Auswahl repräsentativer Standorte zur Modellierung der Ausbreitung von gentechnisch veränderten Pflanzen in Nord-Deutschland

Goal and Scope

The use of genetically modified plants (GMP) in agriculture is increasing rapidly. While GMP in North and South America are already established an extensive cultivation in Germany is yet to come. Risk assessment on possible effects of released GMP are mainly based on empirical studies with a small spatial extent (laboratories, small-scale field trials). The joint research project ‘Generic detection and extrapolation of genetically modified rape (GenEERA)’ aimed at estimating the dispersal and persistence of genetically modified oilseed rape (Brassica napus) by the use of individual based models. The objective of the article at hand is to give a detailed account of the spatial variability of climate in Northern Germany (German Federal States of Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and Bremen Mecklenburg Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg). Based on this, a method was developed that includes both, the determination of representative oilseed rapefields for modelling the dispersal of GM oilseed rape at field scale, and the subsequent generalisation of the results to landscapes.

Data and Methods

The statistically founded selection of modelling sites was performed by a compilation of available indicators within a GIS environment which are supposed to be important for the dispersal and the persistence of oilseed rape. Meteorological data on precipitation (P), air temperature (T), and sunshine duration (S) collected at up to 1,200 monitoring sites from 1961–1990 were as well as data on wind conditions (W) aggregated multivariate-statistically by Ward cluster analysis. An ecoregionalisation was used for characterising Northern Germany ecologically. Phenological data on the start of the oil seed rape bloom differentiated in the monitoring periods 1961–1990 and 1991–1999, respectively, were regionalised by performing variogram analysis and kriging interpolation. These maps were used to select appropriate Landsat images to identify rape fields by remote sensing algorithms as well as to define the respective flowering periods for individual based modelling.

Results

The separately generated P-T-S-W-Cluster were aggregated to four homogenic climatic regions. In combination with agricultural clusters defining typical landuse patterns (crop rotation, cultivation management) eight model regions were derived which describe the climatic and agronomic variations in Northern Germany. For each of these regions a representative monitoring site was selected serving for individual based modelling. At last, the modelling results were extrapolated back to the model regions applying corresponding GIS queries.

Discussion

The generated climatic regions reflect the transition of marine climate at the North Sea to continental climate in Northeast Germany. The shift in flowering of oil seed rape coincides with other studies on phenological changes of agricultural crops and wild plants.

Conclusions

Due to the huge calculation efforts and the lack of adequate land registers it was not possible to simulate the potential dispersal of GM oil seed rape at farm scale. Thus, generalisations were used to describe the variations of relevant ecological drivers affecting the dispersal of GMP. It could be shown that the aggregation of those factors to homogenic climatic regions was a successful approximation.

Recommendations and Perspectives

Due to the limited empirical data base it is necessary to validate and substantiate the modelling results by a GMP monitoring. The EU Directive 2001/18/EC on the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms into the environment stipulates assessment of direct and indirect effects of GMP on humans and the environment by case-specific monitoring and general surveillance. It should be realised as soon as possible, since the release and the cultivation of GMP in Germany have been started, already. The monitoring should be complemented by the implementation of a web-based geoinformation system (WebGIS) which enables access to relevant geodata and monitoring data and assists in analysing possible GMP impacts.     

Developing a circumpolar programme for the monitoring of Arctic terrestrial biodiversity

The Arctic is undergoing biological and environmental changes, and a coordinated effort to monitor is critical to detect these changes. The Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Programme (CBMP) of the Arctic Council biodiversity working group, Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), has developed pan-Arctic biodiversity monitoring plans that aims to improve the ability to detect and report on long-term changes. Whilst introducing this special issue, this paper also presents the making of the terrestrial monitoring plan and discusses how the plan follows the steps required for an adaptive and ecosystem-based monitoring programme. In this article, we discuss how data on key findings can be used to inform circumpolar and global assessments, including the State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity Report, which will be the first terrestrial assessment made by the CBMP. Key findings, advice for future monitoring and lessons learned will be used in planning next steps of pan-Arctic coordinated monitoring.     

Government and biodiversity governance in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan: an institutional perspective

Over the last 15 years, Azerbaijan has doubled its protected areas territory to almost 10 % of the country’s surface area. Although the daily management of the existing strictly protected areas continues to pose a challenge, the establishment of nine national parks has been a remarkable achievement. At present, the designation of UNESCO biosphere reserves (BR) is the expressed political will of the government. By reviewing the last 25 years of nature conservation, and, in particular, the national park programme, we present an institutional analysis for integrative nature conservation in Azerbaijan. Against the cultural, social and political background, in particular the transition of the state, the challenges for cross-hierarchical governance of protected areas are outlined at the example of a BR. We find that the implementation of the UNESCO MAB philosophy, which is based on inter alia participation by administration, local communities and rural stakeholder, is hampered by this present-day political reality. The political situation and an autocratic governance scheme put successful implementation of a “model region of sustainable development” at risk. Education and empowerment are a prerequisite for eventual success; this is true for Azerbaijan as well as for other Post-Soviet countries with strong top-down regimes.     

