Traditional Indonesian homegardens harbour often high crop diversity, which appears to be an important basis for a sustainable food-first strategy. Crop pollination by insects is a key ecosystem service but threatened by agricultural intensification and land conversion. Gaps in knowledge of actual benefits from pollination services limit effective management planning. Using an integrative and agronomic framework for the assessment of functional pollination services, we will conduct ecological experiments and surveys in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. We propose to study pollination services and net revenues of the locally important crop species cucumber, carrot, and eggplant in traditional homegardens in a forest distance gradient, which is hypothesized to affect bee community structure and diversity. We will assess pollination services and interactions with environmental variables limiting fruit maturation, based on pollination experiments in a split-plot design of the following factors: drought, nutrient deficiency, weed pressure, and herbivory. The overall goal of this project is the development of 'biodiversity-friendly' land-use management, balancing human and ecological needs for local smallholders.
Das Auerhuhn ist eine stark gefährdete Brutvogelart der Schweiz. Veränderungen in der Zusammensetzung und Nutzung des Waldes haben dazu geführt, dass sich die Bestände dieses Raufusshuhns in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten halbiert haben. Deshalb sollen die Lebensraumansprüche des attraktiven Waldvogels vermehrt in der Planung und Umsetzung von Waldreservaten und der Bewirtschaftung von Wäldern der höheren Lagen berücksichtigt werden. Auf der kleinen räumlichen Ebene sind die Habitatsansprüche der Art durch Untersuchungen in West- und Mitteleuropa (Storch 1993, 2002, Schroth 1994) und Skandinavien relativ gut bekannt. Dagegen werden die Populationsprozesse auf der Ebene der Landschaft erst in Ansätzen verstanden (Sjöberg 1996, Kurki 2000). Entsprechend konnte man die Bestandsrückgänge in den meisten Gebieten Europas noch nicht stoppen, da einerseits genauere Kenntnisse über das Zusammenspiel und die relative Bedeutung der einzelnen Faktoren fehlen (Habitatqualität, Störungen, Prädatoren, Witterung-Klima, Huftierkonkurrenz), und andererseits noch nicht versucht wurde, die Bestandsentwicklung im grossen landschaftlichen Massstab als Metapopulationsdynamik zu verstehen. Es ist das primäre Ziel dieses Projekts, ein räumlich explizites Metapopulationsmodell des Auerhuhns für einen grossen Landschaftsausschnitt der Schweizer Alpen zu erarbeiten. Dabei sollen die erwähnten Einflussfaktoren möglichst umfassend berücksichtigt werden. Die Arbeit soll modellhaft zeigen, dass für das Verständnis von Populationsvorgängen von raumbeanspruchenden Wildtierarten eine Analyse und Bewertung von lokal bis überregional wirksamen Einflussfaktoren notwendig sind. Die Ergebnisse sollen zudem als konzeptionelle Grundlage für den Nationalen Aktionsplan Auerhuhn und für regionale Artenförderungsprojekte dienen. Folgende Fragen und Themen sind für das Projekt von zentraler Bedeutung: Wie gross ist das landschaftsökologische Lebensraumpotenzial für das Auerhuhn in den Alpen, wie ist es räumlich verteilt? Wie verteilen sich die lokalen Auerhuhnpopulationen in diesen Potenzialgebieten? Wie gross sind die Bestände? Welche Faktoren beeinflussen den Status von Lokal- und Regionalpopulationen? Welche Populationen haben abgenommen oder sind verschwunden, welche sind stabil (Source-Sink-Mechanismen)? Zwischen welchen räumlich getrennten Populationen besteht ein Austausch? Welche Landschaftselemente wirken als Barrieren? Entwickeln einer nicht-invasiven Methode für die genetische Differenzierung von Populationen, sowie für Bestandsschätzungen und Monitoring.
