The CDM Applied: Handling of Names, Taxa and Concepts in a Conservation Context

One of the major design features of the Common Data Model (CDM) is the ability to store and handle taxonomic concepts (a.k.a. "potential taxa" -Berendsohn 1995 , "taxonyme" - Koperski et al. 2000, "Assertions" - Pyle 2004, "taxonomic entities" -Kennedy et al. 2005 "taxon circumscriptions", etc.). A major driver of the critical appreciation of the concept problem in databases has been the conservation community. Progress in taxonomy may rapidly erode the validity of taxon-name based species conservation information. For example, in the context of periodic publication of Red Lists the tracing of changes in the circumscription, which may directly impact the conservation status of a group of organisms. So it is not a coincidence that the Federal German Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) has been an important funder or projects aimed at further investigating and solving this problem Koperski et al. 2000, Berendsohn et al. 2003, Baumann et al. 2012). The president of the agency stated this as follows: "Information systems on plant or animal biodiversity are basic tools for effective nature conservation. .... Factual information about plants or animals are linked to their scientific name. ... when merging taxon-related information from a lot of sources we not only need to know how to handle synonymies, but also the different taxonomic concepts related to these names and the rules for transmitting factual information from one taxonomic concept to the other" (Vogtmann 2003). The problem is particularly evident when dealing with Red Lists of organisms. Since 1971 the BfN regularly publishes Red Lists, the aim is to publish those in 10-year intervals. These are lists of taxa (normally species) with data on their conservation status - including the assigned category of threat (from extinct to unproblematic), further specification of risk factors for threatened species, distribution information, Germany's responsibility for the conservation of the taxon, etc. (Binot-Hafke et al. 2009). A particularity of the German lists is that they are aiming to list all organisms, including those not (currently) threatened. The lists contain an expert assessment of trends (e.g. in population sizes etc.) that may indicate future changes in conservation status (Ludwig et al. 2009), but their editions themselves allow to compute trends over time - that is, if the taxon concept denoted by the name is stable, or if we know how concepts in both lists relate to each other. In the context of the "Red Lists 2020" project (2011-15), the German Red Lists held by the BfN have been imported into the EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy. The data are held in 3 Platform instances (databases), one for animals, one for plants and one for fungi (including lichens). Tools developed by BfN staff (G. Ludwig, pers. comm.) allowed to establish concept relations between the different editions - for example, the concepts from 8 publications (including floras) covering plants are included and inter-linked in the respective database. The BfN and the newly established German Red List Centre have decide to use the EDIT Platform to manage the taxonomy of Red Lists in Germany. A new project ("Kooperation Checklisten") will start to develop the tools for the handling of new editions of the checklists, among them a simplified checklist editor, a distribution data editor, and a concept-relation editor (including a wizard-like interface). These tools will be fully browser-based in order to allow wider participation in the editing process. Since conservation is legally a responsibility of the German states, an important issue is to trace and document not only taxon state-level distribution, but also concept differences of checklists used by the state governments against the federal list. A joint management of the taxonomy, allowing differing concepts (and legal applications of names) is seen as a means to further develop consensus about the classification of German organisms, including the necessary updates brought about by new knowledge

Can the growing of transgenic maize threaten protected Lepidoptera in Europe?

This material was first presented at the ICCB-ECCB conference in Montpellier, France, 2015.We evaluated whether protected European butterflies can potentially be at risk if transgenic maize is extensively grown in Central Europe. We explored potential consequences of both insect resistant (IR) and herbicide resistant (HR) transgenic maize. IR maize can produce pollen that is toxic to lepidopteran larvae, and this puts butterfly species at possible risk if the presence of young larvae coincides with maize flowering, during which large quantities of maize pollen can be deposited on vegetation. By considering the timing of maize flowering in Europe and the phenology of the protected Lepidoptera species, we found that 31 species had at least one generation where 50% of the larval stage overlapped with maize flowering, and 69 species for which first instar larvae were present during maize pollen shedding. HR maize allows high concentration herbicide treatments on fields without seasonal limitation, which can drastically reduce weed densities. In cases where such weed species are host plants for protected butterflies, reduced host plant/food availability can result, causing population decreases. By using published information, we first identified the important weed species in major maize-growing European countries. Subsequently, we checked whether the host plants of protected Lepidoptera included species that are common maize weeds. We identified 140 protected species having food plants that are common weeds in one or more of the major European maize-growing countries. If HR maize is grown in Europe, there is a potential hazard that their food plants will seriously decline, causing a subsequent decline of these protected species.This is a scientific output of the AMIGA Project, supported by the EC (grant agreement no. 289706).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Newly developed microsatellite markers for the pan-European duck mussel, Anodonta anatina: revisiting the main mitochondrial lineages

1. Freshwater mussels of the family Unionidae are one of the most threatened groups worldwide and have suffered severe decline over recent decades. Although the freshwater duck mussel, Anodonta anatina (Linnaeus, 1758), is still widespread, this species has shown evidence of recent declines and is already protected in some European countries. 2. Informed conservation efforts must take into account patterns in genetic diversity and phylogeography. In the present study, 20 newly developed polymorphic loci were described and tested in seven populations of A. anatina, belonging to three previously detected divergent mtDNA lineages. The genetic diversity patterns, within and among A. anatina populations, were evaluated to test their congruence with those lineages. 3. A high genetic differentiation (FST) was found among all populations, with the exception of those in Central Europe (Germany) and the UK, which were not strongly structured. 4. The present study confirms the division of the species into three evolutionarily significant units corresponding to the three previously detected mtDNA lineages, which should be managed independently. Furthermore, owing to the high differentiation among southern European populations, the establishment of distinct management units for the Guadalquivir, Guadiana and Douro populations in the Iberian Peninsula is also proposed.Financial support was provided by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) project PTDC/AAC-AMB/117688/2010.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Towards sustainable land use: identifying and managing the conflicts between human activities and biodiversity conservation in Europe

Conflicts between biodiversity conservation and human activities are becoming increasingly apparent in all European landscapes. The intensification of agricultural and silvicultural practices, land abandonment and other land uses such as recreation and hunting are all potential threats to biodiversity that can lead to conflicts between stakeholder livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. To address the global decline in biodiversity there is, therefore, a need to identify the drivers responsible for conflicts between human activities and the conservation of European biodiversity and to promote the management of these conflicts. Here, the drivers of biodiversity conflicts are analysed in a European context for five habitat types: agricultural landscapes, forests, grasslands, uplands and freshwater habitats. A multi- disciplinary approach to conflict management is described, with active stakeholder involvement at every stage of conflict identification and management as well as a range of other approaches including stakeholder dialogue and education, consumer education, improvement of political and legislative frameworks, financial incentives, and planning infrastructur