PORBIOTA is a Portuguese distributed e-infrastructure to manage biodiversity data, which will be integrated in the European e-Science infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research (LIFEWATCH), an ESFRI Roadmap 2016 Landmark. Tailored according to the national needs (research, management, policy, governance, citizen science) but compliant with the requirements of LIFEWATCH and other international initiatives, PORBIOTA aims to promote a national agenda of biodiversity survey and research, to provide services to the scientific community, policy makers and managers, and to raise biodiversity awareness and public engagement with science through citizen science and other outreach programs. The infrastructure is led by a consortium that includes top national R&D Units, natural history museums, the Portuguese node of GBIF, and the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF), and includes some specific nodes/areas (ICOS-PT and LTER Portugal). Together, these partners hold the most comprehensive information on Portuguese biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. PORBIOTA will compile and integrate dispersed information (e.g., databases, literature, multimedia, natural history collections), thus facilitating data access and interoperability, and providing specialized biodiversity data analysis and modelling tools. Overall, PORBIOTA will help coordinate national biodiversity and ecosystem monitoring programs, providing direct support to policy implementation and evaluation, including international reporting. PORBIOTA has a strong component of ecosystem research and monitoring linked to LTER Portugal, which is a capacity building network focused on site/ecosystem-based long-term monitoring and is a member of the emerging ESFRI Roadmap 2016 project eLTER, and the European ‘LTER Europe’ and the global ‘ILTER’ networks. Its main goals are to collect, process and cumulatively gather high-quality data series that will allow to build knowledge, generate tools and approaches to respond to the current environmental and business challenges, create a legacy for future generations, participate in education, and promote science outreach activities. Another important component of PORBIOTA is ICOS-PT, which will be the Portuguese node of the ERIC ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System, also an ESFRI Roadmap 2016 Landmark), monitoring GHG in terrestrial ecosystems and sensitive urban areas. The core elements of ICOS-PT are highly instrumented field experimental stations, providing high quality and detailed ecosystem observations. Data from ICOS-PT are critical to the harmonization of the carbon and water cycle at global scale.