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BIOPLEX

Biodiversity and spatial complexity in agricultural landscapes under global change

Subproject Bioplex Coordination (AG Wolters): This subproject strengthens (i) the integrative aspects of Bioplex and (ii) optimizes the cooperation with BIOLOG Europe and (iii) additional international collaborators. Bioplex will provide research areas and environmental data for BIOLOG Europe projects (DIVA, Mikrobiologie and INVASION) and the centralised coordination will further guarantee standardization of sampling designs to improve comparability between future studies.

Subproject Soil Ecology: Research in the preliminary main period analysed the interactions between soil-engineer and macro-invertebrate diversity over multiple spatial scales in graslands. Project period 2 utilizes this established knowledge to connect ecological goods as identified by the subproject Socio-Economy and their beneficial effect on plant and animal diversity with requested ecosystem services. The landscape scale approach provides information about the interactions between biodiversity, landscape composition and ecosystem functioning and identifies consequences for agricultural sustainability and landscape design in crops.

The following specific aims will provide additional information to facilitate future predictions about effects of biodiversity and landscape composition on ecosystem services:

  • 1. Analysis of functional connections between plant and animal diversity in arable fields, landscape composition and ecosystem services.

  • 2. Quantification of ecosystem services provided by macro-invertebrates using experiments and data from ongoing research (in cooperation with subproject Agroecology and DIVA).

  • 3. Studies on the impact of intra- and interannual variation on biotic and abiotic factors that influence animal diversity.

  • 4. Studies on the relative importance of different biotic and abiotic factors for animal diversity.

For further information on BIOPLEX subprojects: http://www.uni-giessen.de/biople


Coordination

Prof. Dr. Volkmar Wolters

Dr. Jens Dauber (Phasen I und II)

Dr. Klaus Birkhofer (Phase III)