AtlantECO

Mission

The EU-funded AtlantECO project aims to develop and apply a novel, unifying framework that provides knowledge-based resources for a better understanding and management of the Atlantic Ocean and its ecosystem services. AtlantECO will engage with citizens and actors from the industry and policy sectors in order to stimulate responsible behaviour and Blue Growth. The project focuses on three pillars of research: microbiomes, plastic and the plastisphere, and seascape connectivity. In pursuit of this goal, AtlantECO is bringing together experts and pioneers from Europe, South America and South Africa with the relevant resources, knowledge and experience.

Expected Impact

Shape future international policies that can shape the Blue-Economy and have a worlwide positive impact in sustainability, social and economic levels, as well as consider different but complementary types of Blue data that will support the Blue Economy experts on their work. All continents are connected by the oceans, thus, it requires a global approach.

Collaboration with Blue-Cloud

• Connecting Data to key European Data Management service providers via Blue-Cloud: AtlantECO and Blue-Cloud 2026 have been cooperating since the outset of both projects. Building on the data connections established under the first Blue-Cloud project, the collaboration has deepened to encompass data sharing, model integration, and co-development of analytical tools. AtlantECO makes available to Blue-Cloud 2026 abundance, biomass and omics datasets through the Ecosystem Workbench, while model outputs (such as contributions to the AtlantECO-MAPS deliverable) benefit from Blue-Cloud 2026 resources and workflows. AtlantECO continues to significantly extend the data available to Blue-Cloud through its systematic and harmonised data management processes, with newly collected datasets populated into infrastructures such as EurOBIS and ELIXIR-ENA, thereby expanding the Blue-Cloud DD&AS offer.
• Co-development of tools and pipelines: A key example of mutual scientific fertilisation is the CEPHALOPOD pipeline, prototyped by AtlantECO members during Blue-Cloud's first hackathon 'Decode the Ocean' in 2022, where the AtlantECO team ranked among the top five. The pipeline has since been further developed within Blue-Cloud 2026, with ongoing cross-pollination with AtlantECO's EMOcean Apps. AtlantECO partners were also instrumental in the co-development of a data visualisation application for interactively viewing species distribution model outputs, which served as the blueprint for BluEOView, recently deployed in Blue-Cloud 2026 to showcase CEPHALOPOD results. These interactions have fostered close scientific collaborations with a range of AtlantECO partners - including data generators (Universidade Federal de São Carlos, EMBL-EBI, Sorbonne University), theoretical ecologists (University of Parma), species distribution modellers (University of Rome, Sorbonne University) and other institutions (Utrecht University) - leading to joint MSc theses, scientific outputs and collaborative publications.
• Contribution to Blue-Cloud Roadmap: The Atlantic marine ecosystems assessed by AltantECO have brought important inputs for the Blue-Cloud Roadmap, a document which considers the technical developments, market analysis and opportunities for exploitation of Blue-Cloud, while providing options that ensure sustainability of Blue-Cloud services and integration into the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in the long term. Blue-Cloud roadmap also benefited from the strategy AtlantECO is delivering on capacity building and transfer of knowledge for a seamless engagement between science, industry, policy, and society. It has been  a relevant addition for Blue-Cloud Roadmap as  this project has partners not only from Europe but also from America and Africa, with inputs from experts from other continents.
• Joint dissemination/communication activities: The collaboration has played an important role in capacity building and knowledge exchange. The Blue-Cloud partner, ETH, has contributed lectures and practical training on plankton biogeography and species distribution modelling using the CEPHALOPOD pipeline within the joint AtlantECO–BiOcean5D–MissionAtlantic Synergy Summer Schools (2024 and 2025). An online species distribution modelling workshop, organised by the Blue-Cloud partners ETH and NOC and funded by sister project BiOcean5D, brought together scientists from AtlantECO, Blue-Cloud 2026 and BiOcean5D to discuss the state of the art in marine species distributions and model validation approaches, with outcomes subsequently implemented in CEPHALOPOD. Blue-Cloud and AtlantECO have also continued to support the promotion of events and workshops to share project results and reach a broader community. 

In addition, AtlantECO has invited the Blue-Cloud project coordinator, Sara Pittonet to join the AtlantECO podcast series dedicating the episode on 23rd November to Blue-Cloud. 
 

---

The AtlantECO podcast series

The EU-funded AtlantECO project (atlanteco.eu) aims to develop and apply a novel, unifying framework that provides knowledge-based resources for a better understanding and management of the Atlantic Ocean and its ecosystem services. The AtlantECO podcast is a science popularisation show, revolving around conversations between the host and a guest to discuss aspects of AtlantECO, a marine science project which focuses on the Atlantic Ocean.

 The 23rd of November episode of the AtlantECO podcast series was dedicated to Blue-Cloud.

 

Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Trust-IT and coordinator of the Blue-Cloud project, told about the context, objectives and achievements of the project and providing some examples of applications developed exploiting the Blue-Cloud Open Science Platform. Such as  the Zoo & Phytoplankton Essential Ocean Variable products Virtual Lab that provides a description of the current state of plankton communities and that was used by an international team of scientists to develop a "Wildlife Tracker for Oceans" tool, dedicated to the real-time assessment of Marine Protected Areas - MPAs. Another example that was mentioned in the podcast is the pilot application that was awarded first prize at the Blue-Cloud Hackathon in February 2022, Sea Clearly, a tool based on an open-access modelling framework to track particles to hack the origin of microplastics that reach aquaculture cages using the the location of the aquaculture farms provided by the Blue-Cloud Aquaculture monitor and provide recommendations for where to place aquaculture cages to decrease the probability of pollutants reaching them.

---

Download the synergy factsheet