Dr Christos Arvanitidis, IMBBC, HCMR. Research Director, head of the IMBBC marine biodiversity laboratory and CEO of LIFEWatch ERIC. Involved in more than 50 research and education projects, coordinated 7. Research ID: >6 M€. More than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Guest editor in Marine Ecology Progress Series, Journal of Sea Research, member of the editorial board of Transitional Waters Bulletin, Associate Editor of Frontiers in Marine Science and Biodiversity Data Journal; reviewer in more than 45 international peer-reviewed journals. Member of: Board of MARS (European Network of Marine Research Institutes and Stations), Society for the Marine European Biodiversity Data (SMEBD), editorial board of the Word Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), scientific advisory council of the International Polychaete Association (IPA), ICES task group 6 working on the seafloor integrity (EU MSDF), expert pool for the UN World Ocean Assessment and member of the Scientific Council of the Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie marine et continentale (IMBE), Marseille. Coordinator of the LifeWatchGreece Research Infrastructure. Arvanitidis’ research focuses on marine biodiversity, functional diversity, biodiversity informatics and coastal ecosystems. He works on the comparisons of marine biodiversity information patterns deriving from various biological organization levels and scales of observation, trying to develop new approaches to explore their interrelationships.