Past projects
DIVERSITAS supported the following projects, which participated in the implemention of its scientific strategy:
- BESTNet: The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network
- BioCycle: Biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles: a search for mechanisms across ecosystems
- EREMIBA: Emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases in the Amazon Basin
- European Catchment Data Base on Freshwater Biodiversity
BESTNet: The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network
BESTNet played a crucial role in the implementation of the DIVERSITAS ecoSERVICES project. It funded the ecoSERVICES project International Project Office as well as most of the ecoSERVICES activities from 2007 to 2010. This project was supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF).
BESTNet focused on the interactions between biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and the production of ecosystem services and had three goals:
- Development of international and interdisciplinary research on biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being;
- Linking the results of this new research to relevant international policy initiatives;
- Research training of young US researchers in the new, interdisciplinary biodiversity science.
This project has been very successful and led an series of outreach.
BESTNet was responsible of the implementation of ecoSERVICES from 2007 to 2010.
Contact: Charles Perrrings, Arizona State University, USA
BioCycle: Biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles: a search for mechanisms across ecosystems (2006-2009)
BioCycle, a European Science Foundation EuroDIVERSITY collaborative research project, assesses the importance of biodiversity in biogeochemical cycles by examining the interactive effects of substrate diversity, in the form of plant litter, and decomposer fauna diversity on carbon and nutrient cycling across a gradient of paired terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems running from the subarctic to the tropics. Within the framework of BioCycle, are combined an experimental and comparative approach that bridges distinct research domains across ecosystem types and climate zones. By doing so the project aims to address a number of critical questions relating to how changing biodiversity will affect ecosystem functioning. This will provide the information required for predictive modeling attempts.
Five pairs of sites have been established: (1) subarctic, (2) boreal, (3) temperate, (4) Mediterranean and 5) tropical vegetation zones. Within each biome there are a forest and a forest stream site, both receiving the same type of leaf litter inputs. By using the same experimental setup and protocol across this range of sites the project seeks to gain an unprecedented general understanding of diversity controls over decomposition across ecosystem types and climatic zones. Our experiments are to test the following hypotheses:
- The diversity of plant litter and litter consumers interactively influence carbon fluxes and nutrient dynamics during decomposition, with process rates decreasing as diversity declines.
- The significance of biodiversity in determining decomposition and nutrient dynamics diminishes with increasing environmental constraints along the latitudinal gradient.
- Diversity has a stronger influence on decomposition in terrestrial than in aquatic ecosystems, because complementary resource use is a more effective mechanism for synergistic interactions in a structurally complex environment like soil than in a homogenous environment like water.
- Decomposition in more diverse litter and decomposer systems shows greater resistance/resilience to perturbation (insurance hypothesis), and thus, are less affected by negative impacts of ongoing global change such as increasing drought severity.
BioCycle is especially relevant to the activities of the DIVERSITAS freshwaterBIODIVERSITY and ecoSERVICES projects.
Contact: Stephan Hättenschwiler, CEFE-CNRS, France
Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in South African streams (2006-2009)
Sponsor: Research Grants Council
This project aimed at quantifying a variety of values related to wetlands in the Orange Basin in South Africa, looking at the benefits provided by wetlands to humans, with a view to provide some motivation to decision makers to increase conservation efforts in wetland areas of the upper basin. This valuation was based on values of wetland goods and services to support livelihoods, wetland functions for water purification, and wetland benefits to support economic development from biodiversity based tourism.
Coordinator: Caroline Sullivan, Southern Cross University, Australia
EREMIBA: Emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases in the Amazon Basin
EREMIBA was a 2 year project (2006-2008) in South America on emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases in the Amazonian basin. This project was supported by the CNRS (National centre for scientific research, France) and the IRD (Research and Development Institute, France).
This project is especially relevant to the activities of the DIVERSITAS ecoHEALTH project.
Contact: Christine Chevillon and Jean-François Guégan, IRD, France
A European Catchment Data Base on Freshwater Biodiversity
This project "A European catchment data base on freshwater biodiversity" developed a comprehensive data base containing spatially explicit information on the status of freshwater biodiversity and key environmental pressures for more than 160 catchments across Europe, western Russia, the Caucasus and Anatolia. The data base has been implemented in Access and is linked with GIS-layers. The catchments included cover a total area of 8 million km2 (i.e. 72% of the European continent). At present, the data base includes information on wetland birds, amphibians, fish, odonates, and crayfish. These data are combined with information on land use (proportion of developed area), river fragmentation, water stress, and proportion of exotic fish species, which is used to calculate an impact index for each catchment. The European catchment data base is publicly available and has been integrated into the global database on freshwater biodiversity of the BioFresh project.
More than 75% of the European catchments were classified as heavily impacted and thus likely to threaten freshwater biodiversity. Our first analyses of the data show, for example, that 2 fishes endemic to the River Drin, flowing into the Adriatic Sea in Albania/Croatia, are extinct at the continental scale. Up to 40% of native fishes have disappeared at the catchment scale, especially long-migrating species such as sturgeons, Allis shad (Alosa alosa) and lampreys. In contrast, 76 non-native fishes belonging to 21 families have been introduced into European freshwaters, with ~50 of these having self-reproducing populations. Most non-native fishes originated from North America (34 species) and Asia (26 species), and between 30 and 50 fishes have been translocated within Europe. The proportion of non-native fishes exceeds 40% in some catchments, mostly on the Iberian Peninsula and the Atlantic region of France (Tockner, K. Uehlinger, U. & Robinson, C.T. (eds) 2008. Rivers of Europe. Elsevier. San Diego). The highest proportion of irreplaceable fish (i.e. species with a limited geographic distribution), is found on the Iberian Peninsula, the southern Balkan and Anatolia. These particular regions are expected to face an even higher increase in water stress, pollution, and erosion in the near future.
This project was relevant to the activities of the DIVERSITAS freshwaterBIODIVERSITY project.
Contact: Klement Tockner, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Germany
