Naturschutzberatung für den Ökologischen Landbau - Entwicklung und Optimierung von Beratungsansätzen für die Integration von Naturschutzzielen auf Biohöfen

Ziel des Projekts „Naturschutzberatung für den Ökologischen Landbau – Entwicklung und Optimierung von Beratungsansätzen für die Integration von Naturschutzzielen auf Biohöfen“ war, bundesweit Aktivitäten zur Einrichtung einzelbetrieblicher Naturschutzberatung für Biobetriebe zu unterstützen und weiterzuentwickeln. Das Projekt stand als Impulsgeber und Ansprechpartner für initiative Akteure (Behördenvertreter, Ökolandbauverbände, Beratungsinstitutionen …) zur bundesländer-spezifischen Einrichtung einzelbetrieblicher Beratungsansätze für Biobetriebe zur Verfügung. Die im Rahmen des Projektes eingerichtete Website www.naturschutzberatung.info und ein Newsletter unterstützten die Vernetzung der Akteure und den Informationsaustausch. Seit November 2001 gibt es in Norddeutschland eine Naturschutzberatung für ökologisch wirtschaftende Betriebe. Diese Beratung ergänzt die bestehende anbautechnisch und betriebswirtschaftlich orientierte Spezialberatung und unterstützt Landwirte, die Naturschutzmaßnahmen umsetzen wollen von der Ideenfindung bis zur Planung und Umsetzung. Das Ziel, bundesweit dem Konzept Einzelbetrieblicher Naturschutzberatung für den Ökolandbau zum Durchbruch zu verhelfen, konnte im Projekt trotz verschiedenster Bemühungen nicht zum Erfolg geführt werden. Als hinderlich bei der Etablierung weiterer Beraterstellen erweist sich die starke Kürzung von Mitteln aus der „2. Säule“ im Kontext der EU-Agrarpolitik. Dennoch konnten Teilerfolge erzielt werden; in Nordrhein-Westfalen wurde eine Beraterstelle nach niedersächsischem Vorbild etabliert. Neben der Unterstützung von Initiativen und Einzelpersonen in ganz Deutschland, die über die Projektlaufzeit hinaus in der Thematik aktiv sind, sind in Thüringen und Rheinland-Pfalz Elemente des Einzelbetrieblichen Naturschutzberatungs-Konzepts in neue Landesprogramme eingeflossen, die derzeit umgesetzt werden. Auch das durch die Projektaktivitäten initiierte „Netzwerk Naturschutzberatung“ hat sich etabliert und wird über die Projektlaufzeit hinaus als Austauschforum und Kontaktbörse Bestand haben

Landschaftsentwicklung auf den Bauckhöfen (Niedersachsen)

The study deals with the historical development and today’s appearance of landscape on the three bio-dynamic Bauck-Farms in the Lüneburger Heide-region. In the past 50 years responsible people in charge on the farms conducted a determined rural devel-opment on the farmland. The results of these efforts and the motives of six persons in charge were investigated. In a territory where hedgerows are not very common, 49 hedges where planted within arable fields and the forests were changed from pine tree-monocultures into mixed stands of different tree species. The three leading mo-tives found are a “feeling of being responsible for the countryside”, “following impulses of Rudolf Steiner’s agricultural course” and “to strive for an ecological balance that can be estimated as being beneficial”

Time-dependent performance approximation of truck handling operations at an air cargo terminal

This paper provides an analytical solution for the time-dependent performance evaluation of truck handling operations at an air cargo terminal. The demand for loading and unloading operations is highly time-dependent and stochastic for two classes of trucks. Two heterogeneous handling facilities with multiple servers are available to handle trucks assuming exponentially distributed processing times. Trucks are routed to a handling facility depending on the current state of the system upon arrival. To approximate the time-dependent behavior of such heterogeneous queueing systems, we develop a stationary backlog-carryover (SBC) approach. A numerical study compares this approach with simulations and demonstrates its applicability to real-world input data

Assessing long-term effects of artificial light at night on insects: what is missing and how to get there

Widespread and significant declines of insect population abundances and biomass are currently one of the most pressing issues in entomology, ecology and conservation biology. It has been suggested that artificial light at night is one major driver behind this trend. Recent advances in the gathering and analysis of long-term data sets of insect population and biomass trends, however, have mostly focused on the effects of climate change and agricultural intensification. We posit here that adequate assessment of artificial night at light that would be required to evaluate its role as a driver of insect declines is far from trivial. Currently its implementation into entomological monitoring programmes and long-running ecological experiments is hampered by several challenges that arise due to (i) its relatively late appearance as a biodiversity threat on the research agenda and (ii) the interdisciplinary nature of the research field where biologists, physicists and engineers still need to develop a set of standardised assessment methods that are both biologically meaningful and easy to implement. As more studies that address these challenges are urgently needed, this article aims to provide a short overview of the few existing studies that have attempted to investigate longer-term effects of artificial light at night on insect populations. To improve the quality and relevance of studies addressing artificial light at night and its effect on insects, we present a set of best practise recommendations where this field needs to be heading in the coming years and how to achieve it

Scientific names of organisms : attribution, rights, and licensing

© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in BMC Research Notes 7 (2014): 79, doi:10.1186/1756-0500-7-79.As biological disciplines extend into the ‘big data’ world, they will need a names-based infrastructure to index and interconnect distributed data. The infrastructure must have access to all names of all organisms if it is to manage all information. Those who compile lists of species hold different views as to the intellectual property rights that apply to the lists. This creates uncertainty that impedes the development of a much-needed infrastructure for sharing biological data in the digital world. The laws in the United States of America and European Union are consistent with the position that scientific names of organisms and their compilation in checklists, classifications or taxonomic revisions are not subject to copyright. Compilations of names, such as classifications or checklists, are not creative in the sense of copyright law. Many content providers desire credit for their efforts. A ‘blue list’ identifies elements of checklists, classifications and monographs to which intellectual property rights do not apply. To promote sharing, authors of taxonomic content, compilers, intermediaries, and aggregators should receive citable recognition for their contributions, with the greatest recognition being given to the originating authors. Mechanisms for achieving this are discussed