal natural resource managers; policy and environmental decision-makers. .

Production

MARBEFES and LifeWatch ERIC

Background

LifeWatch ERIC builds and operates open e-science infrastructure supporting biodiversity and ecosystem research, offering Virtual Research Environments (VREs) for data analysis, sharing, and visualization. The LifeWatch Belgium e-Lab VRE allows users to process, standardize, and enrich ecological and taxonomic data through chained web services and reference databases.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the structure and operating procedure of the Belgian LifeWatch e-Lab VRE;
• Learn how to correctly upload and prepare data files in the standard LifeWatch format (based on Darwin Core and OBIS Schema);
• Configure, sequence, and execute a workflow of web services.

Target Audience

This guide is intended for researchers, biologists, ecologists, data managers, and LifeWatch.be portal users who wish to analyze, standardize, and enrich their biodiversity datasets.

Production

LifeWatch Belgium

Background

To facilitate the use of the LifeWatch Belgium web services, several applications and tools were documented in use cases and tutorials. The Belgian LifeWatch E-Lab online application allows users to standardize, analyze and visualize their data, making use of web services built on top of internal and external reference databases. A user can select several data services (taxonomic, geographic, thematic, etc.) and run them successively through a straightforward user interface. As explained in the user guide, the LifeWatch.be web services can be used in a concatenated way, i.e. the output of one web service is the input for the next web service. Establishing such workflows helps solving (complicated) biological questions, illustrated in this and other use cases.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the supported data formats and the main quality control web services provided by the platform;
• Configure and run the quality control process by uploading a data file, setting the correct row/column delimiters, selecting the required services, and verifying the column mapping in the preview screen;
• Examine the final report generated by the system to verify data validity and identify any potential errors.

Target Audience

This resource is dedicated to marine ecologists, biologists, and researchers interested in enriching their field observations with historical presence data from OBIS. .

Production

LifeWatch Belgium

Background

To facilitate the use of the LifeWatch Belgium web services, several applications and tools were documented in use cases and tutorials. The Belgian LifeWatch E-Lab online application allows users to standardize, analyze and visualize their data, making use of web services built on top of internal and external reference databases. A user can select several data services (taxonomic, geographic, thematic, etc.) and run them successively through a straightforward user interface. As explained in the user guide, the LifeWatch.be web services can be used in a concatenated way, i.e. the output of one web service is the input for the next web service. Establishing such workflows helps solving (complicated) biological questions, illustrated in this and other use cases.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the necessary web services to map a geographic name to its respective MRGID identifier and retrieve the species list;
• Upload an input file containing marine location names, configure the LifeWatch Belgium e-Lab and run the data processing;
• Examine the results report and the final table to interpret the number of unique species found in OBIS for each selected geographic area.

Target Audience

This resource is dedicated to marine ecologists, biologists, and researchers interested in enriching their field observations with historical presence data from OBIS. .

Production

LifeWatch Belgium

Background

The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a global taxonomic database that is continuously updated through the daily contributions of scientific editors and subject-matter experts, as well as the integration of extensive datasets. Content quality and scientific review are managed by an editorial system led by taxonomic experts for each biological group, ensuring rigorous, specialized oversight of the information entered. This entire data architecture relies on the Aphia platform, a modular infrastructure designed not only to manage marine and non-marine taxonomic data but also to provide operational tools and video tutorials that support the editing work of specialists and experts.

Learning Objectives

The main objectives of this resource is to:

• Provide the technical skills to navigate and make edits on the Aphia platform;
• Instruct users on the proper management and entry of data across the thematic modules;
• Ensure the application of quality control and editing standards defined by WoRMS.

Target Audience

This resource is intended for researchers, students, subject-matter experts and taxonomists, managers and curators of scientific databases, and specialist networks responsible for taxonomic groups.

Production

LifeWatch Belgium

Background

The workflow assesses habitat vulnerability to the introduction and establishment of Invasive Alien Species (IAS) and the cumulative effects of their negative impacts, and is available through LifeWatch Tessaract at: https://tesseract.lifewatch.dev/biotope/create-workflow-cimpal.

