Einsatz landschaftsökologischer Regionalisierungsverfahren im terrestrischen und marinen stoffbezogenen Umweltmonitoring: Methodenvergleichende Diskussion anhand von Fallbeispielen

Die quantitative Landschaftsökologie beschäftigt sich mit der räumlichen Abgrenzung von Landschaftsstrukturen auf unterschiedlichen räumlichen Skalen sowie mit den dort beobachtbaren Wechselwirkungen zwischen der belebten und unbelebten Umwelt. Obwohl die Landschaftsökologie in ihrem Ursprung eine terrestrisch orientierte Fachdisziplin ist, sollten deren Methoden auch auf den aquatischen Bereich übertragbar sein, denn auch hier existieren in Abhängigkeit der topografischen, hydrografischen und sedimentologischen Voraussetzungen in sich homogene Lebensraumstrukturen, die man als Landschaften auffassen kann. Ein sich entwickelnder Bedarf an geeigneten planerischen Methoden und Konzepten im marinen Umweltmonitoring ergibt sich aus aktuellem Anlass: Am 17. Juni 2008 wurde die Meeresstrategie-Rahmenrichtlinie (MSRL) durch Beschluss des Europäischen Parlaments und des Rates in der Europäischen Union eingeführt. Die MSRL zielt auf eine umweltgerechte Bewirtschaftung der Meere ab und strebt die Erlangung eines Guten Umweltzustands in den europäischen Meeren bis 2020 an. Mit der Richtlinie erhöhen sich die Anforderungen an die Planung und Überwachung des Zustands der marinen Gewässer in Europa. Neben einer Anfangsbewertung der Meeresgebiete der Mitgliedsstaaten sowie der darauf aufbauenden Festlegung des Guten Umweltzustands anhand abiotischer und biotischer Merkmale und von Umweltzielen sollen auch Maßnahmen zur Erreichung dieser Ziele umgesetzt werden. Der Erfolg dieser Maßnahmen soll durch eine Überwachung des Zustands der Meeresgebiete begleitet werden. Entsprechende Monitoring-Programme sollen eine laufende Bewertung des Umweltzustands anhand chemisch-physikalischer und biologischer Merkmale zulassen. Im Hinblick auf die Planung landschaftsökologisch repräsentativer, auf die Optimierung von Suffizienz- und Effizienzkriterien ausgerichteter Umweltmessnetze in der deutschen Nordsee widmet sich vorliegende Habilitationsschrift der Überprüfung der Übertragbarkeit zweier Methoden der quantitativen Landschaftsökologie in den marinen Raum am Beispiel der deutschen Nordsee. Neben der datenbasierten Ableitung landschaftsökologischer Raumgliederungen für den erweiterten Bereich der deutschen Nordsee mittels statistischer Methoden steht dabei die für die Erfassung des Landschaftshaushalts landschaftsökologisch repräsentative Planung stoffbezogener Umweltmessnetze im Mittelpunkt.Quantitative landscape ecology is concerned with the regional classification of landscape structures on various spatial scales, including the here observed interactions between the biological and abiotic environment. Despite the fact that landscape ecology has originally been a terrestrial research field, its methods should be applicable to the aquatic environment. Depending on the prevailing topographical, hydrographical, and sedimentological conditions, homogeneous benthic habitat structures, which we may be referred to as landscapes, do exist here as well. A developing demand for adequate planning methods and concepts in the field of marine environmental monitoring ensues in the light of current events. On July 17, 2008 the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) was introduced by a resolution of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The MSFD is targeted on an environmentally sound management of European oceans and aims at achieving a Good Environmental Status (GES) for European marine waters by the year 2020. The directive increases marine planning requirements with respect to monitoring the condition of marine waters in Europe. Apart from an initial assessment of the marine areas of the member states and the ensuing determination of the GES with regard to biotic and abiotic characteristics, as well as the definition of environmental objectives, adequate measures to reach these goals shall also be implemented. The success of these measures is to be accompanied by monitoring activities with regard to the chemical, physical and biological parameters of the marine environment. The question of where to monitor is decided for and discussed within the German Marine Monitoring Programme of the federation and the federal states. Taking the extended area of the German North Sea as an example, the habilitation thesis here submitted focuses on verifying the transferability of two application areas of terrestrial quantitative landscape ecology to the marine environment in order to assist the planning of monitoring networks in Germany’s marine waters. Next to the data-based derivation of landscape ecoregionalizations by means of statistical methods, another focus is set on the landscape-ecologically representative planning of substance based environmental monitoring networks.thesi

