2c294dd0-4849-42f6-bfd4-8af065f1e3da 1.1 Phytoplankton Virtual Research Environment 2016 2020 2021 The LifeWatch Italy national node has realised the Phytoplankton Virtual Research Environment (Phyto VRE) for supporting researchers to address basic and applied studies on phytoplankton ecology at a level of resolution going from individual cells to whole assemblages. The Phyto VRE enables researchers to: - produce harmonised data on taxonomy and morphological traits by using the Atlas of Phytoplankton, Atlas of Shapes and Phytoplankton Traits Thesaurus; - access, download, and select LifeWatch Italy datasets (published through the LifeWatch Italy Data Portal and distributed by the LifeWatch ERIC Metadata Catalogue) or upload their own datasets structured according to the Phyto template based on the LifeWatch Italy Data Schema in order to execute the services included in the VRE; - faciliatate the computation of morphological and demographic traits (such as hidden dimension, biovolume, surface area, surface-volume ratio, cell carbon content, etc.) and investigate their distribution patterns at different levels of data aggregation (i.e. spatial, temporal, taxonomic) by means of services, which automate a set of operations written in the R language. Elena Stanca Italian Agency for the Environmental Prevention and Protection · Centro Regionale Mare (CRM)- Bari e.stanca@arpa.puglia.it Leonilde Roselli Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples (Italy) leonilde.roselli@szn.it Francesco Cozzoli Institute of Research on Terrestrial Ecosystems (IRET), National Research Council (CNR) francesco.cozzoli@cnr.it Nicola Fiore LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre nicola.fiore@lifewatch.eu Lucia Vaira LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre lucia.vaira@lifewatch.eu Ilaria Rosati Institute of Research on Terrestrial Ecosystems (IRET), National Research Council (CNR) ilaria.rosati@cnr.it Maria Teresa Manca LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre mteresa.manca@lifewatch.eu Alberto Basset University of Salento, LifeWatch Italy alberto.basset@unisalento.it https://metadatacatalogue.lifewatch.eu/geonetwork/srv/api/records/2c294dd0-4849-42f6-bfd4-8af065f1e3da/attachments/Phyto_pic.png Virtual Research Environment phytoplankton functional traits atlas of shapes taxonomy controlled vocabulary computational services data analysis Metadata records are freely available under a Public Domain (CC0 1.0) License; while the VRE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License. LifeWatch Italy 2021 Atlas of Phytoplankton It is a guide for the identification of marine and freshwater species. It includes pictures, synonyms, morphological, morphometrical and ecological characters and geographical distribution of the taxa. It also provides formulas to calculate the biovolume and surface area based on linear dimensions according to the organism view (e.g., lateral, frontal, etc.). https://metadatacatalogue.lifewatch.eu/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/3ca7867c-0178-4310-a825-5c8bedaf5465 Atlas of Shapes It is a catalogue of geometrical models for calculating biovolume and surface area of phytoplankton taxa. It includes illustrative schemes of simple and complex shapes. https://metadatacatalogue.lifewatch.eu/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/97b3148e-368a-423d-85dd-654efd38cdc3 Phytoplankton Traits Thesaurus It is a compilation of standardized definitions and semantic properties of approximately 120 morpho-functional and demographic traits (i.e., abundance, cell carbon content, etc.). https://metadatacatalogue.lifewatch.eu/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/88e5ea76-b6cb-4d53-9902-926a60363ad2 Traits Computation It is a web service to calculate phytoplankton traits such as biovolume, surface area, surface/volume ratio, density, cell carbon content, total biovolume, total carbon content. https://metadatacatalogue.lifewatch.eu/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/ae7bc525-6358-4568-b8d1-b72686b3d575 Size Class Distribution It is a web service to visualize the distribution of individuals in different size classes selected on the basis of logarithmic values of biovolume or carbon content. https://metadatacatalogue.lifewatch.eu/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/e21b8d5e-11c5-4545-b205-a34d207f959b Size Density Relationships It is a web service to calculate and describe the relationships between size (total biovolume and total carbon content) and abundance. https://metadatacatalogue.lifewatch.eu/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/ec5bca8e-cf11-4b5c-b032-c8f0ba13f9af Stanca, E., Cellamare, M., & Basset, A. (2013) "Geometric shape as a trait to study phytoplankton distributions in aquatic ecosystems". Hydrobiologia, 701(1), 99-116. Stanca E., Roselli L., Cozzoli F., Rosati I., Fiore N. and Basset A. (2017) "Phytoplankton morphological and demographic traits computation in a virtual research environment Phyto VRE", Abstract book of 52nd European Marine Biology Symposium, September 2017 Slovenia. ISBN 978-961-93486-5-9. Stanca, E.; Fiore, N.; Rosati, I.; Vaira, L.; Cozzoli, F.; Basset, A. (2020) "Case study: LifeWatch Italy Phytoplankton VRE", in: Zhao, Z. et al. Towards interoperable research infrastructures for environmental and earth sciences. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12003: pp. 324-341. https://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/978-3-030-52829-4_18. Ilaria Rosati et al., 2017, A thesaurus for phytoplankton trait-based approaches: Development and applicability, Ecological Informatics, 42, 129-138, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2017.10.014. https://helpdesk.lifewatchitaly.eu/ https://www.phytovre.lifewatchitaly.eu WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link Link to the VRE https://www.lifewatch.eu/catalogue-of-virtual-labs/phyto-vre/ WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link Info page