Doñana Long-Term Socio-ecological Research Platform - Spain

Description of the infrastructure

Doñana ICTS (Singular Scientific and Technological Infrastructure) was awarded in 2006 by Science and Innovation Ministry to Doñana Biological Reserve on behalf of Doñana Biological Station, a research centre of CSIC (Spanish Research Council). The set up and implementation of the infrastructure was driven by 2 major goals:
? To supply communication infrastructure and technological equipment to the Doñana Natural Space, in order to improve and standardize the existing long term ecological monitoring program granting data quality and access.
? Offer to the European scientific community, open access to the Doñana infrastructure in order to increase the knowledge on Doñana ecosystems and species, as a reference for global change processes.
The integrated monitoring program includes more than 80 standardised and scientifically supervised methodological protocols producing up to date results on biodiversity status and natural processes trends. For many of these monitoring targets data has been collected since the early 70?s. The diverse Doñana major ecosystems, shoreline, dunar system, marshlands, River estuary, aquifer lagoons and Mediterranean shrublands and woodlands are fully covered both by traditional manual and automatic monitoring protocols and devices.
Scientific areas covered under the infrastructure umbrella are:
?Biodiversity status and trend analysis, with special focus on threatened species and biological conservation
?Wetlands ecology, hydrological modelling, restoration ecology, landscape ecology
?Population ecology, ethology and evolutionary biology
?Animal and plant ecophysiology, approaching biogeochemical cycles (C and N) and atmospheric greenhouse gases and pollutants
?Global change (climatic, land use, invasions, habitat loss, etc.) effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning with special emphasis in changes on ecosystem services and ecological networks (mutualistic and trophic networks)
Unique infrastructure providing near real time long-term ecological information, on site accommodation to scientists, logistics and 4x4 wheel vehicle disposal, biological collections, laboratories on remote sensing and GIS, molecular ecology, limnology and ecophysiology and a periodical research funding call for access enabling preliminary scientific projects approach Doñana ecosystems and ssp (20 projects in 2008, an average of 60 ISI published papers/year).
Modality of access and support offered under this proposal:
The ICTS-Doñana has obtained funding by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to provide access to researchers from European Community, the European Economic Area and countries members of the Iberoamerican Programme of Science and Technology for the Development (CYTED). This programme allows to develop research projects at the RBD during one year periods. The ICTS-RBD access programme has two modalities:
?Modality 1: For researchers doing his/her PhD thesis. Estimated length of stay: 4 weeks per year.
?Modalidad 2: For researchers with Phd degree or with a minimum of 3 years of research experience. Estimated length of stay: 2 weeks per year.
The ICTS-RBD access programme is usually open in July every year. The proposals are reviewed by the External Committee of Access and the results of the selection are usually notified during October. Researcher?s travel costs are met and a per diem provided to meet living costs during the stay. Accommodation facilities and drivers and vehicles are also available as logistics support. For further information visit http://icts.ebd.csic.es/.

Outreach of new users:
New users are being attracted to ICTS-Doñana through different scientific strategies:
?Call for proposals under the ICTS yearly access programme
?Active participation in European Projects and ESFRI initiative
?Full integration into LTER-Europe network
?Interdisciplinary research