Influence of cosolvents on quinoline sorption by subsurface materials and clays

Quinoline sorption was measured on Na-saturated subsurface materials, a natural clay isolate, and montmorillonite, and was dominated by exchange of the quinolinium ion. In water/methanol and water/acetone mixtures, quinoline sorption on the subsoils and clays was lower than from water. In cosolvent, sorption followed the ionization fraction indicating the continued predominance of ion exchange. The reduction in quinoline sorption by cosolvent was similar for all the subsoils and clays indicating commonality in the surface-solute-solvent interaction. Conditional equilibrium constants (_cK_ex) for quinoline exchange on the subsoils in water/methanol mixtures decreased log-linearly with mole percent cosolvent up to 20% methanol. This decrease closely followed the increase in quinoline solubility in the cosolvent mixtures. Acetone caused greater reduction in sorption than methanol, at comparable mole percent, in accordance with its lower dielectric constant and enhanced solvating power. A generalized thermodynamic approach based on the concept of transfer activity coefficients was developed to account for the cosolvent effect on _cK_ex, and was successfully applied to the quinoline sorption data. The thermodynamic analysis suggested that enhanced solvation of the organic cation in the bulk solvent and desolvation of Na⁺ at the charged surface predominate the cosolvent effect.     

Transitions in high-Arctic vegetation growth patterns and ecosystem productivity tracked with automated cameras from 2000 to 2013

Climate-induced changes in vegetation phenology at northern latitudes are still poorly understood. Continued monitoring and research are therefore needed to improve the understanding of abiotic drivers. Here we used 14 years of time lapse imagery and climate data from high-Arctic Northeast Greenland to assess the seasonal response of a dwarf shrub heath, grassland, and fen, to inter-annual variation in snow-cover, soil moisture, and air and soil temperatures. A late snow melt and start of growing season is counterbalanced by a fast greenup and a tendency to higher peak greenness values. Snow water equivalents and soil moisture explained up to 77 % of growing season duration and senescence phase, highlighting that water availability is a prominent driver in the heath site, rather than temperatures. We found a significant advance in the start of spring by 10 days and in the end of fall by 11 days, resulting in an unchanged growing season length. Vegetation greenness, derived from the imagery, was correlated to primary productivity, showing that the imagery holds valuable information on vegetation productivity.     

Life cycle assessment of the waste hierarchy--a Danish case study on waste paper

The waste hierarchy is being widely discussed these days, not only by cost-benefit analysts, but a growing number of life cycle assessments (LCA) have also begun to question it. In this article, we investigate the handling of waste paper in Denmark and compare the present situation with scenarios of more waste being recycled, incinerated or consigned to landfill. The investigations are made in accordance with ISO 14040-43 and based on the newly launched methodology of consequential LCA and following the recent guidelines of the European Centre on Waste and Material Flows. The LCA concerns the Danish consumption of paper in 1999, totalling 1.2 million tons. The results of the investigation indicate that the waste hierarchy is reliable; from an environmental point of view recycling of paper is better than incineration and landfilling. For incineration, the reason for the advantage of landfilling mainly comes from the substitution of fossil fuels, when incinerators provide heat and electricity. For recycling, the advantage is related to the saved wood resources, which can be used for generating energy from wood, i.e., from renewable fuel which does not contribute to global warming.     