Default versus configured-geostatistical modeling of suspended particulate matter in Potter Cove, West Antarctic Peninsula

The glacier retreat observed during the last decades at Potter Cove (PC) causes an increasing amount of suspended particulate matter (SPM) in the water column, which has a high impact on sessile filter feeder? species at PC located at the West Antarctic Peninsula. SPM presents a highly-fluctuating dynamic pattern on a daily, monthly, seasonal, and interannual basis. Geostatistical interpolation techniques are widely used by default to generate reliable spatial information and thereby to improve the ecological understanding of environmental variables, which is often fundamental for guiding decision-makers and scientists. In this study, we compared the results of default and configured settings of three geostatistical algorithms (Simple Kriging, Ordinary Kriging, and Empirical Bayesian) and developed a performance index. In order to interpolate SPM data from the summer season 2010/2011 at PC, the best performance was obtained with Empirical Bayesian Kriging (standard mean = −0.001 and root mean square standardized = 0.995). It showed an excellent performance (performance index = 0.004), improving both evaluation parameters when radio and neighborhood were configured. About 69% of the models showed improved standard means when configured compared to the default settings following a here proposed guidelineFil: Neder, Camila. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal; ArgentinaFil: Sahade, Ricardo Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal; ArgentinaFil: Abele, Doris. Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung; AlemaniaFil: Pesch, Roland. Jade University of Applied Sciences; AlemaniaFil: Jerosch, Kerstin. Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung; Alemani

Mapping correlations between nitrogen concentrations in atmospheric deposition and mosses for natural landscapes in Europe

Recent investigations proved that nitrogen (N) concentrations in mosses are primarily determined byatmospheric deposition. The correlations are country- and N compound-specific and agree well withspatial patterns and temporal trends across Europe as a whole and in single European countries. Thisstudy investigates whether correlations between the concentration of N in atmospheric deposition andmosses within the units of an ecological land classification of Europe can be established. To this end, N measurements from the 2005 European moss survey and modelled N atmospheric deposition in 2005were intersected with a map of European landscapes. Then, considering minimum numbers of samplingsites required across Europe, in single European countries and within the landscapes of Europe andaccounting for spatial auto-correlation, the correlations between the N concentration in mosses andcorresponding deposition were calculated and mapped for each of those landscape units containingmoss sampling sites. Using an example of one landscape with positive correlation and one landscape withno correlation between N concentrations in deposition and in mosses, influencing factors were rankedbased on investigating the multivariate interactions between moss concentrations and, amongst others,atmospheric deposition, land use, elevation or moss species by classification and regression trees. Fromthis study it could be concluded that the numbers of sampling sites within Europe and most participatingcountries as well as within most of the landscapes covering Europe are sufficient. Spatial patterns ofcorrelations between the atmospheric N deposition and N concentration in mosses could be provento vary across the landscapes of Europe. Where clear positive correlations between N concentrationsin deposition and mosses exist in landscapes, multivariate ranking identifies the deposition as maininfluencing factor. In cases with no correlation between deposition and N concentrations in mosses,other factors such as e.g. moss species collected may be of importance. Therefore, mosses were proved toserve as biological indicators for atmospheric depositions and ecologically defined land classes could beidentified as more complex indicators which allow relating exposure monitoring with effects assessment

Virtual network embedding for wireless sensor networks time efficient QoS/QoI aware approach

A recent trend in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is Network Virtualization to support on-demand sharing of sensing functionality. The efficient allocation of WSN resources to sensing requests is obtained using Virtual Network Embedding (VNE). This must take into account Quality of Service -QoS (e.g. reliability), Quality of Information -QoI (e.g sensing accuracy), and deal with wireless interference. With increased computational complexity due to the added constraints, finding an optimal solution can be prohibitive at scale. We developed an offline embedding algorithm that searches through all possible embeddings, which allowed us to explore the trade-off between solution quality and search time. We identify a defined set of initial processing steps that lead to high quality solutions (within 10% of best solution) in bounded time. We evaluated the algorithm under high stress (large networks with long paths, high data rates, beyond typical WSN configuration) to understand its limitations and the limitations imposed by the underlying WSN substrate

