Project Integ@Risk is at the kick-off! Project start and field visits

The project Integ@Risk will explore how global environmental change is reshaping the delicate connection between ecosystem integrity, ecosystem functioning and human societies. By studying insect communities across six European mountain landscapes, the project aims to reveal how ecosystem degradation affects environmental and human health. Using a macroecological lens, we will predict how global change is altering some of the key insect-mediated functions as well the circulation of viruses transmitted by insect vectors.

Left to right: Project collaborators Santos Rojo and Pierfilippo Cerretti. Project's PI (Moreno Di Marco) with project's researchers and project's partners from the University of Alicante. Project's PI with Mario Langourov from Sofia Natural History Museum.

From 22 to 24 April the project's PI (Moreno Di Marco) and the project team met with the foreign partners of the Sofia Natural History Museum and the University of Alicante to finalise the kick-off meeting of the Integ@Risk project ahead of the upcoming sampling season.

Moreno and Giorgia Scrivano (project's researcher) travelled to the Pirin Mountains (southwestern Bulgaria), a mountain range characterised by alpine landscapes, glacial lakes and conifer forests, to meet the Bulgarian team. Meanwhile, Pierfilippo Cerretti (project collaborator) and Niccolò Ceci (project's researcher) joined the Spanish partners in the Pyrenees (northern Spain), where forests, grasslands and mountain valleys make up a remarkably diverse environment. The four then reunited with the Spanish team at the Sierra de Guadarrama (central Spain), a range known for its rocky peaks and Mediterranean mountain ecosystems.

Landscape from some of the mountain sites which will be part of project's research activities.

Together, partners worked to organise the fieldwork and familiarise themselves with the study areas. Despite the differences in landscape, the goal remained the same: to assess the suitability of the selected sites across a wide altitudinal range (from 500 m to over 2,000 m) ensuring that each elevation band encompassed a variety of ecological integrity levels.

Filed activities in Sierra de Guadarrama. The Italian and Spanish teams meet with Guadarrama Park rangers to visit some of sampling locations and try the equipment.

These visits marked an important milestone ahead of the upcoming sampling activities, helping to align the practical aspects of the planned work, clarify the data collection protocol, and discuss the project's expected outcomes. Time spent in the field offered a first glimpse of local biodiversity, while shared meals and local dishes helped forge connections and strengthen collaboration across the research teams.

Some of the local specialties from our filed visit: Zerynthia rumina (left), Morimus funereus (rigth), and of course local delicacies.

The following week the Italian team (now also including Emanuele Rossi, Valerio Caruso, Michela Gabrieli) continued the site visits in Italy, focusing on two of the project areas. The team assessed the suitability of the sampling sites in the Stura Valley (northwestern Italy), a wide alpine valley shaped by majestic peaks, diverse forests and open high-altitude pastures, and in Stelvio National Park (northern Italy), where valley meadows and conifer forests give way to cliffs and glaciers, alongside extensive alpine pastures.

Filed activities in the Italian Alps. The project's researchers visit some of sampling locations in the Alps.

Alongside field inspections, the visits provided an opportunity to engage with the local stakeholders,- including park technicians, mountain unions, municipal representatives and landowners, to foster collaboration and coordination for the upcoming activities. Encounters with local wildlife added an extra dimension to the experience, offering a glimpse into the ecological richness of these areas. A further site visit is now planned in Abruzzo, which will complete the preliminary inspections across all the areas involved in the Integ@Risk project.

Filed activities in the Italian Alps. Top: the project's researchers visit Alpi Marittime park and the Argentera city council. Bottom: some of the local fauna, a marmot, a salamander, and a bristle fly .

The project is supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR), under the Fondo Italiano per la Scienza (FIS) - FIS-2023-03158 (CUP: B53C25003010001)