Fusarium species of the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex cause serious diseases on different crops such as rice, wheat and maize. An important group of plant pathogens is the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex (GFC) of closely related Fusarium species which are associated with specific hosts; F. verticillioides and F. proliferatum are particularly associated with maize where they can cause serious ear-, root-, and stalk rot diseases. Two other closely related species of the GFC, F. mangiferae and F. fujikuroi, which share about 90Prozent sequence identity with F. verticillioides, are pathogens on mango and rice, respectively. All of these species produce a broad spectrum of secondary metabolites such as phytohormones (gibberellins, auxins, and cytokinins), and harmful mycotoxins, such as fumonisin, fusarin C, or fusaric acid in large quantities. However, the spectrum of those mycotoxins might differ between closely related species suggesting that secondary metabolites might be determinants for host specificity. In this project, we will study the potential impact of secondary metabolites (i.e. phytohormones and certain mycotoxins) and some other species-specific factors (e.g. species-specific transcription factors) on host specificity. The recently sequenced genomes of F. mangiferae and F. fujikuroi by our groups and the planned sequencing of F. proliferatum will help to identify such determinants by genetic manipulation of the appropriate metabolic pathway(s).
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.
Changes in agroecosystem management (e.g. landscape diversity, management intensity) affect the natural control of pests. The effects of agricultural change on this ecosystem service, however, are not universal and the mechanisms affecting it remain to be understood. As biological control is effectively the product of networks of interactions between pests and their natural enemies, food web analysis provides a versatile tool to address this gap of knowledge. The proposed project will utilize a molecular food web approach and examine, for the first time, how changes in plant fertilisation and landscape complexity affect quantitative aphid-parasitoid-hyperparasitoid food webs on a species-specific level to unravel how changes in food web interactions affect parasitoid aphid control. Based on the fieldderived data, cage experiments will be conducted to assess how parasitoid diversity and identity affect parasitoid interactions and pest control, complementing the field results. The work proposed here will take research on parasitoid aphid control one step further, as it will provide a clearer understanding of how plant fertilization affects whole aphid-parasitoid food webs in both simple and complex landscapes, allowing for further improvements in natural pest control.
Community forestry has not met the great public expectations on a significant contribution to sustainable forestry yet. Recent research in the management and policy of community forestry describes a complex process of multi level social choice which determines the outcomes. Our hypothesis is that the key factors determining the outcomes of community forestry are the interests and power of the external stake holders. This hypothesis will be tested in a comparative quantitative and qualitative analysis. In seven countries comprising developed and developing countries 84 cases will be used for comparison. The comparative analysis will be carried out by one PhD student financed by the project. He will do the field work in close cooperation with PhD students who are already conducting their PhD analysis the different countries. The comparative analysis is aimed to explore key drivers of community forestry which are not yet identified in literature.
This project aims at analysing the influence of competing national and international bureaucracies on the fragmentation of the international forest regime complex (IFRC). Its objectives are: - describing the political dimension of fragmentation of the IFRC programme- explaining the political dimension of fragmentation based on the model of bureaucratic politics- analysing the steering consequences resulting from fragmentation - trans-disciplinary design of solutions for coping with political aspects of fragmentationBuilding on the bureaucratic politics approach these objectives will be pursued by testing the linking hypothesis: Interest and influence of the bureaucracies cause a fragmented programme of the IFRC. This programme supports the goal of profitable timber production but keeps the decision about biodiversity and CO2 sequestration open hindering the effective steering by the IFRC. The project develops an analytical framework consisting of the following independent variables: competing national and competing international bureaucracies, elected politicians, national and international non-state actors and media discourses. The fragmentation of the political programme of the IFRC is the overall dependent variable. This project will analyse the influence of bureaucracies and their coalitions on fragmentation at the international level as well as in national case studies in Sweden, Poland and Germany. The other independent variables will be covered by sub-projects 2, 3 and 4. The findings will be linked to the other political and to the economic and technic-ecological sub projects in order to contribute to the multi-disciplinary description and explanation of fragmentation and its steering consequences.
