Pioneering Pond Biodiversity Monitoring in Europe 🐸🦇

Freshwater ponds support up to 70% of Europe’s freshwater species, sustain bats and other terrestrial wildlife, and provide crucial ecosystem services such as water purification and carbon storage. Yet, they are often overlooked in monitoring and conservation schemes due to their abundance, scattered distribution, and costly traditional surveys.

BiodivPond is a new Biodiversa+ pilot designed to fill this gap by combining environmental DNA (eDNA), passive acoustic monitoring, and citizen science. The pilot aims to:
🌍 Create a transnational network for standardised pond monitoring across Europe.
👩‍🔬 Involve local communities through citizen science, expanding coverage to hundreds of ponds.
💾 Deliver open-access datasets and interactive tools for researchers, policy-makers, and conservation practitioners.
✅ Provide high-resolution, actionable data to support EU restoration and biodiversity goals.

By testing scalable, multi-taxa, and innovative approaches, BiodivPond can demonstrate how small waterbodies contribute disproportionately to landscape-scale biodiversity. We can also prove how modern methods can make monitoring efficient, harmonised, and community-driven on a continental scale.