Author: Žan Kafol

ProteusWatch vLab’s Research, part of the LifeWatch Slovenia Consortium, has been featured on Nautilus Magazine.

Deep beneath Europe’s karst landscapes lives the olm (Proteus anguinus), a pale, blind amphibian once thought to be the offspring of dragons. Elusive and long-lived, it is exquisitely sensitive to changes in groundwater quality and temperature, making it a living gauge of ecosystem health in subterranean aquifers that supply drinking water to millions.

Since 1960, the Tular Cave Laboratory in Kranj, Slovenia, has advanced olm research and conservation from a unique underground facility. Building on innovations that ranged from early CCTV systems to digital infrared video, the team has  revealed the behaviour and ecology of olm, from its unique cave-related sensoric capabilities to reproduction. Yet caves are dangerous and difficult to access, and lab studies can only go so far.

To bridge this gap, the research team from the Tular Cave Laboratory together with their colleagues from Karst Research Institute ZRC SAZU (both partners in LifeWatch Slovenia Consortium), and in partnership with LifeWatch ERIC Virtual Lab Innovation Center (the Netherlands), have mapped out plans for the ProteusWatch Virtual Lab: a virtual cave laboratory that brings long-term, in-situ monitoring to the karst underworld. Combining low-impact video analysis, machine learning, advanced sensors, imaging sonar and underwater drones, ProteusWatch aims to observe the olm’s behaviour – movement, foraging, interactions and breeding – in real time, without disturbing its fragile habitat. A second virtual lab, the Karst Groundwater Virtual Lab, will track groundwater dynamics to assess ecosystem stability and pressures of pollution.

“The main reason for building the cave laboratory 65 years ago was to circumvent the inaccessibility of Proteus’ natural habitat and allow long-term observations under more controlled conditions,” said Gregor and Magdalena Aljančič. “With advanced technologies, the idea of studying olms in the wild is becoming more and more realistic. The new approach would not only be more efficient but could also save lives.”

Christos Arvanitidis, CEO of LifeWatch ERIC, is backing the team’s efforts as a new leading example of accessible, multidisciplinary science. “You can show your data to other communities in [a] way they can take advantage of, prove to them that this type of research can be done, and they can perhaps use their own data, for the same kind of analysis,” he says. “That’s amazing, because it leads progressively to a kind of knowledge which is produced by as many data, from as many domains, as possible.”

Read the full article on Nautilus Magazine.

Photo credit: Gregor Aljančič.

Heraklion, Greece, 30 June – 03 July 2025

The BEeS (Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience) Conference 2025 will gather researchers, policymakers, and experts to tackle the Triple Planetary Crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution) through eScience and European Research Infrastructures (RIs).

This year’s conference will explore synergies between LifeWatch ERIC services and emerging technologies to drive innovation for a sustainable future. The program features plenary sessions, thematic services, research presentations, and hands-on demonstrations, highlighting the crucial role of technology, data, and collaboration in addressing global environmental challenges.

Participants will engage in discussions on biological diversity and conservation, ecological responses to climate change, biogeography, taxonomy, biodiversity monitoring, and habitat mapping, with the possibility to submit an abstract by 15 April.  The event will also include interactive booth activities, poster presentations, and training sessions, offering insights into Virtual Research Environments (VREs), Virtual Laboratories (vLabs), and other digital tools.

Target audience
The conference welcomes researchers in biodiversity, ecosystems, and eScience, with a special focus on early-career scientists, including PhD and Master’s students. The BEeS 2025 Conference will be hosted by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology, and Aquaculture (IMBBC), in Heraklion, Greece, from June 30 to July 3, 2025.

For any detail on the abstract submission (deadline on April 15 2025), logistics, registration and preliminary programme, visit: https://www.lifewatch.eu/bees-2025/ 

From 10 to 13 December 2024, over 1500 ecologists gathered in Liverpool for Europe’s largest conference dedicated to ecology: British Ecological Society Annual Meeting.

The event held particular relevance for LifeWatch ERIC, thanks to a rich programme of Thematic sessions, addressing the biodiversity crisis, nature restoration policies and practices, novels tools and technologies to tackle current challenges, and much more.

LifeWatch Slovenia consortium was represented by our colleague, Dr. Andreja Ramšak from the National Institute of Biology, Marine Biology Station Piran, presenting the lecture: “Towards automated biodiversity monitoring -a set-up of Biodiversity Observatory Automation (Thematic Topic under LifeWatch-ERIC)” in co-authorship with colleagues from the consortium: Dr. Cene Fišer (University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Dr. Magdalena Năpăruş-Aljančič and Dr. Tanja Pipan (Karst Research Institute ZRC SAZU), Dr. Nataša Pipenbaher (University of Maribor, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics), and Dr. Urša Vilhar (Slovenian Forestry Institute, Department for Forest Ecology).

This annual meeting also brought together one of the most relevant scientific communities for LifeWatch ERIC’s mission.

Upon the 30th anniversary of the taxonomic description of black proteus (Proteus anguinus parkelj), and 38 years since its discovery by Prof. Andrej Mihevc (1952–2024), Tular Cave Laboratory, in partnership with City of Kranj and Tourism and Culture Organisation Kranj, was organizing the 5th International conference “SOS Proteus” – PROTEUS AND ITS KARST GROUNDWATER HABITAT: RESEARCH METHODS AND DATA TO ASSESS ITS CONSERVATION STATUS

83 participants from 14 countries (Belgium, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Romania, Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, United Kingdom and USA) presented 33 studies on the latest trends, methods and findings about this endangered species at the 5th International SOS Proteus Conference over two days. The meeting of researchers and conservationists working on proteus is organized every two years by our Tular Cave Laboratory (member of LifeWatch Slovenia consortium), one of only two such laboratories in the world, which has been operating in Kranj since 1960.

The SOS Proteus is a biennial meeting where scientists, researchers and conservationists share their knowledge and encourage multidisciplinary international scientific cooperation in the field of proteus research and conservation, as well as the involvement of the public and local communities in the preservation of healthy drinking water resources. The conference was supported by the City of Kranj, the Kranj Tourism and Culture Board and the Kranj Water and Utility Company, and sponsored by the companies PILEUS, environmental solutions and CULMIUM, development of advanced technologies.