Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit in München

In diesem Bericht werden zentrale Ergebnisse einer im Frühjahr 2013 unter 1139 Münchner Haushalten durchgeführten Befragung zum Thema Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit präsentiert. Untersucht wurden die Elemente Frauenfeindlichkeit (Sexismus), Antisemitismus, Zustimmung zum Nationalsozialismus/deutsche Überlegenheit und die Abwertung von Homosexuellen, Langzeitarbeitslosen, Obdachlosen, Behinderten, Ausländern und Muslimen. Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit ist auch in München in allen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen ein verbreitetes Phänomen, insbesondere die Abwertung von Muslimen, Langzeitarbeitslosen und Obdachlosen. Männer neigen stärker zu abwertenden Einstellungen als Frauen. Kontakt zu den betroffenen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen verringert, eine starke Identifikation mit Deutschland und politische Desillusionierung erhöhen die gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit. Deprivation, Desintegration und Sozialisation tragen laut den vorliegenden Daten in dieser Studie kaum zur Erklärung von gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit bei. Maßnahmen gegen gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit sollten sich daher an ein breites Bevölkerungsspektrum richten

Time since establishment drives bee and hoverfly diversity, abundance of crop-pollinating bees and aphidophagous hoverflies in perennial wildflower strips

Wildflower strips (WFS) are amongst the most commonly applied measures to promote pollinators and natural enemies of crop pests in agroecosystems. Their potential to enhance these functionally important insect groups may vary substantially with time since establishment of WFS. However, knowledge on their temporal dynamics remains scarce, hampering recommendations for optimized design and management. We therefore examined temporal dynamics of taxonomic and functional groups of bees and hoverflies in perennial WFS ranging from one to ≥6 years since sowing with a standardized species-rich seed mixture of flowering plants in 18 agricultural landscapes in Switzerland. The abundance of wild bees, honeybees and hoverflies declined after the second year by 89%, 62% and 72%, respectively. Declines in bee abundance and hoverfly species richness were linear and those of aphidophagous hoverflies exponential, while wild bee species richness peaked in the third year. Declines over time generally paralleled decreases in flower abundance (-83%) and flowering species richness (-61%) and an increase in grass cover (+70%) in WFS. Flowering plant species richness showed strong positive relationships with dominant crop-visiting wild bees and aphidophagous hoverflies. Furthermore, dominant crop-visiting wild bees, but not aphidophagous hoverflies, were positively related to the proportion of (semi-)open semi-natural habitat in the surrounding landscape (500 m radius), but negatively with forest. We conclude that the effectiveness of perennial WFS to promote pollinator diversity, crop-pollinating bees and aphidophagous hoverflies through foraging resources decreases after the first two to three years, probably due to a decline of diverse and abundant floral resources. Although older perennial WFS may still provide valuable nesting and overwintering opportunities for pollinators and natural enemies, our findings indicate that regular re-sowing of perennial WFS may be necessary to maintain adequate floral resource provisioning for effective pollinator conservation and promotion of crop pollination and natural pest control services in agricultural landscapes

Evaluating next-generation sequencing (NGS) methods for routine monitoring of wild bees: metabarcoding, mitogenomics or NGS barcoding

Implementing cost-effective monitoring programs for wild bees remains challenging due to the high costs of sampling and specimen identification. To reduce costs, next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based methods have lately been suggested as alternatives to morphology-based identifications. To provide a comprehensive presentation of the advantages and weaknesses of different NGS-based identification methods, we assessed three of the most promising ones, namely metabarcoding, mitogenomics and NGS barcoding. Using a regular monitoring data set (723 specimens identified using morphology), we found that NGS barcoding performed best for both species presence/absence and abundance data, producing only few false positives (3.4%) and no false negatives. In contrast, the proportion of false positives and false negatives was higher using metabarcoding and mitogenomics. Although strong correlations were found between biomass and read numbers, abundance estimates significantly skewed the communities' composition in these two techniques. NGS barcoding recovered the same ecological patterns as morphology. Ecological conclusions based on metabarcoding and mitogenomics were similar to those based on morphology when using presence/absence data, but different when using abundance data. In terms of workload and cost, we show that metabarcoding and NGS barcoding can compete with morphology, but not mitogenomics which was consistently more expensive. Based on these results, we advocate that NGS barcoding is currently the seemliest NGS method for monitoring of wild bees. Furthermore, this method has the advantage of potentially linking DNA sequences with preserved voucher specimens, which enable morphological re-examination and will thus produce verifiable records which can be fed into faunistic databases