Increasing population pressure is leading to unsustainable land use in North Vietnamese highlands and destruction of natural habitats. The resulting loss of biodiversity includes plant genetic resources - both wild (= non-cultivated) species and cultivated landraces - adapted to local conditions, and local knowledge concerning the plants. A particularly important group among endangered plants are the legumes (1) because Southeast Asia is a major centre of genetic diversity for this family, and (2) because the potential contribution of legumes to sustainable land use is, due to their multifunctionality (e.g., soil improvement, human and livestock nutrition), especially high. The project aims to contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources of legumes with an integrated approach wherein a series of components are combined: (1) A participatory, indigenous knowledge survey complemented by information from the literature; (2) germplasm collection missions (for ex situ conservation) complemented by field evaluation and seed increase; (3) genetic diversity analysis of selected material by molecular markers; and (4) GIS based analysis of generated data to identify areas of particular genetic diversity as a basis for land area planning and in situ preservation recommendations. Project results are expected to be also applicable to similar highlands in Southeast Asia.
The vegetation of East and South African savannahs has been shaped by the complex interaction of geo-biophysical processes and human impact. For both regions a controversial discussion is pertinent, as to whether massive degradation threatens the sustainability of livelihoods in these regions. Rangeland vegetation is mainly affected by environmental conditions (soil and climate) and by livestock management. Extent and interaction of these drivers are not well understood but have profound impacts on the resilience and vulnerability of these systems to be shifted toward unfavourable degraded or bush encroached states. The project aims to analyse and model rangeland vegetation in response to range management including livestock, soil quality and climatic conditions and to assess the impacts of changes in these conditions on the resilience and vulnerability of rangeland systems. Field measurements, remote sensing of vegetation patterns and dynamics and simulation modelling will be used to understand the dynamics of rangeland vegetation. We will use the 'fast' or 'state' variables potential of pastures to produce palatable biomass, the variability of this production, and the system's potential to recover from disturbance impact as indicators of resilience. 'slow' variables that control (or drive) the 'fast' variables such as management, climate and soil variables are recorded in cooperation with other subprojects as with A1 for soil variables. Results of the project will show which management activities are most favourable for individual regions to sustain plant production in the long term.
Background Global environmental change is threatening ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide. Important components of global change are, among others, land-use changes, climate change and biological invasions. While the effects of each aspect alone have been studied intensively, the interactions between two or more aspects are much more difficult to assess. However, it is obvious that there are and will be interactions, which will very likely have synergistic effects. An obvious interaction is between climate change and biotic exchange. The chance that this interaction will speed up invasion processes and will threaten biodiversity and ecosystem functioning even more is very high. Climate in Central Europe is projected to become on average warmer, but also more extreme, i.e. there will be a higher occurrence of floods and droughts. Effects of these changes on plants have been documented already. Especially high-altitude ecosystems, which are highly specialized and adapted to the current conditions, seem highly vulnerable to these changes in climate. Whether these changes will favour alien species more than native species, however, has only been discussed in the literature, but experimental tests are lacking so far. Specific Aims The proposed study aims to assess whether alien species can profit more from the projected climate change than native species, and whether this will enable them to successfully invade native plant communities, especially pristine alpine meadows. In addition the project investigates the effects of extreme weather events on the individual plant species and on the invasion process in general. Methods and Experimental Design We will use two approaches to test our hypotheses. We will compare the reaction of native and alien species in a controlled garden experiment under ambient and changed climatic conditions (increased mean temperature and extreme weather events, i.e. drought and flooding). We will assess the invasiveness under these conditions as well as the invasibility of native meadow communities. In a transplant experiment in the field along altitudinal gradients we will test the reaction of in-situ native communities and alien species to increased temperature and drought and quantify the invasion success under these changed conditions. Expected Value of the Proposed Project We expect the proposed project to provide first insights into the proposed synergistic effects of climate change and plant invasions and especially on the effects of extreme weather events on the invasibility of native meadow communities, in particular alpine communities. The results will help to assess the potential combined threats of climate change and biotic invasions to native plant communities and provide a basis for the development of policies to control plant invasions, especially to protect fragile mountain ecosystems.
