Project description

We investigate heterogeneity patterns of different P fractions and P species in calcareous soils in the Bavarian Limestone Alps and the Swabian Alb at various spatial (sub-micron to profile) scales and relate them to heterogeneity patterns of other soil properties. Furthermore, we study interrelations/interactions between the P status of soils on silicate and calcareous bedrock and biotic systems (forest plants + associated microorganism communities) in laboratory and field experiments with tree seedlings grown on model soils. We use standard methods of soil and plant analysis, but focus on ground-breaking innovative technologies like synchrotron-based X-ray spectro(micro)scopy (XRF, XANES, µ-XRF, µ-XANES) and high-resolution Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (NanoSIMS).

Candidate profile

We are looking for a highly motivated candidate, who should hold an MSc degree (or equivalent) in geo-ecology, biology, forestry, environmental chemistry, geology, agriculture or related natural sciences and have sound knowledge of soil science. Applicants should be able to work self-organized and in a team, have excellent management and communication skills, and should be committed to pursuing interdisciplinary research. Good computer and language skills (English) are necessary. Candidates with experience in synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopy or X-ray microscopy or high-resolution Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (NanoSIMS) are highly welcome. The candidate is expected to present her/his results in highly-ranked international journals and at conferences.

The Soil Science Group at TUM (http://www.soil-science.com) offers a vibrant academic environment with well-equipped facilities located nearby Munich in southern Germany. The framework of the Priority Programme 1685 provides the opportunity to interact and co-operate with excellent scientists in different fields of life and environmental sciences.

The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for three years and provides a salary of 65 % of German TVL E13 (approx. EUR 1400 per month/net) scheme together with health and social security benefits. The envisaged starting date is March 1, 2017.

Interested candidates are asked to send a single pdf-file including letter of motivation, research experience, CV, and any publications by email to Prof. Dr. Jörg Prietzel ([email protected]). Application deadline is January 15, 2017.

A 17-strong team of colleagues from 12 ALTER-Net partner organisations has written a paper on nature-based solutions. The paper, which is published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, considers the implications for science, policy and practice of the recently introduced concept of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), with a focus on the European context.

The team analysed NBS in relation to similar concepts, and, in the paper, they reflect on its relationship to sustainability as an overarching framework. From this, they derive a set of questions to be addressed and propose a general framework for how these might be addressed in NBS projects by funders, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners.

Among the team's conclusions, they assert that the strength of the NBS concept is its integrative, systemic approach which prevents it from becoming just another “green communication tool” that provides justification for a classical model of natural resource exploitation and management measures. They also argue that, to realise their full potential, NBS must be developed by including the experience of all relevant stakeholders such that ‘solutions’ contribute to achieving all dimensions of sustainability. Furthermore, as NBS are developed, we must also moderate the expectations placed on them, since the precedent provided by other initiatives whose aim was to manage nature sustainably demonstrates that we should not expect NBS to be cheap and easy, at least not in the short-term.

Further information

• Full reference: Carsten Nesshöver, Timo Assmuth, Katherine N. Irvine, Graciela M. Rusch, Kerry A. Waylen, Ben Delbaere, Dagmar Haase, Lawrence Jones-Walters, Hans Keune, Eszter Kovacs, Kinga Krauze, Mart Külvik, Freddy Rey, Jiska van Dijk, Odd Inge Vistad, Mark E. Wilkinson, Heidi Wittmer, The science, policy and practice of nature-based solutions: An interdisciplinary perspective, Science of The Total Environment, Available online 2 December 2016, ISSN 0048-9697
  DoI: j.scitotenv.2016.11.106
  Web: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969716325578
• The incentive for this paper was ALTER-Net's 2015 conference on nature-based solutions.

The first AHIA project was led by ALTER-Net partner ESSRG and was called Public participation in science and policy: development of a science-society interface in relation to biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Citizen science is a relatively new way of knowledge co-creation, where professional scientists and enthusiastic citizens collaboratively search for answers. While it certainly presents challenges, it also provides a great opportunity for both parties to engage science and nature together, and ultimately, can result in transformative societal changes.

The number of collaborative initiatives between scientists and volunteers (i.e., citizen science) is increasing across many research fields. The promise of societal transformation together with scientific breakthroughs contributes to the current popularity of citizen science (CS) in the policy domain. The researchers examined the transformative capacity of citizen science, in particular learning through environmental CS as conservation tool.

