Study Design for Assessing Species Environment Relationships and Developing Indicator Systems for Ecological Changesin Floodplains – The Approach of the RIVA Project
✍ Scribed by Klaus Henle; Frank Dziock; Francis Foeckler; Klaus Volker; Volker Hüsing; Anke Hettrich; Marcus Rink; Sabine Stab; Mathias Scholz
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2006
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 401 KB
- Volume
- 91
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1434-2944
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✦ Synopsis
Abstract
In this article the study design and data sampling of the RIVA project – “Development and Testing of a Robust Indicator System for Ecological Changes in Floodplain Systems” – are described. The project was set up to improve existing approaches to study species environment relationships as a basis for the development of indicator systems and predictive models. Periodically flooded grassland was used as a model system. It is agriculturally used at a level of intermediate intensity and is the major habitat type along the Middle Elbe, Germany. We chose a main study area to analyse species environment relationships and two reference sites for testing the transferability of the results. Using a stratified random sampling scheme, we distributed 36 study plots across the main study site and 12 plots each within the reference sites. In each of the study plots, hydrological and soil variables were measured and plants, molluscs, and carabid beetles were sampled. Hoverflies were collected on a subset of the sampling plots. A brief summary of first results is then provided. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)