Biodiversity stands at the heart of our planet's life-support systems, providing vital resources such as food, clean air, and energy, while ensuring the overall health of ecosystems. Unfortunately, our natural world is under siege from climate change, rampant deforestation, and pollution, which are causing habitat destruction and risking the extinction of crucial species within the biosphere.

In response to these pressing challenges, a coalition of 22 partners, steered by the CSC—IT Center for Science and operating from the EuroHPC LUMI supercomputer facility—has launched an ambitious initiative to create Biodiversity Digital Twins (BioDT). This project is part of a broader European Commission strategy to foster sustainable environmental practices.

The BioDT project seeks to revolutionize our understanding of biodiversity dynamics through sophisticated modeling, simulation, and predictive analytics. By synthesizing and enhancing existing digital data and models, the BioDT initiative aims to provide actionable insights for sustainable biodiversity management and conservation efforts. It harnesses expertise across a range of disciplines, including ecology, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and standards for data accessibility.

Through a process of continuous validation against independent datasets, the bioDT ensures its models offer increasingly precise predictions about biodiversity fluctuations. This iterative approach is crucial for crafting effective decision-making tools and public policy frameworks. By updating information in real-time, BioDT will generate live predictions of biodiversity trends, visually represented through interactive maps and data summaries. The project draws on substantial resources from key research infrastructures like GBIF, eLTER, DiSSCo, and LifeWatch ERIC.

Moreover, BioDT's impact reaches far beyond academic interest. It addresses critical global issues such as climate change effects on ecosystems, food security challenges, and compliance with EU and international biodiversity policies. Significantly, this initiative is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically targeting Zero Hunger (Goal 2), Good Health and Well-being (Goal 3), Climate Action (Goal 13), and Life on Land (Goal 15).

The project is developing ten prototype digital twins (pDTs) specifically focused on high-priority species and ecosystems, such as invasive species, pollinators, and grassland habitats. These pDTs are categorized into four main areas of research:

1. Species Response to Environmental Change:

This involves studying species interactions within ecosystems over time, rather than static models that merely exchange time for space. This approach utilizes geographic data integrated with time-series data to enhance prediction accuracy.

2. Genetically Detected Biodiversity:

By merging genomic insights with traditional biodiversity assessments, this focus addresses global food security and adapts to challenging environments, paying particular attention to crop wild relatives and other vital genetic resources.

3. Dynamics of Species of Policy Concern:

This area applies state-of-the-art modeling and computing tools to analyze invasive species recognized as threats at the European and national levels.

4. Influence of Species Interactions:

This track aims to forecast disease outbreaks via vector species, alongside examining interaction patterns that involve crucial pollinators like bees.

The prototype digital twins are not just theoretical models; they will serve as practical tools, providing datasets and best practices to researchers and conservationists for biodiversity management and decision-making. The BioDT initiative is actively testing these models to ensure their predictive capability against diverse biodiversity challenges.

Additionally, in an unprecedented move for open science, the BioDT team has published ten scholarly articles in the open-access journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), encapsulating their findings and technical advances in developing these digital twins. Gabrela Zuquim, the Scientific Coordinator for the BioDT project, remarked, "The collection offers an in-depth understanding of the conceptual and technical advancements achieved towards developing digital twins for a wide range of biodiversity topics."

Highlighting the collaborative effort, Dmitry Schigel from GBIF praised the effort, noting, "The project team agreed to capture the project’s iterations and reveal our two-thirds stage prototypes two years into the initiative with one more to go."

One particularly exciting prototype currently under development is the HONEYBEE Digital Twin. Once calibrated with land use data and hive weight inputs, it aims to predict honeybee population dynamics along with mite infestation rates, providing critical insights for beekeepers and agricultural planners.

This transformative project could potentially reshape how societies manage and protect biodiversity, making it an integral part of efforts to mitigate climate impacts and ensure sustainable resource use. As the BioDT initiative unfolds, its findings will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in shaping global biodiversity policy and education for generations to come. Keep an eye on this innovative collaboration—it just might be the key to saving our planet!