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.
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.
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.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ist der Bestand des Schwarzstorchs akut gefährdet. Nur noch wenige Areale kommen als Lebensraum für den Schwarzstorch im Nordosten von Deutschland infrage. Der Brutbestand sank in den letzten fünf Jahren alarmierend, von 16 Brutpaaren (BP) im Jahr 2009 auf 8 BP im Jahr 2013. Dies war Grund und Anlass, die Situation innerhalb der verbliebenen Schwarzstorch-Lebensräume in M-V mittels eines Forschungsprojektes intensiv zu analysieren. Spezielle Untersuchungen wurden vorgenommen, um praktikable Maßnahmen zur Stabilisierung und Verbesserung der Lebensraumsituation des Schwarzstorchs in M-V zu initiieren. In einem ersten Projektabschnitt wurde zunächst der aktuelle Zustand der Brut- und Nahrungsplätze im nähren Umkreis der Brutreviere untersucht. Dazu wurden vier spezielle Untersuchungsebenen festgelegt (Radius vom Nest bis 3 km). Neben einer umfassenden Analyse der Brut- und Nahrungsareale wurden ferner aktuelle anthropogene Störungen ausgewertet (am Brutplatz, z. B. Umsetzung gesetzlicher Nestschutz, Waldentwässerung, Windkraft). Für die jeweiligen Brutplätze sind dann zunächst die Hauptdefizite und Vorschläge für Schutzmaßnahmen erarbeitet worden. Es hat sich deutlich gezeigt, dass ein wesentliches Problem in den begrenzt verfügbaren Nahrungsquellen und deren Zustand liegt. Daher erfolgten im zweiten Projektabschnitt 2013 tiefgründige Analysen zum ökologischen Zustand der essentiellen Nahrungshabitate des Schwarzstorches. Sämtliche Defizite sind beispielgebend für ein Monitoringgebiet in Südwestmecklenburg (einem Kernbereich der Population) herausgearbeitet worden. Alle Ergebnisse des Projektes mündeten in konkrete Lösungs- und Maßnahmenvorschläge für die jeweiligen Brutplätze. Sie sind daher wichtige Instrumente für den praktischen Nestschutz und zugleich für die essentiellen Nahrungshabitate. Mit Hilfe der Ergebnisse dieses Forschungsprojektes können zielgerichtet die vorliegenden Maßnahmenvorschläge innerhalb der Schwarzstorchlebensräume bei entsprechender Bereitschaft und Motivation der Landnutzer umgesetzt werden. Entsprechende Fördergelder für die praktische Realisierung beschleunigen eine Umsetzung.
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.
The Indonesian Archipelago harbours the most diverse marine habitat on earth, but also the presently most endangered. Overfishing, deleterious fishing practices and land-based sources of pollution result in a dramatic decline of the reef-based ecosystems. Coral reefs thrive in clear oligotrophic water. Deteriorating water quality due to increased terrigenous inputs of sediments, nutrients and pollutants are believed to be among the major causes of the demise of Indonesian coral reefs over the last decades. The pelagic cycling of material, production and development of larvae in shallow coastal waters as well as the exports of material to the benthos and adjacent deep water ecosystem are yet poorly understood. In this program 12 Indonesian and 14 German universities and institutions are involved. From the German side it is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT) is responsible for the overall coordination. The main goal of the project is to strengthen the scientific basis for the protection of coral reefs in Southeast Sulawesi, harbouring some of the richest but also most endangered coral reefs in the world. In the Spermonde Archipelago off Makassar coral reef losses amounted to 20 Prozent over the last 12 years, eroding the income base for many thousands of families. Regulations related to the marine environment and its valuable resources have not been effectively implemented, and public awareness among the growing local population is still very limited. The aim of the AWI plankton group is to assess the significance of suspended matter for the reef organisms and to demonstrate that environmental changes are an important factor for phyto- and zooplankton communities and hence, for their consumers. To achieve this goal, quantitative studies of plankton occurrence and distribution are essential on various spatial and temporal scales. Further topics are the duration of the pelagic phase of economically important benthic organisms and the life cycles of dominant zooplankton species.
Graffiti is a major, increasing danger to architectural heritage materials, generating also a negative social connotation. Apart from aesthetics aspects, interactions of graffiti with substrate, as well as cleaning procedures, threaten historical substance. Monuments made of stone, bricks and mortars are menaced by this problem because very often, porous natural materials were employed. Two major kind of coatings are currently being used for protecting surfaces against graffiti: permanent and sacrificial. First kind is suited for materials with low porosity, as metals and concrete, but does not fit the requirements for porous ancient materials. Second one is sometimes used in monuments, but it is not an appropriated solution, since removal procedures can damage substrates somewhat. Hence, effective solutions for anti-graffiti systems is an urgent social and technical necessity. The main objective of this project is to develop novel conservation coatings suited for protecting materials of historical monuments, based on a similar structure of ancient protein coatings, avoiding the disadvantages of currently used antigraffiti coatings . This develop is based in a totally new formulation made by complexation of polyampholytes with polymeric amines modified by fluorocarbon residues. These will be a new generation of antigraffiti coatings, specifically suited for the protection of monuments, which after further development, could be commercialised and applied by SME's involved in this market, thus increasing the competitiveness of these companies. Main characteristics of these products are: - Low surface energy - Permanent under out-door conditions - Reversible to specially designed mild cleaning systems - Permeable to water-vapour - Impermeable to liquid water - Transparent The objective will be achieved by means of research activities, such as: definition of requirements and test procedures, design of new anti-graffiti system, characterisation of substrates, comparative assessment of currently used and the new protection and conservation strategies and evaluation of the technical and socio-economic impact of the new anti-graffiti on cultural heritage materials. Prime Contractor: Fundacion Labein; Derio; Spain.
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.
Objectives: Biodiversity has gained global attention particularly since the UNCED conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In April 2003, the forestry ministers of Europe and the European Community declared the aim to 'further maintain, conserve, restore and, as appropriate, enhance forest biological diversity'. In December 2003 the forest Focus regulation of the EU entered into force aiming inter alia at the development of forest biodiversity monitoring in Europe. In this context, the ForestBIOTA project was created in order to further develop monitoring methods for some aspects of forest biodiversity and to carry out correlative studies between some compositional, structural and functional indices of forest biodiversity. The project is based on more than 100 already existing intensive monitoring plots of the EU and ICP Forests monitoring programme with well established infrastructure and data base and is coordinated at the Institute for World Forestry. Until today, harmonized methods for the assessment of (i) stand structure (ii) deadwood (iii) epiphytic lichens (iv) ground vegetation and (v) forest classification have been developed. Results: A detailed assessment of forest biodiversity aspects needs to take into account the differing composition, structure and functioning of forest ecosystems across Europe. A classification into 28 forest types was therefore successfully tested. Results show significant relations of all the newly assessed parameters to the forest type of the respective plots. Forest stand structure characterised by diameter variation and deadwood occurrence differed between forest types. The same was true for ground vegetation characteristics and for the number of epiphytic lichen species per plot. A harmonized method for deadwood assessment proved to be feasible. The occurrence of deadwood was significantly related to the age of the stands. Forest management was an important factor affecting the amount of deadwood in European forests. In total, 276 epiphytic lichen species were recorded on sample trees of 83 test-plots. In many countries the assessments include valuable records of threatened and endangered species. Plots with a lower number of epiphytic lichen species had significantly higher sulphur and nitrogen deposition. There are clear indications that both sulphur and nitrogen deposition affect lichen species number and as well lichen species composition.
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