•We evaluated the role of two garden types for habitat connectivity for hedgehogs.•Private gardens contribute most, but allotment gardens occupy key locations.•Gardens should play a bigger role in ...green infrastructure plans.•Circuit-theory based modeling is a valuable tool for green infrastructure planning.
Preserving and expanding green infrastructure (GI) is key to biodiversity conservation in cities, but a significant share of urban land is commonly underutilized in GI plans: gardens. This is despite the fact that gardens can support diverse wildlife communities by providing habitat and by functioning as corridors. In this article, we apply circuit theory-based modeling in order to quantify the contribution of two types of gardens to connectivity in the city of Braunschweig, Germany: private gardens and allotment gardens. We ran four permeability scenarios: 1.) all green spaces including private and allotment gardens are permeable; 2.) private gardens are non-permeable; 3.) allotment gardens are non-permeable; 4.) only public green spaces but no gardens are permeable. We based our modeling on the European hedgehog (Erinaceuseuropaeus), a common, relatively well-understood and well-liked urban species. Observations by citizen scientists were used for a plausibility analysis and interpreting the results. Our results confirm the importance of gardens for providing habitat and connectivity. The overall landscape permeability to the movement of hedgehogs would decrease by 75% and the area of core habitats would decline by 63% without private and allotment gardens. While private gardens contribute most to landscape connectivity, some allotment gardens occupy key areas for the overall connectivity in the city. In conclusion, circuit theory-based modeling is a promising tool for urban GI planning and the output of those models can inform decision makers and gardeners.
What's on the horizon for macroecology? Beck, Jan; Ballesteros-Mejia, Liliana; Buchmann, Carsten M. ...
Ecography (Copenhagen),
August 2012, Letnik:
35, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Over the last two decades, macroecology — the analysis of large-scale, multi-species ecological patterns and processes — has established itself as a major line of biological research. Analyses of ...statistical links between environmental variables and biotic responses have long and successfully been employed as a main approach, but new developments are due to be utilized. Scanning the horizon of macroecology, we identified four challenges that will probably play a major role in the future. We support our claims by examples and bibliographic analyses. 1) Integrating the past into macroecological analyses, e.g. by using paleontological or phylogenetic information or by applying methods from historical biogeography, will sharpen our understanding of the underlying reasons for contemporary patterns. 2) Explicit consideration of the local processes that lead to the observed larger-scale patterns is necessary to understand the fine-grain variability found in nature, and will enable better prediction of future patterns (e.g. under environmental change conditions). 3) Macroecology is dependent on large-scale, high quality data from a broad spectrum of taxa and regions. More available data sources need to be tapped and new, small-grain large-extent data need to be collected. 4) Although macroecology already lead to mainstreaming cutting-edge statistical analysis techniques, we find that more sophisticated methods are needed to account for the biases inherent to sampling at large scale. Bayesian methods may be particularly suitable to address these challenges. To continue the vigorous development of the macroecological research agenda, it is time to address these challenges and to avoid becoming too complacent with current achievements.
•Spatial distribution of cold-air paths was estimated using machine learning.•Models were estimated for three German cities with different topography and land use.•Most important predictors for ...cold-air paths distribution were analyzed.•Model transferability from a training city to the other study cities was tested.
Ensuring the transport of colder air masses from rural surroundings or inner urban open spaces into the dense urban center is a vital approach for reducing nocturnal warming of urban areas in summer, i.e. the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Hence, cold-air paths are an important mitigation aspect in urban planning. The identification of cold-air paths by field measurements, however, is time-consuming and it is difficult to cover larger spatial domains (e.g. entire cities). Therefore, we used a machine learning technique, boosted regression trees (BRT), for estimating the spatial distribution of cold-air paths in three German cities (Braunschweig, Freiburg, Stuttgart). We identified the most important predictor variables for cold-air path occurrence and tested the spatial transferability of BRT models from one training city to the other study cities.
Three variables explaining differences in surface elevation indicated strongest influence on spatial distribution of cold-air paths: relative surface elevation, topographic position index, and topographic wind index. We achieved predictions for the spatial distribution of cold-air paths for cities the model was trained on, resulting in model performances of 0.85 < AUC < 0.96 (AUC: area under the receiver operating characteristic curve). Model transfers to other cities, however, achieved only poor to moderate results (0.5 < AUC < 0.8). The city of Freiburg tended to be the most suitable basis for a general model, since it covers the largest range of conditions. Transfer works best for ‘similar’ cities, i.e. cities with a comparable range of predictor variables and morphological structure. Cold-air path identification via BRT modelling appeared to be a promising method delivering helpful information for urban planning.