Durum wheat is mainly grown as a summer crop. An introduction of a winter form failed until now due to the difficulty to combine winter hardiness with required process quality. Winter hardiness is a complex trait, but in most regions the frost tolerance is decisive. Thereby a major QTL, which was found in T. monococcum, T.aestivum, H. vulgare and S.cereale on chromosome 5, seems especially important. With genotyping by sequencing it is now possible to make association mapping based on very high dense marker maps, which delivers new possibilities to detect main and epistatic effects. Furthermore, new sequencing techniques allow candidate gene based association mapping. The main aim of the project is to unravel the genetic architecture of frost tolerance and quality traits in durum. Thereby, the objectives are to (1) determine the genetic variance, heritability and correlations among frost tolerance and quality traits, (2) examine linkage disequilibrium and population structure, (3) investigate sequence polymorphism at candidate genes for frost tolerance, and (4) perform candidate gene based and genome wide association mapping.
Neben Studien zur Diversität von Gefäßpflanzen in ausgewählten Untersuchungsflächen wurde der Erforschung der endemischen Palmenart Normanbya normanbyi besondere Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Studien zur Blüten- und Fruchtökologie. Dabei wurde u.a. eine bisher unbeschriebene Gattung der Gallmücken entdeckt. Der interdisziplinäre Forschungsansatz soll wesentliche Erkenntnisse über Tier-Pflanze-Interaktionen in Regenwäldern liefern. Hauptaugenmerk liegt auf der Erfassung der Blüten- und Fruchtphänologie eines tropischen Tieflandregenwaldes in Nordostqueensland. Das Projekt beinhaltet die Erfassung der Phänologie aller Unterwuchsarten, Lianen und Baumarten in einer 1 ha großen Untersuchungsfläche. Weiterführend wird die Blühphänologie einer ausgewählten Palmenart Normanbay normanbyi erfasst und mit Hilfe molekulargenetischer Methoden im Zusammenhang mit der Verwandtschaftsstruktur ausgewählter Populationen betrachtet. Die Feldarbeiten für das 2003 begonnene Projekt wurden im Juli 2005 abgeschlossen.
Especially during the last decades, the natural forests of Ethiopia have been heavily disturbed by human activities. Some forests have been totally cleared and converted into fields for agricultural use, other suffered from different influences, such as heavy grazing and selective logging. The ongoing research in the Shashemane-Munessa-study area (Gu 406/8-1,2) showed clearly that, in spite of interdiction and control, forests continue to be cleared and degraded. However, it is not yet sufficiently known, how and why these processes are still going on. Growing population pressure and economic constraints for the people living in and around the forests contribute to the actual situation but allow no final answers to the complex situation. Concerning a sustainable management of the forests there is to no solid basis for recommendations from the socioeconomic and socio-cultural view. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the traditional needs and forms of forest use, including all forest products, is necessary. The objective of this project is, to achieve this basis by carrying out intensive field observations, the consultation of aerial photographs, satellite imagery and above all semi-structured interviews with the population in the study area in order to contribute to the recommendations for a sustainable use of the Munessa Shasemane forests.
Comprehension of belowground competition between plant species is a central part in understanding the complex interactions in intercropped agricultural systems, between crops and weeds as well as in natural ecosystems. So far, no simple and rapid method for species discrimination of roots in the soil exists. We will be developing a method for root discrimination of various species based on Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR)-Attenuated Total Reflexion (ATR) Spectroscopy and expanding its application to the field. The absorbance patterns of FTIR-ATR spectra represent the chemical sample composition like an individual fingerprint. By means of multivariate methods, spectra will be grouped according to spectral and chemical similarity in order to achieve species discrimination. We will investigate pea and oat roots as well as maize and barnyard grass roots using various cultivars/proveniences grown in the greenhouse. Pea and oat are recommendable species for intercropping to achieve superior grain and protein yields in an environmentally sustainable manner. To evaluate the effects of intercropping on root distribution in the field, root segments will be measured directly at the soil profile wall using a mobile FTIR spectrometer. By extracting the main root compounds (lipids, proteins, carbohydrates) and recording their FTIR-ATR spectra as references, we will elucidate the chemical basis of species-specific differences.