The QUEST project builds capacity through the development of new REDD+ like methodologies for Joint Implementation forest. This includes the development of the first methodology for Improved Forest Management based on 'Forest Management' under Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol. These methodologies may be applied by other JI project developers. The QUEST project will, therefore, strenghten project activities in Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector. QUEST also involves the application on four demonstrator forestry projects in Russia and Romania allowing for the investigation of the projects impact with respect to energy use, policy, verification and methodological issues and social, environmental and hydrological concerns with Agriculture Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) in a 'hands on', 'learning by doing' approach. It is the projects intention to contribute to the conservation of the Dvinsky, one of intact forest as well as to generate emission reductions. A successful implementation of the Dvinsky Climate Action Project might serve as a lighthouse example for the JIs potential to conserve Russias endangered HCV forests. The project activity will improve existing forest practices aiming at an increment of biomass volume in forests under concession. Carbon finance will enable logging firms to switch from the traditional clear cutting to a group felling system, thereby reducing the negative impact of forest management on the ecological system. Concluding, JIFor explores the LULUCF framework, develops baseline and monitoring methodologies, facilitates forest climate projects based on 'Forest Management', Art. 3.4. This provides important lessons learnt for a future REDD+ policy scheme under a follow up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. GFA ENVEST contributes to: Assessment of the policy context of LULUCF and JI in Europe including permanence, issuance of AAUs for LULUCF projects, issuance of RMUs for LULUCF projects (considering the design of the IET) and evaluation of annual- vs- five year accounting on a national level; Baseline and monitoring methodologies for JI; development of methodologies for Improved Forest Management and Forest Conservation; JI Project Design Document development - Dvinsky Forest Conservation in Russia; JI Project Design Document development - Svetloserskles Improved Forest Management in Russia; Development of tools, Transferability, Scalability, and Identification of Future Projects and Research Needs; Assessment of carbon rights ownership for forestry projects in Russia.
A crucial vulnerability faced by the international community in the near future will be access to fresh water in sufficient quantity and of adequate quality to meet increasing and more diverse needs of a growing world population. Mountains have always held a privileged relationship with water, as the sources of the world's greatest rivers and as the home of the great reserves of water held in glaciers.Major global forces nevertheless threaten these mountain reservoirs. Climate change is predicted to modify quantities of water available as well as shift its seasonality. It is likely that even greater challenges will come from the dynamics of human behavior. Population growth is perhaps the most obvious threat to sufficient water supply but it goes hand in hand with changing norms and evolving activities, leading to increasing competition among use for agriculture, industry, leisure, and domestic activities. Influencing production and distribution are societal rules and norms such as pricing schemes, regulations, and property rights that determine who gets how much water and when. Appropriate solutions to oversee water use will contribute to efficient and equitable distribution. Poor management can aggravate shortages, increase social and economic disparities, and is a potential source of deadly international conflict.Mountain regions are generally considered to be the 'water towers of the world' not only because they receive important quantities of precipitation, but also because this water is then stored there in the form of snow and ice. Populations living in mountains have a very long history of overseeing this precious resource and can be the source of important knowledge about solving the dilemmas of managing a public good that knows no boundaries and can therefore be diverted and traded. Resources governed by natural processes in this way become inextricably linked with political and economic forces. (...)
