Das Projekt "Mountain biodiversity in the Caucasus and its functional significance" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Basel, Botanisches Institut, Abteilung Pflanzenökologie durchgeführt. Module 1: Slope stability and biodiversity in the Caucasus, a synthesis of available knowledge and recommendations. Grazing and erosion affect biodiversity on steep mountain terrain. In a previous SCOPES research project, species had been identified and ranked which are particularly robust against erosion and thus useful for re-vegetation activities. A keystone species had been discovered (Festuca valesiaca) that excerts slope engineer functions as soon as erosion leads to gully formation and creates erosion edges. Surprisingly, the very same species had been found to play a similar role in the Swiss Central Alps (paper submitted by Caprez et al.; parallel project in Switzerland by Huck et al. in the uppermost Reuss valley). Each of the winner and looser species (a total of c. 50 species) will be now characterized by range limits, centers of abundance in terms of elevation, geology and topography, to explore their wider role in a greater geographic framework (see module 2). These data will help to predict effects of global change and to identify indicator taxa (or groups of taxa) for sustainable rangeland management. The module offers synergies with ongoing research in the Alps (similar works in Innsbruck and Grenoble), following the research agenda of the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) of DIVERSITAS. Module 2: Biodiversity in the Great Caucasus: open access species database for improved biodiversity management and projections of trends under global change. This module proposes an electronic biodiversity archive initiative, aiming at building an electronic database that includes both, archive data (herbarium vouchers) as well as observational data (relevé data) of more than 40 years of field work in steep mountain terrain by the Georgian team (many hundreds of 'relevés', each consisting of exactly geo-referenced species lists). This database will open the possibility to link the Georgian field ecology community with the GBIF (Copenhagen) international biodiversity data portal, in particular to contribute to the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) mountain portal with GBIF (online in 2010). Open access to Great Caucasus data will permit a much larger comparison of typical settings of plant communities in steep mountains worldwide. In addition, the project will distill large scale patterns of species diversity in the Great Caucasus with respect to land use and erosion aspects (see Module 1), climatic and topographic affiliations of certain taxa and elevational trends. A particular task will be identifying the environmental envelope of species that had been found to be key stone species for slope stability.
Das Projekt "Die Rolle von Informationen und Institutionen bei Kooperationseinbruechen in oekologisch-sozialen Konfliktsituationen (Allmenden) - Eine psychologisch-oekonomisch-ethnologische Analyse" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität St. Gallen, Institut für Wirtschaft und Ökologie durchgeführt. The project analyses the indirect effects of informal insurance on open-access renewable resource use. It is based on a field study of two neighbouring island fisheries in the Ha'apai region in the Kingdom of Tonga. On one island, 'Uiha, the fishery is under greater stress and fishers have partially withdrawn from the traditional Tongan system of sharing catch with other community members, whereas on the other island, Lofanga, the resource base and the informal insurance system is still intact. We show that informal insurance can be a perfect substitute for rules or norms which regulate resource use directly. Informal insurance can thereby complement an open-access system to the effect of making use sustainable, even under observed technological change. However, a combination of technological progress and cultural westernization puts the open-access resource under stress. The system of resource governance observed in H'apai has some resemblance with the believed-in effects of ecological tax reforms advocated for some industrialized societies.
Das Projekt "Global mountain biodiversity assessment coordination office 2008-2010" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Basel, Botanisches Institut, Abteilung Pflanzenökologie durchgeführt. The Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) is one of the internationally acting cross-cutting research networks of DIVERSITAS. GMBA acts as a platform of the international mountain biodiversity research (www.gmba.unibas.ch), currently listing more than 700 active partners worldwide. It aims to synthesise often fragmented knowledge, organize workshops/symposia and promote participation in international research projects. GMBA has also developed internationally accorded research guidelines for specific fields and encourages collaborative research programmes throughout the world and advocates the open access philosophy of GBIF and e-mining of mountain biodiversity data. The GMBA office is coordinating a network of field experiments worldwide, aiming to quantify the influences of land use and biodiversity on catchment value in steep mountian terrain, with successfully funded Joint Research Projects in Bolivia, Georgia, Austria, and upcomming projects in France, Switzerland and China. Main products of this funding period will include: - Global mountain biodiversity data portal and promotion of open access of geo-referenced mountain biodiversity data, in collaboration with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) in Copenhagen, Denmark; - publication of a synthesis book on mountain biodiversity data mining and results of comparative data-mining of GMBA data expert; - synthesis of results of the world-wide network of field experiments on land use and biodiversity, and catchment value in mountains (in a special journal issue or synthesis volume); - GMBA will link the mountain biodiversity community with the International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity (IMoSEB), an international scientific biodiversity assessment panel. - organisation of the 2nd GMBA open science conference on mountain biodiversity in 2010. This will be the 10-year anniversary of GMBA under Swiss leadership.