LifeWatch is a developing e-Infrastructure for research on biodiversity and ecosystems, including their protection, management and sustainable use. The infrastructure includes facilities for data integration and interoperability; capabilities to create workflows of analytical and modelling tools; and a Service Centre providing special services for scientific and policy users, including training and research opportunities for young scientists. Its Grid-enabled design supports access to, and the integration of, external resources such as data from associated infrastructures and distributed computational capacity from high performance clusters. User groups may create their own e-laboratories or e-services within the common architecture of the infrastructure. LifeWatch enables distributed large scale and collaborative research on complex and multidisciplinary problems.