"the assertion of transformative effects of Citizen Science learning is often based on assumptions rather than empirical observation" - Bela, G. et al. Cons. Biol.

During their study, the team reviewed the CS and social-learning literature and examined 14 conservation projects across Europe that involved collaborative CS. They also developed a template that can be used to explore learning arrangements (i.e., learning events and materials) in CS projects and to explain how the desired outcomes can be achieved through CS learning.

The ALTER-Net team found that recent studies aiming to define CS for analytical purposes often fail to improve the conceptual clarity of CS; CS programs may have transformative potential, especially for the development of individual skills, but such transformation is not necessarily occurring at the organizational and institutional levels; empirical evidence on simple learning outcomes, but the assertion of transformative effects of CS learning is often based on assumptions rather than empirical observation; and it is unanimous that learning in CS is considered important, but in practice it often goes unreported or unevaluated.

In conclusion, the researchers point to the need for reliable and transparent measurement of transformative effects for democratization of knowledge production.

The research is reported in the journal Conservation Biology (Bela, G., Peltola, T., Young, J. C., Balázs, B., Arpin, I., Pataki, G., Hauck, J., Kelemen, E., Kopperoinen, L., Van Herzele, A., Keune, H., Hecker, S., Suškevičs, M., Roy, H. E., Itkonen, P., Külvik, M., László, M., Basnou, C., Pino, J. and Bonn, A. (2016), Learning and the transformative potential of citizen science. Conservation Biology, 30: 990–999. doi:10.1111/cobi.12762).

The team also produced a video about the role of Citizen Science in biodiversity research.

Further information

• About the AHIA initiative

Be quick! The Belgian community of practice on Ecosystem Services is organising the third edition of the BEES Market. This year’s host, the Natural Capital Platform of the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at Ghent University, welcomes you on Tuesday 13th of December 2016 at Congrescentrum ‘Het Pand’ in Ghent, from 14 till 19 hours. The list of participants and stands is growing quickly, including updated projects from last years, as well as many new people and stands!

ALTER-Net partner, INBO (the Research Institute for Nature & Forests), is one of the event's organisers.

Back-to-back with the BEES the market, ECOPLAN 'planning for ecosystem services' project is organising its final event and lunch at the same location, making this a full day of free ecosystem service fun! For the morning event of ECOPLAN register here separately.

"A full day of free ecosystem service fun!"

The BEES Xmas market brings together people from academia, public administration and civil society, from Belgium and abroad, with one common interest: ecosystem services.
The BEES market is the perfect spot to exchange ideas, learn from other experiences and discover how ecosystem services are transformed into real products or daily life applications.

The concept? A cozy afternoon in a friendly Xmas market-like atmosphere, some special guests: the perfect event to wrap up 2016 in a useful and fun way! You can choose to have a stand, give a training session or just to enjoy the market (for practical info on stands or sessions, contact us).

Hurry! Register here before 20th of November.

"It’s a field of dreams – if you build it, they will come, and they will talk"
- Allan Watt, ALTER-Net Summer School organiser

The ALTER-Net Summer School, now in it's 11th year, is one of two examples chosen by Kovacevic to illustrate the value of taking sustainability science out of the classroom and into the environment, be it the Amazon rainforest or the French countryside. As Kovacevic says, "This can lead to a more profound and prolonged learning experience; summer school participants talk about the changes these programmes catalyse in their own lives and the lives of others once they return home." We have certainly seen this amongst our students.

In her article, Kovacevic quotes our current Summer School organisers, Marie Wanderwalle and Allan Watt. “Most participants have not experienced working in a project so they don’t know the struggle of discussing an idea with someone from a different background. The project is really all about teaching communication and team work,” says Vandewalle, a previous summer school student and now coordinator of the programme.

"The mountain vistas and isolation are crucial to the programme’s success", says convenor Allan Watt. “It’s a field of dreams – if you build it, they will come, and they will talk.”

You can read Kovacevic's full blog post here.

Prof. Josef Settele of ALTER-Net partner UFZ has been selected by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as a co-chair for its Global Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Assessment. Prof. Settele and the other two co-chairs (Professors Sandra Díaz and Eduardo Brondízio) are three of the world’s most eminent experts working on connections between nature and human well-being.