Spotlight on coarse sediments: Comparative characterization of a poorly investigated seafloor biotope in the German Bight (SE North Sea)

Extensive marine benthos surveys have resulted in a solid understanding of the broad distribution pattern of seafloor biotopes in the southeastern North Sea (temperate northeast Atlantic region). However, due to the low spatial resolution of large-scale surveys, specific smaller-scale biotopes with scattered distribution have been insufficiently captured. Consequently, knowledge regarding the environmental characteristics and species inventories of some specific biotopes is still limited. We investigated the habitat characteristics and the macroinfauna (i.e., organisms in samples collected by a sediment grab and retained in a sieve with a mesh size of 1000 μm) of a spatially restricted, patchy coarse sediment (i.e., grain size fraction >500 μm accounting for ≥60% of the total sample mass) biotope in the German Bight over three consecutive years. Habitat and faunal characteristics were contrasted with four other benthic biotopes sampled at the same time to allow for a comparative evaluation. Our study revealed considerable fluctuations in grain size distribution among samples of the coarse sediment, potentially resulting from a frequent redistribution of sediments. A total number of 243 infauna taxa were identified at the 66 stations sampled over three consecutive years (16–33 stations per year) with a considerable proportion of endangered and rare species. The results highlight that previous studies have underestimated the species richness of the biotope. The focus on this previously poorly studied biotope type allowed us to detect species in the study region that were formerly unreported. The macro-infauna in the coarse sediments was characterized by comparatively high abundance and biomass, which may provide a rich food resource for organisms from higher trophic levels. Therefore, coarse sediments likely are an ecologically valuable seafloor biotope despite its limited coverage

Distributional regression for demand forecasting in e-grocery

Ulrich M, Jahnke H, Langrock R, Pesch R, Senge R. Distributional regression for demand forecasting in e-grocery. Universität Bielefeld Working Papers in Economics and Management. Vol 09-2018. Bielefeld: Bielefeld University, Department of Business Administration and Economics; 2019.E-grocery offers customers an alternative to traditional brick-and-mortar grocery retailing. Customers select e-grocery for convenience, making use of the home delivery at a selected time slot. In contrast to brick-and-mortar retailing, in e-grocery on-stock information for stock keeping units (SKUs) becomes transparent to the customer before substantial shopping effort has been invested, thus reducing the personal cost of switching to another supplier. As a consequence, compared to brick-and-mortar retailing, on-stock availability of SKUs has a strong impact on the customer’s order decision, resulting in higher strategic service level targets for the e-grocery retailer. To account for these high service level targets, we propose a suitable model for accurately predicting the extreme right tail of the demand distribution, rather than providing point forecasts of its mean. Specifically, we propose the application of distributional regression methods— so-called Generalised Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS)—to arrive at the cost-minimising solution according to the newsvendor model. As benchmark models we consider linear regression, quantile regression, and some popular methods from machine learning. The models are evaluated in a case study, where we compare their out-of-sample predictive performance with regard to the service level selected by the e-grocery retailer considered

Site selection for biogenic reef restoration in offshore environments: The Natura 2000 area Borkum Reef Ground as a case study for native oyster restoration

1. According to the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC), marine protected areas (MPA) should contribute to a good environmental status of the Europeans seas. Measures maintaining or restoring a favourable conservation status of protected species and habitats are mandatory according to the EU Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC). 2. Identification of suitable sites for ecological restoration measures within MPAs is a crucial step towards successful conservation and sustainable MPA management. In terms of species restoration, it is important to restore the respective species with the best possible environment for growth, survival, fitness, and successful recruitment. 3. This study provides a comprehensive list of site-selection criteria for ecological species restoration. Three general categories were chosen: (1) ecological history: evidence for the historical distribution; (2) feasibility of restoration: regulating framework and logistics; and (3) environmental conditions: quality of abiotic and biotic factors. A total of 16 site-selection criteria were identified and applied to biogenic reef restoration, namely for reefs of the native European oyster Ostrea edulis, in the German Bight. 4. The Natura 2000 area Borkum Reef Ground was identified as a suitable site for oyster restoration. It is one of three MPAs in the German Exclusive Economic Zone of the North Sea, which have been declared as Nature Conservation Areas according to national legislation. The conservation objectives include maintenance or, if necessary, restoration of the habitat type ‘reefs’. As a reef-building species, the European oyster O. edulis is of particular importance for this habitat type in terms of nature conservation

