Project: Restoring and Managing Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of Temporary Pond Landscapes

Acronym	RESPOND (Reference Number: BiodivRestore-614)
Duration	01/04/2022 - 31/03/2025
Project Topic	Temporary pond ecosystems represent a neglected freshwater habitat in Europe and in much of the rest of the world. These habitats have been destroyed due to presumed associations with mosquito borne diseases and to optimize agricultural activities while the services they provide are not acknowledged. Effective conservation and restoration of this habitat and its unique fauna is hampered by the absence of an established temporary pond typology to guide management and a lack of knowledge on the effectiveness of different management, pond creation and restoration strategies on biodiversity and ecosystem services. In this transnational project we aim to synthesize current information on temporary pond biodiversity and conservation projects to derive more effective restoration and management strategies and simulate to what extent the current Natura 2000 network adequately protects temporary ponds using systematic conservation planning algorithms. We will also perform experiments to quantify ecosystem services and test if we may revitalize European pond landscapes and promote ecosystem services using ancient ecosystem engineers. Since the Devonian era, large branchiopod crustaceans (Crustacea, Branchiopoda) are keystone organisms in natural temporary ponds but they have been largely extirpated from much of their former ranges. Like the beaver and wolf these invertebrates have the potential to modify habitat conditions to make it more suitable for other species. They may help to control cyanobacterial blooms and mosquito populations, provide a valuable food source for many threatened amphibian and water bird species and facilitate removal of nutrients from the system. However, these hypotheses remain to be formally demonstrated and integrated tests in different locations will be needed before we may generalize these processes and work towards better management and a broader protection of this habitat type in Europe and adjoining regions. This project is unique in the sense that it investigates the effects of rewilding ecosystems bottom up via organisms that may be less known and visible but equally important than classical ecosystem engineers such as the wolf or the beaver. In addition, we will develop and disseminate good practice guidelines to reduce temporary pond degradation and to increase the success of current restoration and creation projects. Together with our stakeholders, we will set-up a knowledge platform and use an array of outreach initiatives to raise public awareness for this unknown and underappreciated habitat in Europe and beyond.
Website	visit project website
Network	BiodivRestore
Call	BiodivRestore Transnational Cofund Call 2020-2021

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Vrije Universiteit Brussel	Coordinator	Belgium
2	Catholic University of Leuven	Partner	Belgium
3	Adam Mickiewicz University	Partner	Poland
4	Universidad Autónoma de Madrid	Partner	Spain
5	University Mohammed V Rabat	Partner	Morocco