Ziel dieses Projektes ist die Beschreibung von Strömungsmustern über ästuarinen Bodenformen anhand von Rinnenexperimenten und numerischen Simulationen. Bodenformen (Riffel und Dünen) sind weitverbreitete Bestandteile von Flüssen, Ästuaren, Küstengewässern- und Tiefseegebieten. Bodenformen liefern Hinweise auf Richtung und Stärke von Sedimenttransportprozessen, haben einen starken Einfluss auf die über ihnen liegende Strömung und sind zudem von großer sozioökonomischer Bedeutung, z. B. hinsichtlich ihrer Auswirkungen auf die Schiffbarkeit der Gewässer. In vielen Ästuaren bilden sich aufgrund der starken Hydrodynamik und der hohen Verfügbarkeit von sandigen Sedimenten große Bodenformfelder. Die Strömung über diesen Bodenformfeldern unterscheidet sich grundlegend von der Strömung über den bekannten, dreieckigen Bodenformen mit einem Neigungswinkel von 30°, die bisher im Fokus von Labor- und numerischen Modellierungsstudien standen. Ästuarine Bodenformen sind hauptsächlich flachgeböschte Dünen mit mittleren Luvwinkeln von 5 bis 20°. Die Strömungseigenschaften über derartigen, flachen Winkeln sind derzeit nicht genau bekannt. So ist zum Beispiel der Zusammenhang zwischen der Neigung der Leeböschung und dem Vorhandensein oder Fehlen einer intermittierenden oder permanenten Strömungsablösung noch nicht ausreichend verstanden. Außerdem haben ästuarine Dünen ein relativ flaches Tal und steile Böschungen in der Nähe des Kammes, während Flussdünen einen flachen Kamm und in der Nähe des Tals steile Böschungen haben. Die Auswirkungen dieses Unterschieds in der Dünenmorphologie auf die Strömung sind derzeit noch unbekannt. Darüber hinaus wurde der Zusammenhang zwischen einer sich in der Richtung ändernden Gezeitenströmung und der natürlichen Morphologie von Dünen, einschließlich der dreidimensionalen Variationen, noch nicht im Detail untersucht.Im Rahmen der vorgeschlagenen Studie werden mehrere Versuchsreihen in einer großen Laborrinne durchgeführt, um die Strömungseigenschaften (Geschwindigkeit und Turbulenz) über an Ästuardünen angelehnten Modelldünen aus Beton zu charakterisieren. Basierend auf Feldmessungen von Bodenformen in der Weser werden drei Dünenformvarianten untersucht: Steilgeböschte asymmetrische Dünen, flachgeböschte asymmetrische Dünen und flachgeböschte symmetrische Dünen. Darüber hinaus werden hochauflösende numerische Simulationen der Strömung über dreidimensionalen Bodenformfeldern die Rinnenexperimente ergänzen. Mithilfe der Modellsimulationen ist es möglich, die Geschwindigkeitsstrukturen der Gezeitenströmung und die Turbulenzstrukturen über natürlichen, in der Weser vorkommenden Dünenfeldern zu bestimmen. Die Ergebnisse dieses Projekts tragen zu einem besseren Verständnis der komplexen Wechselwirkungen zwischen ästuarinen Dünen und der Gezeitenströmung bei und erlauben eine bessere Parametrisierung der kleinräumigen Prozesse in großräumigen hydro- und morphodynamischen Modellen.
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