Multicompartmental fate of persistent substances

Background, Aim and Scope Modelling of the fate of environmental chemicals can be done by relatively simple multi-media box models or using complex atmospheric transport models. It was the aim of this work to compare the results obtained for both types of models using a small set of non-ionic and non-polar or moderately polar organic chemicals, known to be distributed over long distances. Materials and Methods Predictions of multimedia exposure models of different types, namely three multimedia mass-balance box models (MBMs), two in the steady state and one in the non-steady state mode, and one non-steady state multicompartment chemistry-atmospheric transport model (MCTM), are compared for the first time. The models used are SimpleBox, Chemrange, the MPI-MBM and the MPI-MCTM. The target parameters addressed are compartmental distributions (i.e. mass fractions in the compartments), overall environmental residence time (i.e. overall persistence and eventually including other final sinks, such as loss to the deep sea) and a measure for the long-range transport potential. These are derived for atrazine, benz-[a]-pyrene, DDT, α and γ-hexachlorocyclohexane, methyl parathion and various modes of substance entry into the model world. Results and Discussion Compartmental distributions in steady state were compared. Steady state needed 2–10 years to be established in the MCTM. The highest fraction of the substances in air is predicted by the MCTM. Accordingly, the other models predict longer substance persistence in most cases. The results suggest that temperature affects the compartmental distribution more in the box models, while it is only one among many climate factors acting in the transport model. The representation of final sinks in the models, e.g. burial in the sediment, is key for model-based compartmental distribution and persistence predictions. There is a tendency of MBMs to overestimate substance sinks in air and to underestimate atmospheric transport velocity as a consequence of the neglection of the temporal and spatial variabilities of these parameters. Therefore, the long-range transport potential in air derived from MCTM simulations exceeds the one from Chemrange in most cases and least for substances which undergo slow degradation in air. Conclusions and Perspectives MBMs should be improved such as to ascertain that the significance of the atmosphere for the multicompartmental cycling is not systematically underestimated. Both types of models should be improved such as to cover degradation in air in the particle-bound state and transport via ocean currents. A detailed understanding of the deviations observed in this work and elsewhere should be gained and multimedia fate box models could then be ‘tuned in’ to match better the results of comprehensive multicompartmental transport models. ESS-Submission Editor: Prof. Dr. Michael Matthies (matthies@uos.de)     

Bestimmung von Mineralölkohlenwasserstoffen in Bodenproben mit Hilfe der Dünnschichtchromatographie

A thin-layer chromatographic method for the determination of mineral oil hydrocarbons (aliphatic compounds and naphtenes) of medium and low volatility in soil samples is presented which is based on their separation and quantitative determination. The extraction of the soil samples is effected by means of an n-hexane-acetone mixture (10∶1) supported by ultrasonics. The evaluation can be made visually or densitometrically by means of a thin-layer scanner. The applicability and restrictions of the method are shown. The advantage of the method lies in its low requirements pertaining to apparatus and chemicals, as well as in its rapidness which makes it suitable for quick in-situ analyses as, for example, for the assessment of the mineral oil content of a contaminated site.     

Bioindikation mit Wanderfalken

Goal and Scope

The Stockholm convention bans 12 prominent persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and the pertinent global monitoring programme recommends birds’ eggs as bio-indicators for the terrestrial food web. As top predators, Peregrine falcons are uniquely suited indicators because of their accumulating power for persistent and lipophilic compounds. On the other hand, the Peregrine falcon as a sentinel species was closer to extinction than other birds of prey. Only unremitting efforts of private omithologists throughout the past four decades in conjunction with the timely banning of organochlorine pesticides like DDT succeeded in saving the Peregrine population of Baden-Wueriternberg from extinction, in contrast to the Peregrine falcons of other German states or other European countries.

Methods

See vd Trenck et al. (2006).

Results and Conclusions

New results confirm the findings of the past long-term bio-monitoring. The main pollutants are PCBs (ca. 20 μg/g) and pp′-DDE (ca. 11 μg/g), the latter contributing >96% of all organochlorine pesticide residues (all concentrations on a dry matter basis). Both substances have followed a slightly increasing trend since 2004. The sum of the polychlorinated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) has fluctuated strongly in the past four years, and in 2006 amounted to 0.6 μg/g (mean without outliers), just as the mercury contamination of the eggs. PCB-156 as the main dioxin-like PCB followed with an average concentration of 0.35 μg/g. Only 10 out of 23 eggs analysed contained hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) in measurable concentrations; the mean concentration of these eggs was 0.024 μg/g. Tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBA) was detected in all egg samples with a mean of 0.004 μg/g. Due to the many and diverse effects exerted by PCBs; the assessment of this group of compounds, with the aid of European and German regulations for food, proves to be a complex matter, which is currently in a state of flux. There is no doubt, however, that the mean pollution of the Peregrine eggs with toxic dioxin equivalents (WHO TEQ) has reached the no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) known for chickens and osprey chicks, and the most polluted eggs exceed this threshold considerably. The toxic profile of PBDEs is similar to that of PCBs. They are known to promote tumour growth, to interfere with the thyroid hormone system resulting in toxicity for the neuronal development, to suppress the immune system, and to trigger stress reactions. Tests with highly purified BDE-47 have ruled out dioxin-like effects via Ah-receptor binding for this congener and such effects are therefore very unlikely for the whole class of compounds. At the present time, quantitative criteria for the assessment of the risk posed by PBDEs are not sufficiently reliable, and less so for HBCD and TBBA.

Recommendations and Perspectives

It is necessary to continue the bio-monitoring of POPs and similar pollutants in the terrestrial food web and to establish NOAELs as quantitative criteria for their assessment. Possible sources of dioxin-like PCBs and PCDD/Fs are to be pinpointed, and abatement measures are to be considered where background concentrations are significantly exceeded.