Special Seminar "Biodiversity in soil and its functions in soil and agroecosystems: How to define thresholds for soil quality at landscape level?"
Cancelled
Event details
| Date | 20.03.2020 |
| Hour | 14:15 › 15:15 |
| Speaker | Dr Martina Ross-Nickoll, Institute for Environmental Research, Department of Ecosystem Analysis, Effects & Monitoring, RWTH Aachen University, DE |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract:
Biodiversity is known to be the basic resource maintaining and supporting ecosystem services and functions. Because biodiversity is realized at different levels in the complexity of a given landscape, our group is aiming to analyze and classify the distribution of different organism groups, in order to elucidate the interrelationship between diversity and structural elements in the arable landscape. After an introduction, three projects are presented that address the relationships between structural diversity in soil and agricultural landscape and (soil) biodiversity.
The soil-zoological information System Edaphobase, a taxonomic-ecological database system, developed within a joined research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will be presented. It combines existing taxonomical primary data on soil organisms from collections, scientific literature and reports in a data warehouse. Up to now Edaphobase contains more than 500000 observations, about 300000 sites, an 140000 taxa. Data can easily be imported, quality checked, published, queried and analyzed via a web application interface. Detailed analyses can be performed with the interactive web application Edaphostat which allows species-level analysis as well as definition of reference communities. Future development of Edaphobase towards a pan-European soil-biology data warehouse is presented with the aims of (1) the development of a harmonized tool for the evaluation of ecological soil quality, (2) the collection and usage of existing data from different parties all over Europe, (3) the provision of a reference base of the ecological quality of soils and (4) the coverage of relevant needs of as many as possible European policies.
It is widely accepted, however controversially discussed, that species diversity and habitats quality dramatically decrease with increasing intensity of agricultural land-use. A project is presented that considers landscape structure by classifying landscape elements according to their biodiversity of various arthropod groups. An ‘ecological value’, reflecting the habitat quality, is used depending on the spatial distribution of typical elements of terrestrial agricultural landscapes in Europe, exemplified by two regions in Germany. We define 50 types of ecologically relevant landscape elements (LE-types), which are automatically derived from remote sensing data or land utilization data. The methodology is considered well established but needs calibration by data from different landscapes.
In the third part the concept of a new, integrated monitoring scheme to assess the ecological effects of the application of PPPs in the agricultural landscape of Germany will be presented. We propose using synergies with an established nationwide ecological area sampling site network with several, already ongoing monitoring activities (e.g. bird monitoring and high nature value farmland). The modular structure of including biodiversity and analytic endpoints, as well as a planned step-by-step implementation will be shown.
Short biography:
Martina Roß-Nickoll is an expert on the ecology of biocoenoses (aiming to assess terrestrial field communities depending on site-specific properties); impact of land use and forestry on biodiversity and ecosystem services; her work includes the development of higher tier study designs suitable for environmental risk assessment with focus on soil ecosystems. She currently works at the Institute for Environmental Research, RWITH Aachen University in Germany where she heads the Department of Ecosystem Analysis (ESA).
Biodiversity is known to be the basic resource maintaining and supporting ecosystem services and functions. Because biodiversity is realized at different levels in the complexity of a given landscape, our group is aiming to analyze and classify the distribution of different organism groups, in order to elucidate the interrelationship between diversity and structural elements in the arable landscape. After an introduction, three projects are presented that address the relationships between structural diversity in soil and agricultural landscape and (soil) biodiversity.
The soil-zoological information System Edaphobase, a taxonomic-ecological database system, developed within a joined research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will be presented. It combines existing taxonomical primary data on soil organisms from collections, scientific literature and reports in a data warehouse. Up to now Edaphobase contains more than 500000 observations, about 300000 sites, an 140000 taxa. Data can easily be imported, quality checked, published, queried and analyzed via a web application interface. Detailed analyses can be performed with the interactive web application Edaphostat which allows species-level analysis as well as definition of reference communities. Future development of Edaphobase towards a pan-European soil-biology data warehouse is presented with the aims of (1) the development of a harmonized tool for the evaluation of ecological soil quality, (2) the collection and usage of existing data from different parties all over Europe, (3) the provision of a reference base of the ecological quality of soils and (4) the coverage of relevant needs of as many as possible European policies.
It is widely accepted, however controversially discussed, that species diversity and habitats quality dramatically decrease with increasing intensity of agricultural land-use. A project is presented that considers landscape structure by classifying landscape elements according to their biodiversity of various arthropod groups. An ‘ecological value’, reflecting the habitat quality, is used depending on the spatial distribution of typical elements of terrestrial agricultural landscapes in Europe, exemplified by two regions in Germany. We define 50 types of ecologically relevant landscape elements (LE-types), which are automatically derived from remote sensing data or land utilization data. The methodology is considered well established but needs calibration by data from different landscapes.
In the third part the concept of a new, integrated monitoring scheme to assess the ecological effects of the application of PPPs in the agricultural landscape of Germany will be presented. We propose using synergies with an established nationwide ecological area sampling site network with several, already ongoing monitoring activities (e.g. bird monitoring and high nature value farmland). The modular structure of including biodiversity and analytic endpoints, as well as a planned step-by-step implementation will be shown.
Short biography:
Martina Roß-Nickoll is an expert on the ecology of biocoenoses (aiming to assess terrestrial field communities depending on site-specific properties); impact of land use and forestry on biodiversity and ecosystem services; her work includes the development of higher tier study designs suitable for environmental risk assessment with focus on soil ecosystems. She currently works at the Institute for Environmental Research, RWITH Aachen University in Germany where she heads the Department of Ecosystem Analysis (ESA).
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- EESS - IIE