Das Projekt "Sub project: Population genetic impacts of a changing ambient conditions on marcro-in-vertebrates with different life history strategies in running waters" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Mainz, Institut für Zoologie, Abteilung V Ökologie durchgeführt. It is expected that in the course of global warming the present flow regimes of rivers will change and that extreme situations such as floods and low water will increase in frequency and intensity. We study the population genetic effect of these changes by comparing rivers of different flow regimes - Rhine and Danube (snowmelt) versus Moselle and Main (groundwater) - and three species with different life histories (high/low dispersion and high/low drought resistance). We will use markers on the level of enzymes and DNA. A shift of genotypes due to higher water temperatures and a decrease of genetic variability is expected. The former reflects the microevolutionary response and enables the survival under changing environmental conditions. The latter is caused by repeated bottle necks triggered by extreme fluctuations of local and regional population sizes accompanying floods and droughts. It limits this response and may reduce the survival of populations within their present distribution limits. This study will allow the assessment of these two processes. The sources of immigration and recolonisation ways after local extinctions will be studied by molecular markers. The role of reservoirs and barrages as refuges resp. impediment of dispersal will be analysed. Genotypes that dominate under certain temperature or flow regime will be provided for physiological studies and proteomic analyses to the co-operating working groups. Results on the amount and distance of gene flow (dispersal) as well as population densities observed in field will be input to the modelling project.
Das Projekt "Diversity and evolution of Antarctic gastropods explored by a genomic approach" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Generaldirektion der Staatlichen Naturwissenschaftlichen Sammlungen Bayerns, Zoologische Staatssammlung München (ZSM) durchgeführt. The Antarctic irwertebrate fauna appears highiy diverse, but is only localiy and sporadically explored - and already threatened by global climate change. Gastropods are abundant, species rieh, ecologically and economically irnportant, count with a rieh fossil record and are wellestablished äs model organisms for many scientific disciplines. Most of the roughly 600 Antarctic gastropod species are regarded valid at the mornent based on shell features of often just a few or single specimens. Intraspecific morphological variability, soft pari anatomy, biology' and ecology are usually unknown, and many synonyms have been proposed. Wolecular data are limited to CÖI barcode sequences of few individuals of the more common species: Phylogenetic analyses of single genes suggest complexes of cryptic species or deep lineages, which may show distinct geographic distributions and special ecological niches. Rarity of species or samples prohibits general population genetics approaches. The prirnary goal of our herein proposed project is revealing the species diversity of Antarctic gastropods comprehensively and reliably. In addition to mltochondrial CÖI, we will use next generation sequencing (NGS) and newly established methods (double digest Restriction Associated DMA sequencing, ddRADseq) to efficiently generate a multitude of independent nuclear genomic sequence markers. We will include all species and subsamples from rnore than 2000 Southern Öcean gastropod samples available at the ZSM Mollusca collection suitable for genetic studies, plus further material to be collected at expeditions or from other museums. We will perform phylogenetic analyses (ML, Bayes, in subgroups BEST) and combined, up to-date molecular species delimitation approaches (ABGD, GMYCS BP&P), An integrative taxonomic approach reiying on congruence will be applied to revea! conservative and reliable evolutionary species units, which will be used for diversity analyses, We will also explore genomic evolutionary archives of seiected gastropod lineages performing fossil-calibrated BEAST chronograms. The dynamics of diversification will be analyzed via recent Birth-Death-Shift models, and historical biogeography will be reconstructed using recent Software (e.g, RASP). With our massif genomic data from many subtaxa we will test current paradigms on biogeography and evolution, such äs glacial cycles causing an 'Antarctic speciation pump', and evaluate competing hypotheses on glacial refuges and migration scenarios. The herein proposed combination of ddRADseqs with up to date multi-iocus analyses is novel, extremely cost and time effective, and can include thousands instead of few specimens' without any a priori selectron. It is expected to be very powerful to delimitate newty collected, unrecognized, or cryptic species, even jf badly sampled or just represented by singletons...
Das Projekt "Resistenzmonitoring von tierischen Schaderregern an (transgenen) resistenten Kulturpflanzen" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Biologische Bundesanstalt für Land- und Forstwirtschaft durchgeführt. Mit der Einfuehrung transgener insektenresistenter Sorten, insbesondere von Bt-Mais und Bt-Kartoffel, muessen Resistenzmanagementstrategien entwickelt und etabliert werden, um die Anfaelligkeit von Zielorganismen gegen Bacillus thuringiensis-Toxine ueber einen langen Zeitraum aufrecht zu erhalten. Das Forschungsthema 'Bt-Mais und Maiszuensler' ist innerhalb der Biologischen Bundesanstalt vernetzt, insbesondere mit den Instituten fuer Pflanzenvirologie, Mikrobiologie und biologische Sicherheit Braunschweig, fuer biologischen Pflanzenschutz Darmstadt und fuer Folgenabschaetzung im Pflanzenschutz Kleinmachnow. Fuer das Forschungsthema werden an 6 Standorten in Sueddeutschland und im Oderbruch Maiszuenslerpopulationen hinsichtlich ihrer Anfaelligkeit fuer Bt-Toxine charakterisiert und verschiedene Konzepte fuer Sortenmanagement und Refugien zur Erhaltung anfaelliger Individuen in den Populationen bearbeitet. Parallel wird ein computergestuetztes Simulationsmodell zur Anpassung des Zielorganismus an Bt-Mais entwickelt und validiert. Mit der Einfuehrung von Bt-Kulturen in Deutschland werden Resistenzmanagementstrategien in enger Zusammenarbeit mit dem Beratungsdienst der Laender hinsichtlich ihrer Effizienz analysiert.
Das Projekt "Infra-red thermometry in alpine terrain" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Basel, Philosophisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät durchgeführt. Rough mountain terrain offers climatic conditions (niches) to plants and animals poorly Represented by conventional climate station data. However, the extent to which actual Temperatures deviate from those of the freely circulating atmosphere had never been assessed At a landscape level. Here, we quantify thermal life conditions across topographically rich Mountain terrain by using a combination of thermal (IR) imagery of surface temperature with Data from a large number of miniature data loggers buried at 3 cm soil depth. The data Obtained from six alpine (Alps) and arctic-alpine slopes (Norway, Sweden, Svalbard) evidence Persistent root zone temperatures of 2-4K above air temperature during summer. Surface Temperatures show strong positive (2-9 K) and negative (3-8 K) deviations from air temperature On bright days and clear nights, respectively. As to be expected, south oriented slopes are Warmer than west and north slopes but microclimatic variation on clear sky days was strong Within all slopes, with 8.4 2.5K (mean SD) surface temperature differences persisting over Several hours per day along horizontal (i.e., equal elevation) transects. Life conditions of Alpine organisms are thus strongly decoupled from conditions in the free atmosphere and Cannot reliably be inferred from climate station data in both, temperate and arctic latitudes. Microtopography can mimic temperature differences of large elevational (or latitudinal) Gradients over very short horizontal distances. This is important in the context of climate Change because it shows that species do not necessarily need to climb several hundred meters In elevation to escape the warmth. Quite often, few meters of horizontal shift will do. For Plants unable to, or too slow to adapt to a warmer climate, thermal microhabitat mosaics offer Both refuge habitats as well as stepping stones as atmospheric temperatures rise.