BioMonI: Biodiversity monitoring of island ecosystems

Oceanic islands are hotspots of global biodiversity with high levels of endemism, meaning many species only occurring on these islands or archipelagos. At the same time, these island systems are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic drivers of environmental change, like land-use change, climate change or the introduction of non-native species. This calls for the protection of natural habitats, the implementation of species-specific conservation measures, and ecosystem restoration facilitated by powerful monitoring tools to inform conservation and policy. The European Union Overseas Entities, i.e., those islands under jurisdiction by European countries, contribute significantly to EU biodiversity and they play a crucial role in safeguarding nature`s contribution to people as well as meeting global conservation targets like those under the newly agreed Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Globally, islands are also crucial to assessing the status and monitoring the trends of biodiversity change but are strongly under-represented in existing global biodiversity databases and monitoring efforts. Hence, many islands lack efficient long-term biodiversity monitoring resulting in incomplete knowledge or how this biodiversity might change in the future. BioMonI focuses explicitly at monitoring the biodiversity of island plants, plant-arthropods associations and plant-related ecosystem functions and provides crucial monitoring infrastructure and tools to assess changes in past and future island biodiversity change from local to regional scales. To achieve this, we will mobilize information from historical archives and also develop new tools for island biodiversity monitoring. Additionally, we use and develop new field methods including conventional long-term monitoring and modern technology such as environmental DNA. Also, satellite-based remote sensing to monitor plant-based ecosystem structure and function will help to understand biodiversity change dynamics at different spatial scales. Finally, scenarios for individual archipelagos will be developed together with local stakeholder to understand future environmental, socio- economic and societal drivers of island biodiversity change and to develop strategies to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in line with Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This was the project will be of great importance for environmental planning and policy advice and as such for society itself. While we focus on three European countries, the monitoring protocols and data infrastructure will be generalized and hence applicable to all islands worldwide.