A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals, for which ‘habitat’ is probably the closest equivalent in English. The Biotope validation case is possibly the most complex workflow developed by LifeWatch ERIC within the framework of the Internal Joint Initiative, integrating biodiversity data in order to produce maps that show trends in the extent, condition and vulnerability of ecosystems, and report on the intrusions of Non-indigenous and Invasive Species (NIS).

Julien Radoux (Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium), illustrates the Biotope impact and vulnerability workflow, which was developed to achieve comprehensive, standardised and modular methods to assess both incidence and impact of NIS at different spatial scale (e.g., continental, regional, local), essential information in order to support management and conservation actions and to prioritise areas of intervention.

For more information on IJI, please visit its official webpage

The history of the IJI in a narrative form: read also our Magazine “Alien Alert!”