MODELKEY. Models for assessing and forecasting the impact of environmental key pollutants on freshwater and marine ecosystems and biodiversity (5 pp)

BACKGROUND: Triggered by the requirement of Water Framework Directive for a good ecological status for European river systems till 2015 and by still existing lacks in tools for cause identification of insufficient ecological status MODELKEY (http:// www.modelkey.org), an Integrated Project with 26 partners from 14 European countries, was started in 2005. MODELKEY is the acronym for 'Models for assessing and forecasting the impact of environmental key pollutants on freshwater and marine ecosystems and biodiversity'. The project is funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme. OBJECTIVES: MODELKEY comprises a multidisciplinary approach aiming at developing interlinked tools for an enhanced understanding of cause-effect-relationships between insufficient ecological status and environmental pollution as causative factor and for the assessment and forecasting of the risks of key pollutants on fresh water and marine ecosystems at a river basin and adjacent marine environment scale. New modelling tools for risk assessment including generic exposure assessment models, mechanistic models of toxic effects in simplified food chains, integrated diagnostic effect models based on community patterns, predictive component effect models applying artificial neural networks and GIS-based analysis of integrated risk indexes will be developed and linked to a user-friendly decision support system for the prioritisation of risks, contamination sources and contaminated sites. APPROACH: Modelling will be closely interlinked with extensive laboratory and field investigations. Early warning strategies on the basis of sub-lethal effects in vitro and in vivo are provided and combined with fractionation and analytical tools for effect-directed analysis of key toxicants. Integrated assessment of exposure and effects on biofilms, invertebrate and fish communities linking chemical analysis in water, sediment and biota with in vitro, in vivo and community level effect analysis is designed to provide data and conceptual understanding for risk arising from key toxicants in aquatic ecosystems and will be used for verification of various modelling approaches. CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVE: The developed tools will be verified in case studies representing European key areas including Mediterranean, Western and Central European river basins. An end-user-directed decision support system will be provided for cost-effective tool selection and appropriate risk and site prioritisation.     

Teil V: Das Umweltinformationssystem der Universität Osnabrück

The basis for the first energy and flow analysis of the University of Osnabrück and the resulting ecobalance was an extensive data collection, preparation and processing. To simplify drawing up the balance in the following years and to facilitate an eco-controlling based on this data, a concept for a University’s Environmental Information System (EIS) was developed. It consists of three parts: the operative level includes the data bases of the individual administrative departments; at the central data base level, the ecobalance and the environmental characteristic values are computed; and the processing and presentational level serves as an interface between the data and users. The implementation of the EIS is intended within the framework of the general Management Information System, the development of which was started in 1998.     

Umweltethik und die Realität des Umwelthandelns am Beispiel Klimaschutz

This paper discusses the discrepancy of attitude and behaviour in an environmental protection from the point of view of philosophy. Coming from the classical thesis of moral philosophy, that someone who infringes the ‘good’ has no secure knowledge, it examines how ethical arguments can contribute to get such a knowledge. The result of this study is that the logical power of persuasion alone is not able to acquire such a knowledge; and in order to obtain practical efficiency, ethical arguments should converse to emotional stratifications of personality. Based on the examination of positive feelings for nature, the paper discusses how this can happen.     

Nachweis der an Hausstaub gebundenen Innenraumbelastungen mit dem Leuchtbakterientest

The determination and assessment of mixtures of different and complex indoor pollutants is difficult. This investigation was performed in order to determine the effects of pollutants closely bound to household-dust. The approach ist not the determination of single compounds but of all pollutants (sum parameter). For this reason a new method was developed with which househould dust samples are introduced in the Microtox®-Text System to quantify the effect of pollutants. Some of the methods tested revealed good results, however, further research and investigations on the basis of the data already obtained are necessary.     

Mechanisms of nonlethal predator effect on cohort size variation: ecological and evolutionary implications

Understanding the factors responsible for generating size variation in cohorts of organisms is important for predicting their population and evolutionary dynamics. We group these factors into two broad classes: those due to scaling relationships between growth and size (size-dependent factors), and those due to individual trait differences other than size (size-independent factors; e.g., morphology, behavior, etc.). We develop a framework predicting that the nonlethal presence of predators can have a strong effect on size variation, the magnitude and sign of which depend on the relative influence of both factors. We present experimental results showing that size-independent factors can strongly contribute to size variation in anuran larvae, and that the presence of a larval dragonfly predator reduced expression of these size-independent factors. Further, a review of a number of experiments shows that the effect of this predator on relative size variation of a cohort ranged from negative at low growth rates to positive at high growth rates. At high growth rates, effects of size-dependent factors predominate, and predator presence causes an increase in the scaling of growth rate with size (larger individuals respond less strongly to predator presence than small individuals). Thus predator presence led to an increase in size variation. In contrast, at low growth rates, size-independent factors were relatively more important, and predator presence reduced expression of these size-independent factors. Consequently, predator presence led to a decrease in size variation. Our results therefore indicate a further mechanism whereby nonlethal predator effects can be manifest on prey species performance. These results have strong implications for both ecological and evolutionary processes. Theoretical studies indicate that changes in cohort size variation can have profound effects on population dynamics and stability, and therefore the mere presence of a predator could have important ecological consequences. Further, changes in cohort size variation can have important evolutionary implications through changes in trait heritability.