Kicking off the Biodiversity Sampling Week: a week dedicated to discovering, monitoring, and protecting nature

The Biodiversity Sampling Week (BSW) will take place from today, May 12, through May 18: a week dedicated to monitoring and citizen science.

Throughout the week, NBFC researchers from the Omics Observatories network of Spoke 2 and Spoke 1 will carry out biodiversity sampling activities focused on plankton monitoring across four LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) sites, including the one in Trieste.

The event is part of the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), whose core mission is to observe, collect data, and raise awareness about the importance of biodiversity. The idea behind the initiative is simple yet powerful: to concentrate coordinated biodiversity monitoring efforts into a short time frame, highlighting how crucial it is to base future decisions on up-to-date scientific data. Data that is often lacking or outdated—and that everyone, with no exceptions, can help collect.

In the Gulf of Trieste, biodiversity will be studied through a combination of different approaches, including microscopic observations, biomolecular techniques, and methods designed to actively involve the public (such as Lamprey, PlanktoScope, and avvistAPP).