COORDINATION: Allan Watt (Centre for Ecology and Hidrology U.K.).
CEABN TEAM: Carla Santos, Francisco Castro Rego (Coordination), Pedro Leitão, Sandra Mesquita e Susana Dias.
OTHER INSTITUTIONS: The project consortium included 25 institutions from 10 countries. Portuguese Institutions included were: CEABN, Centro de Biologia Ambiental da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (CBA), Instituto de Ambiente e Vida (IAV) da Universidade de Coimbra, Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Mãe d'Água enterprise.
The BioAssess project was the first project to use standardised protocols to measure several major elements of biodiversity across Europe (in eight countries and six biogeographical regions) to simultaneously develop methods for assessing biodiversity, or "biodiversity assessment tools", and to quantify the impact on biodiversity of land use change, a major driver of change in biodiversity in Europe and elsewhere.
The main purpose of the BioAssess project was to develop biodiversity assessment tools for inland terrestrial ecosystems, comprising sets of indicators of biodiversity, to assess the impact of policies on changes in biodiversity in Europe. "Biodiversity assessment tools" may be defined as a set of indicators, which provides information on status and trends in biodiversity for a range of stakeholders. This approach to monitoring acknowledges that a single measure of biodiversity is unlikely to satisfy most stakeholder needs, particularly those interested in trends in biodiversity at the European level.
The groups of plants and animals sampled and included in the analysis were: soil-dwelling Collembola; earthworms and other soil macrofauna; ground beetles (Carabidae); plants, lichens, butterflies and birds.
The CEABN team was responsible for the components of vegetation sampling, landscape analysis and remote sensing.