Covering a timeframe from the middle of the last century until the middle of this century, the assessment will analyze the state of knowledge about how people and nature interact, direct and indirect drivers of change, values, response options and nature’s benefits to people. It will explore the contributions of biodiversity and ecosystems to long-term quality of life – focusing on the synergies and trade-offs needed to balance the economic, social and environmental dimensions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as progress made on the UN Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, including the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.

Josef Settele works at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, heading the animal ecology and social-ecological research section. He is a Professor of Ecology at Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, and a member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research – iDiv. He served as a coordinating lead author for both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the recent IPBES pollination assessment, and is one of the most prolific scientific authors in the field, with more than 370 scientific publications, including more than 30 books.

Sandra Díaz is a Professor of Community and Ecosystem Ecology at the National University of Córdoba and a senior member of the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET) at Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Founder and director of the international initiative Núcleo DiverSus on Diversity and Sustainability, she has authored more than 150 scientific publications, many of them in prominent academic journals, and served in leading positions for the IPCC, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), Future Earth and DIVERSITAS.

Eduardo S. Brondízio is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, co-Editor-In-Chief of Current Opinion on Environmental Sustainability and serves on a range of international scientific bodies including the Science Committee of the Future Earth program. Committed for three decades to research on human-environment interaction in the Amazon, he is the author of more than 180 scientific publications and has contributed to numerous regional and global assessments including the MA.

Link to IPBES press release: http://www.ipbes.net/article/co-chairs-announced-landmark-global-biodiversity-ecosystems-assessment

A gecko for your terrarium? Or a tortoise? Or would you rather have a snake? Reptiles are exceedingly popular as pets, trade is booming. Between 2004 and 2014, official imports to the EU came to just under 21 million live specimens, more than six million of these ended up on the German market. These also include a large number of representatives of threatened species that can be sold at extremely high profits. Some collectors are quite willing to pay prices of several thousand euros for such rarities. An international team of experts led by Mark Auliya of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig has now documented the implications of such transactions. The great demand from the European market is already endangering the survival of a great number of species all over the world is the warning issued by these researchers in the scientific journal Biological Conservation.

"More than 90 percent of reptile species are ... not even covered by CITES"
-  Mark Auliya, UFZ, Germany

Sadly, this tortoise is not an isolated case. For their study, 37 scientists, conservationists and customs officials from 22 countries have compiled numerous other examples of species for which the pet market has become a serious problem, even though the Washington Convention (CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is actually intended to prevent nature being sold off in such a way.

This Convention, that to date has been signed by 182 states including the EU, regulates the international trade in threatened fauna and flora. Appendix I to the Convention lists particularly highly endangered species; imports or exports of these species for commercial purposes is no longer permitted. Appendix II contains a large number of other endangered species; a special permit is required for trading in these species.

"More than 90 percent of reptile species are, however, not even covered by CITES", is the criticism expressed by Mark Auliya. To date, biologists have described more than 10,000 reptile species worldwide. A mere 793 of these species are presently covered by trade regulations under CITES. Many other endangered reptiles that are included in the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), on the other hand, have so far not made it into the Appendices of  CITES. Orlov’s viper (Vipera orlovi), for example, is considered threatened with extinction; less than 250 adults are still crawling through a small region in the Caucasus. Yet the international trade in these snakes is not regulated. Just as little as the trade in various rare geckos from Madagascar and New Caledonia.

It is specifically such species that are in particular demand amongst collectors. Even though they enjoy rarity value, they can still be purchased legally and without any great degree of bureaucracy. So why does CITES not apply to all endangered animals and plants? "On the one hand, this is due to the fact that international trade is not an issue for every endangered species", explains Mark Auliya. There are, however, also enough cases where inclusion in the appendices fails only on account of economic interests or lack of political will.

Even if a species is listed by the Convention, it is, nevertheless, not necessarily out of danger. After all, the illegal trade in wild animals has become a crime that is just as lucrative as trafficking in drugs, weapons and human beings. There is a correspondingly strong incentive to circumvent the protective provisions. One possibility, for example, is to manipulate documents. This way, a CITES-listed species becomes an unregulated relative at the drop of a hat. Or an animal captured in the wild becomes one allegedly bred in captivity. A large number of monitor lizards from Indonesia or chameleons from Madagascar come onto the market using this strategy.