Freshwater biodiversity underlies severe threats, mainly suffering from habitat degradation by anthropogenic land use, in particular by urbanisation. However, recent long-term studies indicate ...recovery of stream macroinvertebrate diversity due to improved water quality at least in North America and Europe. We monitored macroinverbrates at 56 urban stream sites over a 12-year period (2009–2020) in Braunschweig, a German urban district. We utilised these data to investigate spatio-temporal changes in taxon richness and assemblage structure as well as factors potentially affecting the resulting patterns. Overall taxon richness was increasing over the study period, comprising both all taxa and taxa being indicators for healthy stream conditions. 53.6% of the sites had significant positive trends becoming most eminent since 2014, despite decelerating since 2018, the beginning of an extra-ordinary dry period. Only 10.7% of the study sites had negative trends. Assemblage structure was shaped by environmental factors like stream width and water quality. Over-average taxon richness including positive trends and higher numbers of indicator taxa of healthy stream conditions was found in streams with higher flow velocity, good saprobic conditions and more natural streambed structure. In contrast, low taxon richness and predominance of tolerant taxa were found in streams with more degraded conditions. Most of the environmental conditions having positive effects on taxon richness were improved by various programs set up by the environmental authorities. We therefore conclude, if urban stressors like organic pollution and structural degradation can be mitigated by revitalisation and water quality improvement, urban streams can have good potential for increasing biodiversity and improving ecological functioning.
The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is being pursued worldwide. While energy production and consumption are to be oriented towards renewable energies, ecologically and socially ...sustainable agriculture is also a target for science and society. Due to the expansion of renewable energies, agricultural land in particular is the focus of various interest groups, from food production to energy production. In this interdisciplinary study, we show the opportunities and limits of joint synergies from the nexus of food production, energy production, energy consumption, biodiversity protection and social acceptance of renewable energies in a scenario. Biodiversity agriphotovoltaics, i.e. agriphotovoltaics in combination with biodiversity protection measures, such as flower strips, can make a valuable contribution to promoting biotope connectivity in addition to significant energy production. We show this in a GIS-based regional assessment for Lower Saxony in northern Germany. This rough spatial assessment is followed by a modelling of energy production and consumption during the cultivation of a characteristic agricultural field in the loess region of Lower Saxony. Our focus here is on the possibilities of using cable electricity or battery storage for carrying out the cultivation. In an accompanying survey of farmers regarding the use of agriphotovoltaics, we collected and evaluated their prior knowledge, experiences, and attitudes towards this technology. Finally, we show which advantages agriphotovoltaics and electrified agricultural machinery can also have for the sustainable transformation of agriculture and which challenges exist for a truly sustainable use of these technologies.
•Biodiversity agriphotovoltaics can solve the food-energy-environment trilemma.•Electrification of machines for harvest and tillage demand new machine concepts.•Sustainable renewable energies use demands improved battery storage systems.•Increase of energy-autarky motivates farmers to install agriphotovoltaics.
Aortic stenosis is a frequent valvular disease especially in elderly patients. Catheter-based valve implantation has emerged as a valuable treatment approach for these patients being either at very ...high risk for conventional surgery or even deemed inoperable. The German Aortic Valve Registry (GARY) provides data on conventional and catheter-based aortic procedures on an all-comers basis.
A total of 13 860 consecutive patients undergoing repair for aortic valve disease conventional surgery and transvascular (TV) or transapical (TA) catheter-based techniques have been enrolled in this registry during 2011 and baseline, procedural, and outcome data have been acquired. The registry summarizes the results of 6523 conventional aortic valve replacements without (AVR) and 3464 with concomitant coronary bypass surgery (AVR + CABG) as well as 2695 TV AVI and 1181 TA interventions (TA AVI). Patients undergoing catheter-based techniques were significantly older and had higher risk profiles. The stroke rate was low in all groups with 1.3% (AVR), 1.9% (AVR + CABG), 1.7% (TV AVI), and 2.3% (TA AVI). The in-hospital mortality was 2.1% (AVR) and 4.5% (AVR + CABG) for patients undergoing conventional surgery, and 5.1% (TV AVI) and AVI 7.7% (TA AVI).
The in-hospital outcome results of this registry show that conventional surgery yields excellent results in all risk groups and that catheter-based aortic valve replacements is an alternative to conventional surgery in high risk and elderly patients.
