2 | research
Ecological processes as driving forces for sustainable forest management
Forests disappear at an alarming rate leading to changes in species diversity and composition. It is therefore essential to study in which way modified forest conditions affect interactions among species and consequently ecosystem stability and function. Fundamental processes for ecosystem function are mutualistic and antagonistic interactions such as pollination, seed dispersal, seed predation and regeneration. This project aims at studying the regeneration potential of differently sized forest patches in the highly fragmented landscape of South Africa. Thereby, we will investigate the effects of forest type on biodiversity (insects, birds, small mammals, trees) and ecosystem processes (pollination, seed dispersal, seed predation and regeneration) in coastal scarp forests in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. These findings will help to develop sound management recommendations such as establishment of corridors and creation of forest patches and to foster the development of community-based natural management programmes improving people’s livelihood.
This project is funded by: Robert Bosch Stiftung
Former research:
Human impact on avian diversity, seed dispersal and regeneration pro
cesses of East African rainforests: management tools and recommendations (subproject E11)
BIOTA Africa (BIOdiversity Monitoring Transect Analysis) is a cooperative, interdisciplinary and integrative research project with contributions from and in Benin, Burkina Faso, Germany, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia and South Africa funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).
Human impact leads to considerable loss of global biodiversity, but its consequences for ecosystem processes such as seed dispersal are hardly understood. More than 90% of tropical plants rely on animals for the dispersal of their seeds. Thus, a loss of animal dispersers might lead to a break-down of seed dispersal processes with long-term consequences for forest regeneration. In the third phase of BIOTA the aim of E11 coordinated by Prof. Böhning-Gaese (University of Mainz) is to:
1. up-scale our studies on the relationship between human disturbance, species diversity and ecosystem processes from the local over the regional to the continental level and evaluate Ficus-diversity as predictor for high biodiversity and “healthy” functional relationships in ecosystems;
2. investigate the contribution of pollination and seed dispersal to gene flow in Prunus africana to provide management recommendations for sustaining high genetic diversity in remaining populations of this endangerd species;
3. use a multi-disciplinary analysis of all data in the BioDiversity Observatories (BDO) to identify indicator groups and particularly sensitive processes for long-term monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem function;
4. link biodiversity with socio-economy and land use in the farmland to provide tools and recommendations for land-use planning in highly utilized areas;
5. implement conservation education and outreach activities through further development of the community-based long-term bird monitoring program, production of information material, technical know-how and capacity building at the local as well as scientific level.
This project is funded by: German Ministry of Ecudation and Reserach