But time and time again, there are cases where smugglers do not bother with any paperwork. Interesting species are secretly taken across borders in suitcases or on the smuggler’s body, often by "hired tourists". There is an amazing level of ingenuity involved. In September 2007 a US citizen was arrested for smuggling three Fiji banded iguanas (Brachylophus bulabula) in his prosthetic leg. "To a certain extent, cartel-like organisations are involved", explains Mark Auliya. The persons involved are very much aware which animals reach the highest prices: rarities are always in great demand. For this reason, it is not only protected species that are targeted but frequently also new discoveries by the scientific community, as are endemic species that only occur in a very small distribution area worldwide. It is therefore not surprising that Cnemaspis psychedelica, a gecko species that was unknown until 2010, quickly became popular. After all, this little reptile not only adorns itself with colours reminiscent of tripping on drugs but lives exclusively on Hon Khoai, a Vietnamese island of only eight square kilometres in size. They have been offered for sale in Europe on a regular basis since 2013 - one pair for 2500 to 3000 euros.

"Regions that are home to a large number of such unique reptiles attract particular attention from smugglers", says Mark Auliya. These include, for example, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Madagascar. In many of the countries affected, poverty, poorly equipped authorities and a lack of controls make illegal trade particularly easy. But even in Australia or New Zealand, countries that have strict protective legislation and an efficient law enforcement system, their unique fauna is not spared.

According to the study, reptile smuggling can have dramatic effects, particularly for species with small populations and extremely limited distribution areas. But even larger populations cannot cope with over-harvesting. For instance, tortoises and large lizards are very long-lived and have low reproduction rates. The ability of these populations to compensate for massive losses from trapping is therefore limited.

So what should be done to prevent a reptile clearance sale? On the one hand Mark Auliya pleads in favour of stricter regulations committing all CITES member states to better protection for their own incidences. "On the other hand, main importers such as the EU must adopt responsibility", the expert points out. He identifies need for action, as an example, concerning species such as the highly sought-after Borneo earless monitor lizards (Lanthanotus borneensis) for which European reptile hobbyists are currently willing to pay up to some 3000 euros per pair. While this species is protected in their home country, it is to date not included in the CITES appendices. This means that smugglers only have to get such animals out of Borneo. They can then be offered for sale quite openly on the European market. In the US, in contrast, trade in species that are not included in the CITES appendices but are protected in their home countries is also forbidden. "The EU is currently discussing the introduction of a similar regulation", says Mark Auliya. "That would be a step into the right direction."

Further information

• Mark Auliya et al. (2016): Trade in live reptiles, its impact on wild populations, and the role of the European market. Biological Conservation, Online-Ausgabe, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320716301987
• Further information & original press release (UFZ website)
• UFZ is a member of ALTER-Net

The European LTER community wishes to identify the future research needs and related infrastructure & service requirements in order to enable appropriate planning and design of the infrastructure (the research sites, etc.)

Therefore, the current flagship project for the development of LTER in Europe, the eLTER Horizon 2020 project, is conducting a horizon scanning to identify emerging research questions that may become relevant for future ecosystem research infrastructure development. This survey aims at collecting input from experts from different regions and fields of expertise.

You can find the short survey and links to background documents here. The closing date is 23 May 2016.

The Natura 2000 Communication Platform is maintained by ALTER-Net partner ECNC-European Centre for Nature Conservation, with assistance from two other ALTER-Net partners (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and ILE-SAS) and other consortium partners (Arcadis Belgium and Aspen International), under contract to the European Commission.

A full conference website with an online registration facility will go live by 31 January 2016.

Network representatives are requested to kindly circulate the call and to give it prominence on their websites.

Check out the Expert-in-training programme enabling trainees to develop and strengthen their taxonomic research skills through on-the-job-training and the Modern Taxonomy programme offering intensive theoretical courses in various subjects.

For course registration deadlines see the DEST website.

Applicants should hold a doctoral degree in physics, chemistry, microbiology, geosciences, environmental sciences or a related field of science. They should be familiar with modelling biogeochemical interactions between ecosystems and capable to further develop existing numerical ecosystem models. Programming skills (C) and modelling experience are therefore mandatory. Knowledge of R and of Unix/Linux environment will be an advantage. The candidate should have good written and oral communication skills. For work, good skills in the English language will be essential.

