Im Teilprojekt 1 von P1 sollen Möglichkeiten zur integriert-biologischen Kontrolle tierischer Schädlinge (Lepidopterenarten, Weiße Fliegen, Blattläuse, Thripse) in Tomatenkulturen Thailands untersucht werden. Im Vordergrund steht die Nutzung geschützter Anbaubedingungen (Netzhäuser mit Foliendächern), um einerseits die Dispersionsdynamik und Orientierung (Wirtswahl) einzelner Schädlingsarten zu manipulieren und um andererseits wie in Mitteleuropa einen effektiveren Einsatz von Nutzorganismen (Makro- und Mikroorganismen) zu ermöglichen. Zudem ist die Eignung selektiver Pflanzenschutzmittel (e.g. Neem, Bt) für das System zu überprüfen. Im Vordergrund steht die Optimierung, Systemadaptierung und Integration bewährter und vielversprechender Ansätze. Zur Entwicklung und Bewertung des Systemansatzes bei Verknüpfung mit anderen Projekten der Forschergruppe ist neben spezifischen Teiluntersuchungen ein Zentralversuch geplant, der die Ergebnisse kontinuierlich 'lernend' zusammenführt. Im 2. Teilprojekt sollen grundlagenorientierte Studien zur Populationsdynamik von Tripsen durchgeführt und neue Verfahren der biologischen Kontrolle mittels Parasitoiden gegenüber oberirdischen sowie räuberischen Bodenmilben und entomopathogenen Nematoden und Pilzen gegen Bodenstadien entwickelt und erprobt werden. In enger Kooperation mit P5 soll das Potential biologischer Maßnahmen für eine Reduktion des Vektorpotentials der Thripse untersucht werden. Als Kooperationspartner wird Dr. Banpot Napompeth vom National Biological Contral Research Center für die Selektion, Zucht und Effizienzprüfung von Parasitoiden und Prädatoren gegenüber Weißen Fliegen, Blattläusen und Thripsen verantwortlich zeichnen.
Future global climate change resulting from anthropogenic activity is now inevitable. The consequences for the stratosphere are poorly understood. A better understanding of the interactions between atmospheric chemistry and climate change is urgently required. This is a prerequisite for impact assessment and the definition of mitigation strategies. The DFG Research Unit Stratospheric Change and its Role for Climate Prediction (SHARP) addresses this issue and aims to improve our understanding and ability to predict global climate change and its interplay with the stratosphere. SHARP follows the recommendations for research, formulated by the Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate (SPARC) Programme of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). SHARP will focus on the quantitative detection, attribution and prediction of changes in stratospheric dynamics and composition linked to climate change and their implications for the troposphere. The evolution of the stratosphere over the next decades in response to climate change is of crucial significance for the atmosphere as a whole. A unique window of opportunity exists to exploit the investment in the development of remote sensing and atmospheric modelling for scientific objectives of societal relevance, which provide the evidence base needed by international policymakers. To address these issues SHARP brings together excellent national expertise in state-of-the-art climate models and observations, in particular those derived from satellite instruments. SHARP will provide an important contribution by German scientists to the upcoming international WMO/UNEP and IPCC assessments.
The Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative, or NEESPI, is a currently active, yet strategically evolving program of internationally-supported Earth systems science research, which has as its foci issues in northern Eurasia that are relevant to regional and Global scientific and decision-making communities (see NEESPI Mission Statement). This part of the globe is undergoing significant changes - particularly those changes associated with a rapidly warming climate in this region and with important changes in governmental structures since the early 1990s and their associated influences on land use and the environment across this broad expanse. How this carbon-rich, cold region component of the Earth system functions as a regional entity and interacts with and feeds back to the greater Global system is to a large extent unknown. Thus, the capability to predict future changes that may be expected to occur within this region and the consequences of those changes with any acceptable accuracy is currently uncertain. One of the reasons for this lack of regional Earth system understanding is the relative paucity of well-coordinated, multidisciplinary and integrating studies of the critical physical and biological systems. By establishing a large-scale, multidisciplinary program of funded research, NEESPI is aimed at developing an enhanced understanding of the interactions between the ecosystem, atmosphere, and human dynamics in northern Eurasia. Specifically, the NEESPI strives to understand how the land ecosystems and continental water dynamics in northern Eurasia interact with and alter the climatic system, biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere of the Earth. The contemporaneous changes in climate and land use are impacting the biological, chemical, and physical functions of the northern Eurasia, but little data and fewer models are available that can be used to understand the current status of this expansive regional system, much less the influence of the northern Eurasia region on the Global climate. NEESPI seeks to secure the necessary financial and related institutional support from an international cadre of sponsors for developing a viable understanding of the functioning of northern Eurasia and the impacts of extant changes on the regional and Earth systems. Many types of ground and integrative (e.g., satellite; GIS) data will be needed and many models must be applied, adapted or developed for properly understanding the functioning of this cold and diverse regional system. Mechanisms for obtaining the requisite data sets and models and sharing them among the participating scientists are essential and require international and active governmental participation. (abridged text)
The North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment (NAWDEX) aims to provide the foundation for future improvements in the prediction of high impact weather events over Europe. The concept for the field experiment emerged from the WMO THORPEX program and contributes to the World Weather Research Program WWRP in general and to the High Impact Weather (HIWeather) project in particular. An international consortium from the US, UK, France, Switzerland and Germany has applied for funding of a multi-aircraft campaign supported by enhanced surface observations, over the North Atlantic and European region. The importance of accurate weather predictions to society is increasing due to increasing vulnerability to high impact weather events, and increasing economic impacts of weather, for example in renewable energy. At the same time numerical weather prediction has undergone a revolution in recent years, with the widespread use of ensemble predictions that attempt to represent forecast uncertainty. This represents a new scientific challenge because error growth and uncertainty are largest in regions influenced by latent heat release or other diabatic processes. These regions are characterized by small-scale structures that are poorly represented by the operational observing system, but are accessible to modern airborne remote-sensing instruments. HALO will play a central role in NAWDEX due to the unique capabilities provided by its long range and advanced instrumentation. With coordinated flights over a period of days, it will be possible to sample the moist inflow of subtropical air into a cyclone, the ascent and outflow of the warm conveyor belt, and the dynamic and thermodynamic properties of the downstream ridge. NAWDEX will use the proven instrument payload from the NARVAL campaign which combines water vapor lidar and cloud radar, supplemented by dropsondes, to allow these regions to be measured with unprecedented detail and precision. HALO operations will be supported by the DLR Falcon aircraft that will be instrumented with wind lidar systems, providing synergetic measurements of dynamical structures. These measurements will allow the first closely targeted evaluation of the quality of the operational observing and analysis systems in these crucial regions for forecast error growth. They will provide detailed knowledge of the physical processes acting in these regions and especially of the mechanisms responsible for rapid error growth in mid-latitude weather systems. This will provide the foundation for a better representation of uncertainty in numerical weather predictions systems, and better (probabilistic) forecasts.
Das geplante Vorhaben ist die vierte Phase eines längerfristig ausgerichteten, von der DFG geförderten Forschungskonzeptes zur Untersuchung der Änderungsdynamik von Einstellungen und Verhalten in der Verbraucherpopulation. Untersuchungsgegenstand ist die Nachfrage nach Ökoprodukten, da dieser Teilmarkt in einem besonderen Maße durch eine Veränderung der Verbrauchereinstellung geprägt ist. In der für 1999 geplanten Untersuchung soll eine weitere Verbraucherbefragung unter Verwendung des im wesentlichen gleichen Testinstrumentarium erfolgen. Damit stünde ein in Deutschland einmaliges Datenmaterial für vier Erhebungszeitpunkte (1984, 1989, 1994, 1999) zur Verfügung, auf dessen Grundlage nicht nur die Methodik der kombinierten Längs- und Querschnittsanalyse weiter verbessert, sondern auch empirisch fundierte Prognosen vorgenommen werden sollen.