München, Techn. Universiẗat, Diss., 2007.

Rebhuhn, Kiebitz, Bekassine und Braunkehlchen - diese vier Vogelarten der extensiven Kulturlandschaft sind seit den 70er Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts in Mitteleuropa und besonders in Sachsen stark im Rückgang begriffen. Sie stehen stellvertretend für viele andere Arten und Artengruppen, die in der intensiv genutzten Agrarlandschaft heute keinen Lebensraum mehr finden. Umweltschützer und Ornithologen dokumentieren seit Jahren das Artensterben im Offenland. Dies hat die Fraktion BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN im Sächsischen Landtag veranlasst, die besonders schlechte Lage im Freistaat zu einem Thema der Landespolitik zu machen. Am 17. November 2008 führte die GRÜNE-Fraktion die Fachtagung „Ist das Artensterben in der Agrarlandschaft noch aufzuhalten? - Lösungsansätze für eine naturschutzgerechte und zukunftsfähige Landwirtschaft“ durch. Über 120 Fachleute folgten der Einladung nach Dresden. Sie diskutierten die negativen wie auch positiven Entwicklungen des Artenschutzes in der sächsischen Agrarlandschaft. Gemeinsam wurde nach Lösungen gesucht, um vielen Tier- und Pflanzenarten die Rückkehr in die Agrarlandschaft zu ermöglichen. Diese Broschüre wertet unsere parlamentarischen Initiativen aus und dokumentiert die Vorträge der Fachtagung.:Johannes Lichdi: Vorwort 5 Tomas Brückmann: GRÜNE Initiativen zum Erhalt der Biodiversität in der sächsichen Agrarlandschaft 7 Tomas Brückmann: Die Biodiversität in der Agrarlandschaft ist stark gefährdet 15 Rolf Steffens: Eine kritische Einführung zur Biodiversität in der Agrarlandschaft des Freistaates Sachsen 25 Roland Wicht: Maßnahmekatalog zur Zukunft der sächsischen Imkerei 47 Wolfgang Schumacher: Integrative Naturschutzkonzepte für Mittelgebirgsregionen in Deutschland 49 Heike Nitsch: Eignung von Agrarumweltprogrammen für den Schutz der Biodiversität in der Agrarlandschaft 63 Gert Berger und Holger Pfeffer: Zielführender Artenschutz in Ackerbaugebieten 71 Betina Umlauf: Landwirtschaft und Naturschutz im LSG „Moritzburger Kleinkuppenlandschaft“ 83 Andreas Winkler: Mein Dokumentarfilm 'Oasen in der intensiven Agrarlandschaft' 89 Joachim Ulbricht: Wie kann das Artensterben von Brutvögeln in der Agrarlandschaft gestoppt werden? 91 Holger Menzer: Das Bergwiesenprojekt im Osterzgebirge - eine Erfolgsgeschichte im Naturschutz 101 Autorenverzeichnis 107

Many conservationists have become enamoured with mainstream economic concepts and approaches, described as pragmatic replacements for appeals to ethics and direct regulation. Trading biodiversity using offsets is part of the resulting push for market governance that is promoted as a more efficient means of Nature conservation. In critically evaluationg this position I start by explaining the assumptions behind biodiversity and ecosystem valuation and how economic logic legitimises, rather than prevents, ongoing habitat destruction and treats species extinction as optimal. Biodiversity offsets provide a means for operationalising trade-offs that are in the best interests of developers and make false claims to adding productive new economic activity. Contrary to the argument that economic logic frees conservation from ethics, I expose the ethical premises required for economists to justify public policy support for offsets. Finally, various issues in offset design are raised and placed in the context of a political struggle over the meaning of Nature. The overall message is that, if conservationists continue down the path of conceptualising the world as in mainstream economic textbooks they will be forced from one compromise to another, ultimately losing their ability to conserve or protect anything. They will also be abandoning the rich and meaningful human relationships with Nature that have been their raison d'être. (author's abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

Future global change scenarios predict a dramatic loss of biodiversity for many regions in the world, potentially reducing the resistance and resilience of ecosystem functions. Once before, during Plio-Pleistocene glaciations, harsher climatic conditions in Europe as compared to North America led to a more depauperate tree flora. Here we hypothesize that this climate driven species loss has also reduced functional diversity in Europe as compared to North America. We used variation in 26 traits for 154 North American and 66 European tree species and grid-based co-occurrences derived from distribution maps to compare functional diversity patterns of the two continents. First, we identified similar regions with respect to contemporary climate in the temperate zone of North America and Europe. Second, we compared the functional diversity of both continents and for the climatically similar subregions using the functional dispersion-index (FDis) and the functional richness index (FRic). Third, we accounted in these comparisons for grid-scale differences in species richness, and, fourth, investigated the associated trait spaces using dimensionality reduction. For gymnosperms we find similar functional diversity on both continents, whereas for angiosperms functional diversity is significantly greater in Europe than in North America. These results are consistent across different scales, for climatically similar regions and considering species richness patterns. We decomposed these differences in trait space occupation into differences in functional diversity vs. differences in functional identity. We show that climate-driven species loss on a continental scale might be decoupled from or at least not linearly related to changes in functional diversity. This might be important when analyzing the effects of climate-driven biodiversity change on ecosystem functioning.

Future global change scenarios predict a dramatic loss of biodiversity for many regions in the world, potentially reducing the resistance and resilience of ecosystem functions. Once before, during Plio-Pleistocene glaciations, harsher climatic conditions in Europe as compared to North America led to a more depauperate tree flora. Here we hypothesize that this climate driven species loss has also reduced functional diversity in Europe as compared to North America. We used variation in 26 traits for 154 North American and 66 European tree species and grid-based co-occurrences derived from distribution maps to compare functional diversity patterns of the two continents. First, we identified similar regions with respect to contemporary climate in the temperate zone of North America and Europe. Second, we compared the functional diversity of both continents and for the climatically similar subregions using the functional dispersion-index (FDis) and the functional richness index (FRic). Third, we accounted in these comparisons for grid-scale differences in species richness, and, fourth, investigated the associated trait spaces using dimensionality reduction. For gymnosperms we find similar functional diversity on both continents, whereas for angiosperms functional diversity is significantly greater in Europe than in North America. These results are consistent across different scales, for climatically similar regions and considering species richness patterns. We decomposed these differences in trait space occupation into differences in functional diversity vs. differences in functional identity. We show that climate-driven species loss on a continental scale might be decoupled from or at least not linearly related to changes in functional diversity. This might be important when analyzing the effects of climate-driven biodiversity change on ecosystem functioning.

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