LifeWatch Italy (hereafter LW-ITA), national node of LifeWatch ERIC, is designed in order to manage data on taxonomy, functional traits and properties, interactions and ecological niche of individuals, populations and species, abiotic data and other types of observation data. The e-infrastructure provides tools and services for data archiving, access, quality control, harmonization, integration and analysis.In order to allow addressing basic and applied studies on phytoplankton ecology and alien species, thematic data resources and e-services have been integrated in two Virtual Research Environments (VREs), i.e. Phyto VRE and Alien Species VRE, providing the IT infrastructure for big data, large and complex dataset management and integration, collaborative data analysis and modelling, and advanced computational facilities. Both VREs, originally developed with a specific research aim, now allow a wider range of research activities. The original focus of Phyto VRE is on phytoplankton morphofunctional traits and their role on species coexistence and organisation in guilds, while now researches on Marine Framework Strategy Directive issues, carbon absorption and climate change mitigation can be carried out. The original focus of the Alien Species VRE is on ecosystem and EUNIS habitat fragility to alien species. A possible development, permitted by the already available database, is linked to the self-ecological study of alien species in the geographical area of origin, compared with the physical and biological characteristics of the arrival area and relevance of selected vectors.

LW-ITA invites researcher groups to submit project proposals to develop study cases in the Phyto VRE and Alien Species VRE .
Proposals can include the re-use and/or the customization of resources produced by LW-ITA or by other initiatives (including infrastructures and projects), their integration with resources available to the project proponents, and the implementation of new e-services required to address the specific project questions, which will be funded by the call and realized by LW-ITA. Info