The COST Action BOTTOMS-UP will provide a grant of 4,000 euros for supporting the Action objectives by organizing its virtual cooperation.

Applicants should have a primary affiliation to an institution located in a COST Full or Cooperating Member country or MC Observers from a COST Near Neighbour Country.

The selection of successful grantee will be based on contributions to the overall objectives of the Action, with special reference to developing a standardized European platform of forest multi-taxon data.

We expect the grantee contribution in this direction to be based on:

• Ability to coordinate data contributions from Action participants through R tools.
• Facilitate collaboration among Action participants through the Action Git project.
• Facilitate virtual networking among Action participants.
• Aiding the Virtual Mobility grantees through assistance with data preparation and provision.

The work can be carried out wherever the grantee is based and will end by September 30^th, since when the successful grantee will have 15 calendar days to submit a report on the collaboration activities organized and on the contribution to the Action.

A total of three Virtual Mobility Grants of 1,500 euros each will be available for the different tasks listed below.

Applicants will be evaluated based on their skills to work with large and heterogeneous datasets to pursue the aim of each specific working group, and to collaborate with a wide network of scientists on the topic of multi-taxon forest biodiversity.

Grant for Working Group 1 - Multi-taxon biodiversity

Main objective

The main objective of working group 1 is to process, standardize and harmonize data from participants and to produce a database including multiple species and functional diversity metrics (e.g., species and functional diversity in the Hill numbers framework), to be used in the upcoming analyses and analyses of these diversity metrics in response to forest management and other environmental change.

Working Plan

• Collation and analysis of functional trait data for multiple taxonomic groups.
• application of Species Distribution Models to the Action database.
• Linking forest dynamic models to multi-taxon biodiversity.
• Analyses of the relationships between functional diversity and climate change.

List of participants in the collaborative initiative

Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas, Sabina Burrascano, Francesco Chianucci, Paolo Giordani.

Main expected outputs

• A dataset including species and functional biodiversity metrics.
• R scripts to recalculate these metrics
• Initial results of specific analyses (species distribution models, response to forest dynamics and climate change).

Grant for Working Group 2 - Forest management and structure effect on multi-taxon biodiversity

Main objective

Working group 2 aims to link forest management, stand structure and multi-taxon biodiversity. The grant would allow to model the effects of stand age across a rotation period applied to even-aged forests on multi-taxon biodiversity.

Working Plan

• Design a chronosequence scheme across the BOTTOMS-UP metadatabase;
• Run models on the suitable data.

List of participants in the collaborative initiative

Tommaso Sitzia, Francesco Chianucci, Sabina Burrascano.

Main expected outputs

• Manuscript draft on the multi-taxon biodiversity change as even-aged forests go through a rotation period.

Grant for Working Group 6 - Forest zoning and management planning

Main objective:  Exploring different forest zoning scenarios through the application of resampling techniques to the BOTTOMS-UP metadatabase.

Working Plan:  Test different resampling schemes and modelling approaches that may fit the nested and heterogeneous structure of the database.

List of participants in the collaborative initiative: Thomas Andrew Nagel, Sabina Burrascano, Jenyk Hofmeitser.

Main expected outputs:

• Workflow on data management and analysis for this specific task;
• Results of the analyses;
• Outline of a manuscript reporting on these analyses.