LifeWatch is a European infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research. The Flemish contribution to LifeWatch is a collaboration between the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) and the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ). VLIZ will contribute to the central components of LifeWatch with a taxonomic backbone and to the regional components with a marine observatory, while the LifeWatch INBO team is developing a terrestrial and freshwater observatory.

We are implementing this observatory over several projects, improving monitoring efficiency with state-of-the-art technology. These include a GPS tracking network for large birds (http://lifewatch.inbo.be/blog/tag/bird-tracking.html), which uses the UvA-BiTS system developed by the University of Amsterdam (http://www.uva-bits.nl), vegetation monitoring of Natura 2000 habitats with an unmanned aerial vehicle, an acoustic fish tracking network in support of the development of an eel management plan, remote ground water level monitoring, seabirds at sea monitoring (in collaboration with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee), and in the near future a radar system for monitoring bird and bat movements (contributing to the European Network for the Radar surveillance of Animal Movement, http://enram.eu). Data generated by these projects will be published as open data, as well as data from other systems operational at the INBO (e.g. the Fish Information Network http://lifewatch.inbo.be/blog/posts/vis-data-published.html).

To stay informed of our progress, follow our blog (http://lifewatch.inbo.be/blog), Twitter account (http://twitter.com/lifewatchinbo) or the LifeWatch.be newspage (http://www.lifewatch.be). This poster can be downloaded at: http://lifewatch.inbo.be/blog/files/pro-ibiosphere-poster-a4.pdf