Characterization and differentiation of sublittoral sandbanks in the southeastern North Sea

Marine sublittoral sandbanks are essential offshore feeding grounds for larger crustaceans, fish and seabirds. In the southern North Sea, sandbanks are characterized by considerable natural sediment dynamics and are subject to chronic bottom trawling. However, except for the Dogger Bank, sandbanks in the southeastern North Sea have been only poorly investigated until now. We used an extensive, multi-annual dataset covering ongoing national monitoring programmes, environmental impact assessments, and basic research studies to analyse benthic communities on sublittoral sandbanks, evaluating their ecological value against the backdrop of similar seafloor habitats in this region. The analysis revealed complex spatial structuring of sandy seafloor habitats of the southeastern North Sea. Different infauna clusters were identified and could be specified by their composition of characteristic species. The sandbanks shared common structural features in their infauna community composition although they were not necessarily characterized by particularly high biodiversity compared to other sandy habitats. A close association of one of the main bioturbators in the southern North Sea, the sea urchin Echinocardium cordatum, with sandbanks was detected, which may promote the sediment-bound biogeochemical activity in this particular seafloor habitat. This would corroborate the status of sandbanks as sites of high ecological value calling for consideration in marine conservation

A ‘fuzzy clustering’ approach to conceptual confusion: how to classify natural ecological associations

The concept of the marine ecological community has recently experienced renewed attention, mainly owing to a shift in conservation policies from targeting single and specific objec- tives (e.g. species) towards more integrated approaches. Despite the value of communities as dis- tinct entities, e.g. for conservation purposes, there is still an ongoing debate on the nature of spe- cies associations. They are seen either as communities, cohesive units of non-randomly associated and interacting members, or as assemblages, groups of species that are randomly associated. We investigated such dualism using fuzzy logic applied to a large dataset in the German Bight (south- eastern North Sea). Fuzzy logic provides the flexibility needed to describe complex patterns of natural systems. Assigning objects to more than one class, it enables the depiction of transitions, avoiding the rigid division into communities or assemblages. Therefore we identified areas with either structured or random species associations and mapped boundaries between communities or assemblages in this more natural way. We then described the impact of the chosen sampling design on the community identification. Four communities, their core areas and probability of occurrence were identified in the German Bight: AMPHIURA-FILIFORMIS, BATHYPOREIA-TELLINA, GONIADELLA-SPISULA, and PHORONIS. They were assessed by estimating overlap and compactness and supported by analysis of beta-diversity. Overall, 62% of the study area was characterized by high species turnover and instability. These areas are very relevant for conservation issues, but become undetectable when studies choose sampling designs with little information or at small spatial scales

A review of the influence of marine habitat classification schemes on mapping studies: inherent assumptions, influence on end products, and suggestions for future developments

The production of marine habitat maps typically relies on the use of habitat classification schemes (HCSs). The choice of which HCS to use for a mapping study is often related to familiarity, established practice, and national desires. Despite a superficial similarity, HCSs differ greatly across six key properties, namely, purpose, environmental and ecological scope, spatial scale, thematic resolution, structure, and compatibility with mapping techniques. These properties impart specific strengths and weaknesses for each HCS, which are subsequently transferred to the habitat maps applying these schemes. This review has examined seven HCSs (that are commonly used and widely adopted for national and international mapping programmes), over the six properties, to understand their influence on marine habitat mapping. In addition, variation in how mappers interpret and apply HCSs introduces additional uncertainties and biases into the final maps. Recommendations are provided for improving HCSs for marine habitat mapping as well as for enhancing the working practices of mappers using habitat classification. It is hoped that implementation of these recommendations will lead to greater certainty and usage within mapping studies and more consistency between studies and adjoining maps