Landklif

Main aims

Biodiversity is threatened by two main factors: climate and land use change. However, it is still not clear how climate change will affect biodiversity and associated ecosystem services in functionally different landscape types (natural, agricultural and urban areas), and whether biodiversity can increase the resilience of ecosystems to climate change. This knowledge gap will be addressed by the Bavarian research alliance Landklif, funded by the Free State of Bavaria. The project investigates (1) how climatic gradients and landscape composition and configuration affect biodiversity and ecosystem services, (2) whether effects of climatic conditions and land use interact, and (3) whether biodiversity at the population, community and landscape level improves the resilience of ecosystems to climate change and extreme climatic events. Results will be translated into pertinent landscape management strategies and action plans to mitigate (and adapt to) climate change. This project will therefore contribute to nature conservation and the preservation of ecosystem services in the region, potentially improving the ecological, economic and social resistance of Bavaria to climate change.

Subproject 2: Impacts of climate change on functional diversity, prioritization of conservation areas and decomposer communities

This subprojet focuses on biomass, taxonomic and functional diversity of arthropods across Bavaria based on the Library Barcoding Fauna Bavarica. This will be complemented by detailed investigations on decomposer communities of wood, dung and carcasses. These data will first time open the avenue for modelling functional arthropod diversity, as well as invasive and threatened species in a spatially explicit model with predictors from land-use and climate. Disentangling land use and climate allows further to forecast changes in climate and land use strategies in Bavaria. In specific, the subproject will focus in details on the decomposer and their ecosystem functions under different climate and land use conditions. Adding field and lab experiments will help to quantify the contribution of this guild under future climate conditions. The results will provide the baseline for improved strategies not only in land use management but also in conservation strategies in urban, agricultural and forest dominated landscapes.

Duration

2018 onwards

Funding

Free State of Bavaria

Links

bayklif

University of Würzburg - Joint Projects