Seed set of strawberry fruits

Seed set of strawberry fruits adjacent to wildflower strips and control strips

Pollinator abundance in wildflower strips and at adjacent strawberry fields

Abundance data of the most important pollinator groups in Wildflower strips and at adjacent strawberry crop field

Data from: Wildflower strips enhance pollination in adjacent strawberry crops at the small scale

Wildflower strips (WFS) are increasingly used to counteract the negative consequences of agricultural intensification. To date, it is poorly understood how WFS promote flower visitation and pollination services in nearby insect-pollinated crops. We therefore ask whether WFS enhance pollination service in adjacent strawberry crops, and how such an effect depends on the distance from WFS. Over two years we examined the effects of experimentally sown WFS compared to grassy strips on pollination services in adjacent strawberry (Fragaria ananassa) crops across a total of 19 study sites. Moreover, we examined flower visitation, species richness and community composition of the most important insect pollinator taxa at different within-field locations varying in distance to WFS. We found increased pollination services at the edge of WFS compared to locally reduced pollination services at the centre, which resulted in no significant difference in seed set between WFS and control fields. Total flower visits and species richness of pollinators were higher in WFS than in adjacent strawberry fields. Moreover, wild bee visitation was enhanced in adjacent strawberry crops near WFS compared to field centres, and intermediate at field edges near grassy strips. Our study demonstrates that diverse WFS can increase wild bee visitation and pollination services in the field edges of adjacent strawberry crops, but that overall visitation and pollination services do not increase. Moreover, our findings show that major pollinator taxa exhibit distinct responses, resulting in a shift of pollinator community composition as a function of distance to WFS with direct effects on crop pollination. Our results that WFS enhance rather than reduce crop pollination services near WFS should distract possible concerns by farmers that WFS may locally absorb rather than export crop pollinators. Considering the spatial restricted enhancement of wild bees and associated pollination services we suggest to establish WFS in the centre of crop fields

Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit in München

In diesem Bericht werden zentrale Ergebnisse einer im Frühjahr 2013 unter 1139 Münchner Haushalten durchgeführten Befragung zum Thema Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit präsentiert. Untersucht wurden die Elemente Frauenfeindlichkeit (Sexismus), Antisemitismus, Zustimmung zum Nationalsozialismus/deutsche Überlegenheit und die Abwertung von Homosexuellen, Langzeitarbeitslosen, Obdachlosen, Behinderten, Ausländern und Muslimen. Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit ist auch in München in allen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen ein verbreitetes Phänomen, insbesondere die Abwertung von Muslimen, Langzeitarbeitslosen und Obdachlosen. Männer neigen stärker zu abwertenden Einstellungen als Frauen. Kontakt zu den betroffenen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen verringert, eine starke Identifikation mit Deutschland und politische Desillusionierung erhöhen die gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit. Deprivation, Desintegration und Sozialisation tragen laut den vorliegenden Daten in dieser Studie kaum zur Erklärung von gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit bei. Maßnahmen gegen gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit sollten sich daher an ein breites Bevölkerungsspektrum richten

Local and landscape drivers of arthropod diversity and decomposition processes in oil palm leaf axils

Oil palm expansion results in a loss of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. However, there are factors that influence the severity of these impacts and enhancing biodiversity within plantations is important. In the present study, we examined the role of epiphytes for supporting arthropod communities in oil palm plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia. We considered the effects of landscape context and local characteristics (epiphyte cover, herbicide use and local microclimate) on arthropod communities and litter decomposition in oil palm leaf axils. We surveyed arthropods and measured decomposition rates at two different heights on 80 oil palms located at the centre and edge of eight plantations. We found that oil palms at the edge of plantations hosted a higher abundance and more arthropod taxa than oil palms in the centre of plantations. Moreover, organic matter mass and height of the leaf axil were important for arthropod communities, and the decomposition rate was negatively related to ant abundance. However, epiphyte cover did not influence arthropod communities. The results of the present study show that leaf axils with more organic matter and at a higher location on the oil palm promote arthropod biodiversity. Furthermore, oil palm plantations adjacent to different land-use systems have enhanced biodiversity

MB raw data

Barcodes and primer sequences are available in the mapping file formatted for QIIME1