Within the OD Natural Environment, Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecology (ATECO) is the logical merger of the three sections that were actively doing research on biology and biodiversity in the former structure of RBINS: Marine Ecology and Management (MARECO), Terrestrial Biodiversity Monitoring and Assessment (BIOMON) and Freshwater Biology (FB). The merger of these three sections now combines expertise on the biodiversity of the three realms on Earth: marine, terrestrial and freshwater.

ATECO is developing the following joint research areas:

• Developing tools to compare patterns and processes in comparative biodiversity analyses across marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems.
• Introducing molecular techniques in the research projects on the colonisation of the offshore windmill parks by invertebrates. A pilot project on the origin of Patella-populations on the Belgian windmills is running.
• Applying joint expertise in developing monitoring programs for deep sea mining.
• Extending the large-scale monitoring of invertebrate biodiversity in tropical forest canopies to riparian aquatic biodiversity.

ATECO works to become a leading research group in ecosystem analyses across Realms, addressing both fundamental and applied issues in biodiversity studies.