Learning Objectives

This tutorial will allow you to:

• Design the input datasets in the required file extension and layout, according to your impact assessment framework of choice;
• Identify the provided parameters and the paths to the input files;;
• Examine the generated workflow output files.

Target Audience

The Workflow was created to support researchers and decision makers working on the management of impacts by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). The workflow outputs will help users to define target intervention areas, where the cumulative impacts of AIS are higher, and to make a better use of limited resources.

Prerequisites

Workflow users should:

• Have previous knowledge about the impact of invasive species;
• Be able to run and access GIS data;
• Be able to edit different data file formats (TSV, CSV, etc.).

Production

LifeWatch ERIC

Background

The analytical workflow on “Functional biogeography of alien species” is conceived to address scientific questions on the ecological processes following the introduction of alien species. It evaluates and measures the impact of alien species on native communities by studying changes in functional traits (i.e. trophic position of the invader) and seek associations between those changes and environmental variables that could influence post-invasion shifts of the invader trophic positions. This workflow operates as an analytical pipeline using isotopic data of invasive species and their potential prey within the invaded food-webs.

Learning Objectives

It is expected that, by the end of the course, participants will be better positioned to:

• Examine the technical requirements of the workflow’s services;
• Process the services included in the workflow;
• Run the workflow successfully;
• Identify and troubleshoot problems that may arise while running the workflow.

Target Audience

This training is aimed at early career researchers and anyone interested in learning how to run the “Functional biogeography of alien species” workflow.

Production

LifeWatch ERIC

Background

The two webinars "Designing and Developing Data Services for End Users" were organized in preparation for the ENVRI Community International Summer School 2022 ("Road to a FAIR ENVRI-Hub"). The event is structured into two sessions that can also be taken independently. The first webinar is focused on service validation, evaluation, and Technology Readiness Level (TRL) assessment for services offered by Research Infrastructures, drawing on experiences from projects such as ENVRIplus. The second webinar is centered on writing effective technical documentation, designing quality tutorials, and using Jupyter Notebooks to onboard new users.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the webinars, participants will be able to:

• Provide practical skills for validating and evaluating data services by assessing their Technology Readiness Level (TRL);
• Demonstrate strategies and best practices for writing documentation and creating support tutorials for end users;
• Illustrate the use of interactive tools (Jupyter Notebooks) to promote service adoption and facilitate integration into the ENVRI-Hub.

Contents and Structure

Webinar #1:

1. Validating services and assessing their TRL;
2. Service evaluation: why and how;
3. Evaluating ENVRI services: experiences from the ENVRIplus;
4. QandA and general discussion – plenary.

Webinar #2:

1. Writing effective service documentation for EUDAT services;
2. Service tutorial design: experiences from EOSC Synergy ;
3. Using Jupyter Notebooks to introduce services to “new” end users;
4. QandA and general discussion – plenary.

Target Audience

IT architects, Research Infrastructure (RI) service developers, user support staff, and RI staff dedicated to community and network building.

Production

ENVRI-FAIR, LifeWatch ERIC

Background

The workshop, organized on May 20 and 21, 2021, presents the scientific and technological results of five case studies on Non-indigenous Invasive Species (NIS), conducted within the Internal Joint Initiative (IJI) of LifeWatch ERIC. The event showcases the developed e-Science solutions, integrating scientific presentations on marine, terrestrial, and freshwater domains with the corresponding analytical workflows implemented in the LifeWatch ERIC Tesseract platform. The hands-on session navigates the LifeWatch ERIC Metadata Catalogue and LifeWatch ERIC Tesseract (workflows and VREs).

Learning Objectives

• To provide an overview of the technological and ecological solutions developed by the Internal Joint Initiative (IJI) of LifeWatch ERIC for the study of NIS;
• To illustrate the practical application of the workflows (ARMS, Crustaceans, Ailanthus, Metabarcoding, and Habitat Vulnerability);
• To train users in the use of the Metadata Catalogue and the Tesseract VRE environment.

