Foundational Biodiversity Information Programme (FBIP)

Transcription

1 Foundational Biodiversity Information Programme (FBIP) Overview of the FBIP funding approach and grants awarded FBIP Coordinator: Lita Pauw August 2018

2 The FBIP aim The FBIP is a national long-term programme to enable the generation and dissemination of knowledge about biodiversity - essential for improved decision-making, service delivery and creation of new economic opportunities. Focus area Global Change & Bio-Economy

3 Why was the FBIP established? To generate foundational biodiversity information that will help to address national priorities. To drive the accessibility of foundational biodiversity data. To provide a sustained grant funding programme for foundational biodiversity research and human capacity development.

4 How the FBIP works DST Steering committee: Provides funding Provides strategic guidance DST, DEA, DAFF, NRF, SANBI, SABIF, NSCF Professional societies (ZSSA, SAAB, ESSA, SASSB, SAMS) SANBI NRF Programme management & data management and dissemination Call & granting process

5 Objectives of the FBIP Generate knowledge and mobilise existing data Provide long-term access to data outputs Human capacity development Understanding best practices to ensure that knowledge is used

6 The scope of the FBIP Plants, animals, microbes; indigenous and alien invasive species, all habitats (aquatic and terrestrial) of South Africa. Species occurrence (biodiversity surveys, capture of data from specimens in collections), Species identity (DNA barcoding, other identification tools), Population abundance (quantified surveys), Species attributes photos / illustrations, biology, importance to people including cultural significance, functional role in ecosystem, interactions with other species. Aligns with 3 international initiatives with which SA has agreements: GBIF, IBOL and EOL.

7 Funding grants Open call, competitive process, decisions by NRF constituted panel. i. Strategic small projects: 1 year projects R50,000 to R200,000 ii. Large integrated projects: 3 years up to R2.1 million / yr Context: the data / knowledge should be clearly and directly linked to bioeconomy and / or global change Grants can be used for taxonomic research, mobilisation of primary data (specimen records), generation of DNA barcodes for submission to BOLD, compiling species information or for data management / dissemination innovations. Data from projects have to be submitted to FBIP / SANBI archiving and dissemination. International formats & standards apply.

8 Critical factors for successful projects Who will use the data? How / where will they access the data? What will change because the project is done and why will this matter? Can the project be done in the funding timeframes with the capacity and budget available? How does the project contribute to national priorities? (eg. NBSAP, the Bioeconomy Strategy, the Biodiversity Research & Evidence Strategy) Data outputs: To what extent will the project contribute to the FBIP deliverables?

9 Large Integrated Projects: Key Criteria Min of 5 team members from 4 different institutions Must include postgraduate training (min of 5 students) At least 2 young researchers Produce DNA barcodes, species occurrence data; Species pages Impact: Unlock information on bio-economy; Understand/mitig ate Global changes Contribute to national priorities Be in line with one of the themes Identify specific users of knowledge/data

10 Themes for Large projects Resolution of taxonomic problems, and documenting distribution and abundance of plant and animal species used for medicinal purposes in SA. Biological control: identification of potential biocontrol agents through being able to identify the pest / pathogen / alien and its origin, the identification of natural predators / pathogens of it, and close relatives of the host and potential agents. Biodiversity functionality. Better understanding of key functional attributes of different species in ecosystems, and the key interactions between them, focusing on terrestrial regulatory services systems. Regulatory services include invasion resistance, pollination, climate regulation, carbon sequestration, soil fertility, pest and disease control in agricultural systems. Multi-taxa surveys of strategic geographic areas (eg. new or proposed protected areas, areas targeted for development, areas with high levels of dependence on biodiversity for livelihoods, areas of importance for providing ecological infrastructure) that produce all of the following: species pages, DNA barcodes, species occurrence and abundance data. Mobilization of existing records for the species recorded or for the area could also be included in the project.

11 Large Integrated Projects FBIP has funded 4 large projects from 2013 SeaKeys ( ) Eastern Cape Forest project ( ) BioGaps ( ) SnapShot Safari ( )

12 Small Grants & Surveys: Proposals received: 212 Successful: Unsuccessful * Awarded 2017

13 Citizen science & community involvement Population genetics Surveys - multitaxa Data mobilization Phylogeny / taxonomy DNA Barcoding Surveys - 1 group Types of projects

14 Examples of small projects Microbial diversity in soil associated with rooibos and honeybush plants DNA barcoding of earthworms in the vermiculture industry Survey of frogs in KZN and inclusion of frogs in ecotourism activities Impact of climate change on soil microbes One baobab species in SA or two? Database of commercial mushroom pathogens Barcoding of all freshwater fish and frog species in SA Plant survey of the Stormberg

15 What we do with the data List of projects and datasets to be made available through the FBIP website Data developed through FBIP projects will be made publicly available through: BOLD / GenBank GBIF network EoL SANBI portal Will feed into the SANBI Integrated Data Architecture system once this is established. From here it will be used for Red List assessments, National Biodiversity Assessments, EIAs, spatial plans.. Grantholders remain free to disseminate their data in any way that they want to as well as submitting it to the FBIP Grantholders remain the owners of the dataset

16 FBIP bursaries awarded to students ( ) Postgraduate student bursaries awarded through the FBIP Level Gender Race Freestanding Grantlinked TOTAL M F Black White Hons * 9 MSc ** 9 PhD *** 7 All *4 Coloured; 1 Asian; 21 African **2 Coloured; 2 Asian; 11 African ***2 Asian; 5 African

17 Other support Postgraduate Students FBIP grants supported 41 postgraduate student projects Travel support for students to attend the annual BIMF-FBIP Forum and Postgraduate Forum Travel support for 13 students to attend the ibol conference in 2017 Technical assistants 19 student assistants contracted and trained through funded projects Young researchers Opportunity for young researchers to resubmit a revised proposal Training workshops Several training workshops presented annually during the BIMF-FBIP Forum SPECIFY training in October 2016

18 Additional knowledge products Training of tour guides from Ndumo Game Reserve to find and identify frogs. Field Guide to the Offshore Marine Invertebrates (in collaboration with SAEON) Discovery of new species: BioGaps project large number of new species (eg. 15 grasshoppers, several plants) in Karoo which is under mining threats.

19 Identified issues Many researchers not informed about national decision-making / policy context Data capture, data quality / standards not a priority for researchers Ethics permits and impacts on the organisms not well thought through Project planning and management missed deadlines or no delivery of proposed outputs.

20 Summary of expected outputs Total expenditure: R33.5 million specimen / occurrence records (what species, where and when) covering localities and species (20% of SA s species) [ ] species and specimens DNA barcoded [3 076] Descriptions of 20 + microbe communities from soil, roots species pages compiled [2 182] 600 species revised, >20 new species discovered 59 postgraduate students provided with bursaries [73] Estimated 170 papers published [112 published to date]

21 Thank You! DST for funding NRF for administrating the granting process SANBI for hosting the FBIP FBIP Steering Committee for valuable guidance FBIP Grantholders