Individuals with major depression show impaired control of attention and emotions. Both processes are conceptually similar and might share common mechanisms. The current study aims to examine ...attention control and its association with cognitive emotion regulation in depression. 26 patients with a history of major depression (14 females) and 26 healthy controls (14 females) performed an emotional face-word Stroop task and a cognitive emotion regulation task while undergoing fMRI. Patients and controls showed a similar behavioral performance in both tasks. Across groups, participants who were less distracted from happy faces by the incongruent word “sadness” (Stroop task) were better at regulating their happiness (emotion regulation task). Notably, both the Stroop and emotion regulation task recruited the left supramarginal gyrus. Additionally, only patients showed a relative attentional disengagement from positive compared to negative stimuli in the Stroop task. Attention control and cognitive emotion regulation capabilities appear to be linked at both the behavioral and neural level. Shared mechanisms suggest that emotional disturbances in depression may be improved by interventions that target attention control, particularly regarding the processing of positive stimuli.
OBJECTIVES
The German Aortic Valve Registry (GARY) seeks to provide information on a real-world, all-comers basis for patients undergoing aortic valve interventions. This registry comprises patients ...undergoing the complete spectrum of transcutaneous and conventional surgical aortic valve interventions. The aim of this study was to use the GARY registry to evaluate conventional and catheter-based aortic valve interventions in several risk groups.
METHODS
A total of 13 860 consecutive patients undergoing intervention for aortic valve disease conventional aortic valve replacement (AVR) or transvascular/transapical TAVR (TV-/TA-TAVR) were enrolled in 78 German centres in 2011. Baseline, procedural and outcome data, including quality of life, were acquired up to 1 year post-intervention. Vital status at 1 year was known for 98.1% of patients.
RESULTS
The 1-year mortality rate was 6.7% for conventional AVR patients (n = 6523) and 11.0% for patients who underwent AVR with coronary artery bypass grafting (n = 3464). The 1-year mortality rate was 20.7 and 28.0% in TV- and TA-TAVR patients, respectively (n = 2695 and 1181). However, if patients were stratified into four risk groups by means of the EuroSCORE and the German AV Score, the highest risk cohorts showed the same mortality at 1 year with either therapy. More than 80% of patients in all groups were in the same or better state of health at 1 year post-intervention and were satisfied with the procedural outcome.
CONCLUSIONS
Conventional AVR surgery yields excellent results after 1 year in lower-risk patients. Catheter-based AVR is a good alternative in high-risk and elderly patients.
People may be exposed to questing Ixodes ricinus ticks in urban settings, e.g. residential gardens. Little is known about the garden characteristics that support a tick population. To determine which ...features in and around residential gardens support or limit the occurrence and abundance of questing I. ricinus ticks, we sampled them in residential gardens in the Braunschweig region that differed in various intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. We recorded the number of questing nymphal and adult ticks on transects, and by using mixed-effects generalized linear regression models, we related their occurrence and abundance to garden characteristics, meteorological covariates, and landscape features in the vicinity. We detected questing I.
ricinus ticks in about 90% of the 103 surveyed gardens. Our occurrence model (marginal R
2
= 0.31) predicted the highest probability of questing ticks on transects with hedges or groundcover in gardens, which are located in neighborhoods with large proportions of forest. The abundance of questing ticks was similarly influenced. We conclude that I.
ricinus ticks are frequent in residential gardens in Northern Germany and likely associated with intrinsic garden characteristics on a small scale, such as hedges, as well as extrinsic factors on a local scale, such as the proportion of nearby woodland.
Land consumption through expansive urbanization is a major obstacle towards sustainable development. In reaction, sustainability strategies and goals on national, supranational and global scale ...frequently include the target of slowing land consumption. The success of such strategies and goals is commonly measured with indicators that track the conversion of open space (e.g., forests and farmland) into built-up space. A process generally hidden from such indicators is the loss of pervious surface at the fine scale within residential areas, but evidence from case studies suggests that this process can be quite substantial. In this article, we studied this phenomenon from a slightly different angle by comparing the anticipated and actual impervious surface of residential areas. In order to do so, we compared development plans (i.e., the legally binding documents that steer building in Germany) with the actual implementation. We selected eight development plans of low-density (single-family) housing (PLAN), which were digitized along with the actual implementation visible on 2016 orthophotos (STATUS QUO). All sites but one showed a relative increase between 8 and 56% of impervious surface from PLAN to STATUS QUO. We then modelled the environmental impacts of these changes, using the local water balance as an illustrative example. For all sites with an increase of impervious cover, infiltration rates decreased by 4 to 19%, evaporation rates increased by 0.2 to 1% and surface runoff increased by 4 to 18%. The more impervious surface, the stronger the effect, but it also depended on soil type and modelled rain intensity. Our results point to a gap between planning and real-world outcomes and they underline the environmental consequences, illustrated by effects on the water balance. In order to prevent hidden urbanization, we suggest that more emphasis should be put on integrated sustainable design and monitoring of the real-world results.
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