Establishment of the focal field site network FSN within the ALARM project

The focal field site network FSN plays a central part for conducting joint research of all ALARM research modules and integrating research with different topics in ALARM on the same site for measuring multiple impacts on biodiversity. All sites include freshwater as well as terrestrial habitats, including both lotic and lentic environments. The FSN covers most of European climates and biogeographic regions, from Mediterranean environments through maritime, central European and boreal zones to the subarctic (Figure 1).

It allows detailed monitoring of environmental variables, species distributions and ecological interactions in a locally intensive but geographically extensive manner, providing a unique continent-wide perspective on the issues addressed by particular research programmes within ALARM.

Site managers are now appointed to conduct the research work on each site according to the protocols developed for the ALARM field site research. In the future a satellite site network will be established integrating the testing sites of all ALARM partners with other European Networks like ALTER-net and their Long-Term Ecosystem Research sites, LTER. The FSN sites are open to other researchers not participating in ALARM but working on similar topics.

It is possible to get more information on the core sites by clicking on the dots (see for instance, the German core sites – figure 2).

Figure 1. The focal field site network FSN within the ALARM project

Figure 2. The German the German core sites