Doñana Long-Term Socio-ecological Research Platform - Spain

Protected in 1968, Doñana National Park (537 km2) is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, a Ramsar Site and a Natural World Heritage Site. It contains the largest wetland in Western Europe, a intricate matrix of marshlands (270 km2), phreatic lagoons, a 25 km-long dune ecosystem with its respective shoreline and representative Mediterranean terrestrial plant communities. Doñana is both a critical stopover site for Palearctic birds migrating to Africa and an important overwintering site for waterfowl.
Doñana LTSER platform comprises both the protected area and the surrounding territories (2736 km2) where a complex landscape matrix composed by rice fields, fisheries, irrigated crops, berry greenhouses, vineyards, olives and pine afforestations hold the tributary streams that pour their water to the fluvial marshland, the main figure of Doñana. Doñana surroundings hold over 180000 permanent inhabitants. Inside the protected land, the main 3 ecosystems sustain more than 1550 species of vascular plants, 900 species of arthropods, up to 400 breeding and migratory bird species, 38 mammal species, 72 species of fishes, 40 reptile and amphibian species.