A key problem in developing policies to stop biodiversity loss is translating threats into a tangible factor for decisionmaking. RUBICODE will contribute to solving this by examining what biodiversity does for us. Biological units that provide specific services to society will be identified and their services valued, so that they can be compared with more traditional economic valuations. This will give decision-makers a more rational base and will help the understanding of the need for adequate conservation policies, which are essential to halting biodiversity loss. Nature is fundamentally dynamic, as are the pressures of human activities on biodiversity, yet most conservation strategies still involve a static view of nature. For the realisation of future conservation objectives it is critical that new strategies and policies incorporate these dynamics. RUBICODE will address this by developing integrated dynamic concepts for conservation strategies and examples of their application at multiple scales. RUBICODE will prioritise these strategies for the most significant European terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems by reviewing the impacts of global change on those components of biodiversity essential for maintaining ecosystem services. Important and threatened services will be identified and methods for relating biodiversity in dynamic ecosystems to the provision of these services will be compared and tested. Frameworks for linking biodiversity traits to service provision and for improving and testing indicators will be developed and used to explore management strategies and inform priorities for biodiversity conservation policy. RUBICODE will also identify current gaps in knowledge and propose a roadmap for future research. RUBICODE will involve a large number of external experts, and stakeholders from policy and practice communities, to ensure the relevance of the new concepts, their integration into conservation and to help with their dissemination. Prime Contractor: The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Natural populations are increasingly exposed to extreme environmental changes as a result of human activities. These changes threaten the existence of populations and cause strong natural selection at short time-scales. In the long term, the persistence of populations is determined by their capacity to respond to this selection via genetic adaptation. It is therefore crucial to understand how evolutionary processes influence the ability of populations to cope with the ongoing environmental changes. This project focuses on studying two major factors that influence the ability of populations to adapt to rapid environmental change: gene flow (movement of genes resulting from dispersal of individuals) and maternal effects (the effects of a mother's traits that, in addition to offspring's own genes, affect offspring performance), both of which have the potential to either impede or speed up adaptation. On this vein, the proposed research focuses in particular on understanding how gene flow and maternal effects affect the ability of populations to adapt to environmental changes. The main part of the research will be conducted on Swedish populations of the moor frog (Rana arvalis) that inhabit areas affected to different extents by human-induced acidification. The main questions to be targeted are i) to what extent is the level of local adaptation to acidification explained by variation in the extent of gene flow or variation in the strength of selection among populations, ii) how wide-spread are maternal effects as adaptations and iii) how is maternally determined local adaptation maintained in the face of gene flow? Because experimental manipulations are not possible in these natural populations, related questions will in parallel be addressed in a pilot study on laboratory populations of Daphnia. Here the main questions to be targeted are i) under which conditions does gene flow have positive vs. negative effects on adaptation to novel environments and ii) how do maternal effects influence the ability to respond genetically to rapid environmental changes? Different complementary approaches will be used in the different subprojects to allow rigorous inferences and predictions. The main methods to be used include large-scale geographic sampling (for environmental, molecular genetic, and phenotypic variation) and mark-recapture studies in nature, molecular and quantitative genetic analyses in the laboratory, and fitness assays in semi-natural and laboratory conditions. The results from this research will illustrate to what extent gene flow and maternal effects influence variation in the phenotypes that we see in nature, and how they can affect the ability of organisms to adapt to novel environments. Ultimately this research aims at understanding the short-term ecological and evolutionary processes that create, maintain and change biological diversity, and will be of broad significance for evolutionary biology as well as conservation biology.
Invasive alien species are recognized as one of the leading threats to biodiversity. They also impose enormous costs on agriculture, forestry and human health. In Europe and elsewhere, most countries are presently developing national and international strategies to assess the full scope of the danger represented by invasive non-indigenous species, and to take the necessary measures to prevent and manage the threat effectively. The initial step in a national programme against non-indigenous species must be a survey of the species already established in the country, as well as those species which are likely to invade the country in the near future, together with their perceived, actual and potential economic and environmental impact. In this project, we propose to carry out an inventory of non-indigenous insects in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. The general objective of the project is to provide these three countries wit information on invasive alien insects in the Balkans and to develop local expertise in the field of invasive alien species management. This will allow the development of national strategies against alien insects, and non-indigenous organisms in general. Firstly, a database on non-indigenous insects established in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania will be set up. Then, we will provide informative fact sheets for the 30-40 main invasive, or potentially invasive, insects in the region. Finally, we will analyse the data to extract information on pathways, species or ecosystems traits that make them prone to invasion, and we will incorporate these analyses into similar studies carried out as part of on-going European projects on risk and impact assessment. In addition, as a case study, we are assessing the impact of the horse-chestnut leaf miner, Cameraria ohridella, an invasive moth which first appeared in the Balkans in the 1980s before spreading to the whole of Europe, and which is suspected to threaten the few remaining endemic stands of horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) in the Balkans.
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