The project

Terrestrial and marine ecosystems are connected through groundwater, river discharge and nutrient outflows (especially N and P). River catchments in the Mediterranean are N-intensive regions, mostly due to intensive agriculture in the North and to crop N₂ fixation or food & feed import in the South. The fraction of nutrient reaching the sea constitutes significant anthropogenic forcing of many marine biological processes. For simulating the dynamics of the first levels of the marine food web (from nutrients to jellyfishes), the ocean biogeochemical model, Eco3M-MED, used and developed by the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography (MIO) within OT-Med, currently uses N and P measurements at river mouths, e.g. for the Rhône.

In order to estimate the impacts of global change on the functioning of marine ecosystems, the project aims at modeling the dependency of N and P outflows to the Mediterreanean sea toward land management. Land management is modelled as part of the agro-ecosystem model LPJmL (Bondeau et al., 2007), that has been especially adapted to the Mediterranean cropping systems (Fader et al., 2015). Among others, LPJmL simulates the daily carbon and water cycles, and the river discharges to the sea. Following existing approaches in the scientific literature, the post-doc will implement the nutrient N and P transfer in LPJmL, covering the net nutrient inputs to the river catchments by accounting for the processes occurring at the agro-ecosystem level (N₂ biological fixation, fertilization, atmospheric deposition) and the net food and feed imports. Since only a minor fraction of the net nutrient inputs from Mediterranean basins reaches the sea, the retention along the nutrient cascade will have to be added to the LPJmL river routing scheme, similarly to the method used by the Riverstrahler model. Once the nutrient transfers have been introduced into LPJmL, simulations will be validated using current climate and land use forcing for comparisons with the existing observations from river outlets. Finally, future conditions will be assessed by using the model with scenarios of changing regional climate and land use / land management.

Your application

Applications should contain a suitable motivation letter describing your anticipated role in the project, a CV, a list of scientific publications and the names of at least two scientists that can be contacted for references. They must be sent to Ms. Gabriela Boéri ([email protected]). Please prepare your application as a single file in pdf-format.

Questions about the project or the position can be directed to Dr. Alberte Bondeau ([email protected]). The position will be filled as soon as a suitable candidate has been found – work should start soon after that date. The salary and contract conditions will be determined according to standards set by Aix-Marseille University – questions in this regard can be directed to Sophie Pekar ([email protected]).

ALTER-Net Summer Schools have been running since 2006 and offer students a unique opportunity to learn about current issues in biodiversity and ecosystem services. Open to young graduate and post-graduate scientists from both within and outside the network partners, the Summer School provides an innovative atmosphere for thinking about and resolving the sustainability challenges that society is currently facing. Our Summer School aims at contributing to the durable integration and spread of excellence within and beyond the network, with a view to promoting interdisciplinary approaches.

You can follow the Summer School on Social media:

Twitter - hashtag #ALTERNetSummerSchool

Facebook - visit the 10th Summer School Facebook page

Photoblog - watch out for photo posts by students, tutors and speakers on WordPress blog site.

eLTER is a major project that will help advance the development of European Long-Term Ecosystem Research infrastructures. It brings together the existing LTER-Europe network of research sites and European Critical Zone Observatories (CZO). 162 sites in 22 countries will provide data on long-term trends in environmental change. Test cases using these data will address a range of environmental and social issues to push innovation in network level services and steer conceptual developments.

eLTER has 28 partners, It is being led by ALTER-Net partner the Austrian Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt), and also involves these ALTER-Net members: SYKE (Finland), CNRS (France), UFZ (Germany), MI-PAN-ERCE (Poland), SLU (Sweden), NERC-CEH (UK), INBO (Belgium), MTA-OK (Hungary), UNIBUC (Romania), ILE-SAS (Slovakia), CSIC (Spain)

To find out more, visit http://www.lter-europe.net/projects/eLTER. You can also stay in touch via Twitter and/or  e-newsletter:

@eLTER_EU

The researchers are preparing a strategic paper with the tentative title "Mountains for Europe’s Future", which should be ready by early 2016. This will be presented at the Roundtable "Key research themes for European mountains" at the "Mountains of our Future Earth Conference" at Perth in October 2015, and then fed into the Horizon 2020 consultation process to influence the 2018-2019 work programmes.

The group are also asking people with an interest in mountain research to complete a short online questionnaire by 25th June. A blog post “Mountains for Europe’s future: Putting mountains on the Horizon 2020 agenda” provides more background information about this project.