Contents and Structure

Training blocks:

1. Marine Domain (Part 1 and 2);
2. Terrestrial Domain and Inland Waters (Part 1 and 2);
3. Hands-on Session.

Target Audience

Researchers, data managers, biodiversity experts, and ecological modellers interested in the study of invasive species and the use of digital infrastructures and FAIR analytical workflows.

Production

LifeWatch ERIC

Description

The Data liberation and Publishing tools course aims to tackle both sides of the publication process: 1) the annotation, preservation and dissemination of data extracted from the literature by utilising the right pipelines and mechanisms; and 2) the publication of prospective scientific literature and data in advanced ways to support easier and efficient (re)sharing and (re)use of biodiversity data contained in an academic publication. The course intends to showcase modern ways to complete the cycle of biodiversity data usage, including how to harvest, access, publish, preserve and cite scientific data and literature. Both the "Data Liberation" and the "Publishing Tools" modules refer to two tools devised within the EU-funded project: Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library (BiCIKL), and featured in the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub (BKH).

Learning Objectives

:

• Understand the benefits and workflow of the data liberation process and biodiversity semantic standards;
• Develop practical skills for digitizing and standardizing taxonomic literature through workflows;
• Master the use of innovative publishing tools to publish data in machine-actionable formats that comply with FAIR principles;
• Recognize the importance and impact of Open Science on nature conservation and collaborative research.

Target Audience

The selected target groups include publishers, research groups, research infrastructure managers, research managers, researchers, and students.

Background

The EU-funded BiCIKL (Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library) project aims to revolutionize access to biodiversity data by establishing bidirectional links between scientific literature, museum specimens, genomic sequences, and taxonomic data. In this context, the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub (BKH) is the single-entry portal offering a centralized access point to FAIR guidelines, tools, and services for navigating and reusing the entire wealth of interconnected biodiversity data. This course presents an introduction to the BKH. It presents the structure of the BKH, the FAIR Data Place section and its key role in the openness of the data.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the features and benefits of the BKH;
• Navigate the BKH platform confidently;
• Understand the transfer mechanisms and the workflow of biodiversity data.

Target Audience

The target audience identified for this resource includes academic researchers, graduate students, journal editors and reviewers, and scientific writers.

A collection of online training resources on the topic of FAIRness relevant for BioDT. The collection includes: guidelines on Research Object Crate (RO-Crate), the main metadata format used within the project; online books covering many different aspects related to open science; and FAIR-IMPACT's Metrics for software and FAIR-IMPACT's Catalogue of Resources.

The Prototype Biodiversity Digital Twin (pDT) for Honey Bees is an advanced pDT tool that has been designed to assess the viability and productivity of honey bee colonies in various landscapes and under different management and climate-change scenarios. Using the BEEHAVE model, the pDT simulates foraging, population dynamics, and Varroa mite infestation of honey bee colonies.

The pDT interface, developed using R Shiny, offers a user-friendly platform where users can specify hive coordinates and modify model parameters and floral resource settings. Then the interface provides visual outputs such as the number of adult bees, honey production, and flight time. Users can simulate colony dynamics for specific locations and compare results with real-world data.

The honeybee prototype Digital Twin is primarily for beekeepers and researchers who want to model how different locations, beekeeping practices and floral resources will change honeybee vitality. We are still in the testing and calibration phase, but once this has been finished the tool can be used to assess the honeybee friendliness of landscapes and could be therefore a tool for land use decision making. 

In this tutorial you will:

• learn how the considered floral resources will affect honeybee vitality by choosing different locations for the colony in the landscape. The user can also change the flowering period of the different crop types and their nectar and pollen content.
  
• learn how decisions in the beekeeping (control of mites by arcaracides, drone brood removal, honey harvest) will affect the population dynamics by changing the respective parameters on the dashboard.

To use the tool no prior scientific knowledge is needed. Some jargon is however helpful in order to understand  the role of “mites” which are disease vectors for honey bees.

The Black Sea Accelerator provides a platform for participants to collaborate, learn, and grow their ventures by offering tailored training, mentorship, networking opportunities, and access to resources and funding. Whether they are looking to launch a new venture, scale an existing business, or develop innovative solutions to pressing challenges, the accelerator program equips participants with the knowledge, skills, and support they need to succeed in the blue economy sector and make a positive impact in the Black Sea region.

By the end of this training session, participants should be able to:

The Black Sea Accelerator provides a platform for participants to collaborate, learn, and grow their ventures by offering tailored training, mentorship, networking opportunities, and access to resources and funding. Whether they are looking to launch a new venture, scale an existing business, or develop innovative solutions to pressing challenges, the accelerator program equips participants with the knowledge, skills, and support they need to succeed in the blue economy sector and make a positive impact in the Black Sea region.

By the end of this training session, participants should be able to:

The Black Sea Accelerator provides a platform for participants to collaborate, learn, and grow their ventures by offering tailored training, mentorship, networking opportunities, and access to resources and funding. Whether they are looking to launch a new venture, scale an existing business, or develop innovative solutions to pressing challenges, the accelerator program equips participants with the knowledge, skills, and support they need to succeed in the blue economy sector and make a positive impact in the Black Sea region.

By the end of this training session, participants should be able to:

The Black Sea Accelerator provides a platform for participants to collaborate, learn, and grow their ventures by offering tailored training, mentorship, networking opportunities, and access to resources and funding. Whether they are looking to launch a new venture, scale an existing business, or develop innovative solutions to pressing challenges, the accelerator program equips participants with the knowledge, skills, and support they need to succeed in the blue economy sector and make a positive impact in the Black Sea region.

By the end of this training session, participants should be able to:

This training session was organised as part of the EU-funded SUBMERSE project, which explores sensing capabilities of existing submarine optical fiber networks for research applications.

Purpose of this training session

The training session introduces you to data recording, measurement, and analysis methods of State of Polarization (SoP) in optical networks. It will:

Target audience

Optical networks and telecommunications operators and vendors; researchers in earth sciences and geophysics.

Requirements

None or basic knowledge of SOP changes recording and analysis methods. Basic experience in analysis of data generated by sensing network.

Session outline

This training session took place during the SUBMERSE Community Event on 15 April 2026

Purpose of this training session

This practical tutorial allows researchers to analyse a real sample of 2023 DAS records coming from the GeoLab fibre and OptoDAS interrogator in Madeira island, one of the SUBMERSE project collection sites. The training session provides instructions to replicate the workflow with one's own data.

Target audience

Oceanographers, seismologists, ecologists; Telecommunications, Acoustics, and Electrical engineers.

Prerequisites

Familiarity with Jupyter Notebooks environment and basics of Python is welcomed. A Google account is required to duplicate the Colab notebook.

This training session took place during the SUBMERSE Community Event on 15 April 2026

Purpose of this training session

This training session demonstrates how fiber optic sensing can be a high-fidelity tool not only for seismology, but also for physical oceanography. By using a downsampled dataset from the Geolab fibre in Madeira, this tutorial provides a concrete workflow for researchers to familiarise themselves with how signals change along different segments of a submarine cable, moving from land and the narrow shelf into deep water.

Target audience

Oceanographers, seismologists, ecologists; Telecommunications, Acoustics, and Electrical engineers.

Prerequisites

Familiarity with Jupyter Notebooks environment and basics of Python is welcomed. A Google account is required to duplicate the Colab notebook.

Description

The manuals provided here cover the PlutoF platform and offer a detailed guide to the management, annotation, analysis, and publication of biological and biodiversity data. BMD recommends the use of the PlutoF platform for the mobilisation of eDNA datasets to GBIF.

Learning Objectives

• Learn to navigate and use the PlutoF interface;
• Master the use of the data import and taxonomic modules;
• Manage and publish biological and eDNA datasets on platforms such as GBIF.

Target Audience

Researchers, biologists, natural resource managers, and students interested in the management and publication of biodiversity and eDNA data.

The GBIF training resources provide access to data mobilisation tutorials covering the widest variety of biodiversity data types and all realms. Marine data at GBIF is exchanged with OBIS.