� Goals and objectives of the major project

� Information about birds

� Reasons for decline

� Importance of monitoring

� Birds as indicators

� Data collection approach

� Database planning

� Database design

� Demonstration

Goals of the major project:

� Define and make operational a

species diversity indicator

� Use the indicator to evaluate and report

the ecological quality of agriculturally used

areas

(This project was executed under the aupices of the German

Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer

Protection)

Therefore it is necessary to:

� register, state and monitor changes relating

to breeding birds as indicators in

agricultural landscapes

� analyze causes of changes

� derive goal oriented agricultural and

environmental measures

The goals and objective of this research work

is in two parts:

� Use data collected from the major project to

develop a database

� Connect the database to other software such as

arcGIS or SPSS for further statistical and spatial

analysis

� General decline of 23 of the 64 commonest

German bird species in the last 15 years

(e.g House Sparrow, Common House Martin)

� Ground nesting birds such as Eurasion skylark

are threatened

� Forest birds have shown a slight recovery

(e.g. Great spooted Woodpecker due to

forest protection policies)

� Coastal breeding birds are particularly

threatened and have been placed under

protection

� Birds are policy indicators of the

sustainability of land use in Germany

� The government targets to stabilise all

species in the species diversity indicator list

and those selected to represent high value

habitats.

� Climate change

(e.g. increase number of Ducks wintering in

Germany due to harsher conditons in Eastern

Europe)

� Changes in land use

(esp. agricultural purposes)

� Deforestation

� Monitoring is a critical requirement in assessing

the environmental policy process and

effectiveness of various conservation measures

and is required under various international

treaties, including EU directives.

� Many patterns of land use and development are

affected by EU policies and it is important to

measure their sustainability across Europe,

including their impact on the accession countries

to the EU.

Why use birds as indicators for biodiversity:

� Their population trends reflect the average

behaviour of the constituent species

� Cast light on trends in attributes of other

taxa

� Act as a surrogate for ecosystem health

� Easy to detect, identify and census

� Sensitivity to environmental changes

� Links to drivers

� Clarity of message

� Affordability

� Easy to update

In order to be practical the data collection has

to meet the following requirements:

� Random sampling

� Ornithologic professionals

� Economical

To meet the requirements above:

� Stratification of Brandenburg was necessary

based on landscape structure classification

(Chorine code 2000)

� Observation areas of 1km x 1km were

selected at random in the different strata

� Ornithologists were assigned to observation

areas

� Observations were recorded for 2005 & 2006

Aggregated natural regions

4 (5) different strata

1

2

3

4

� Software: Microsoft Access 2007

� Selection of colours for the graphic user

interface

(green – grassland; brown - arable land)

� Selection of fonts Verdana

� Imput data into software

� Break down data into smaller tables

� Assign key indexes to tables and variable

types

� Create a relationship network between

tables

� Design a graphic user interface so that users

can manipulate data without viewing tables

The general project was supported by

the German Federal Ministry of Food,

Agriculture and Consumer Protection,

Agriculture, the Federal Office of Food

and Agriculture, and the Ministry for

Rural Development, Environment and

Consumer Protection of the Federal

State of Brandenburg.

Acknowledgement

This project work was done in

cooperation with the the ZALF (Centre

for Agricultural Landscape Research,

Institute for Landscape Systems

Analysis)

� Gerd LUTZE, Alfred SCHULTZ, Beatrix WUNTKE, Marion VOSS,

Joachim KIESEL/ Karl-Otto WENKEL:

Brutvogelausstattung der Agrarlandschaften Brandenburgs -

zwischen Artenreichtum und Artenarmut. Waldökologie,

Landschaftsforschung und Naturschutz, 9: 79-93

� Martin Flade, Christoph Grüneberg, Christoph Sudfeldt and

Johannes Wahl (2008)

Birds and Biodiversity in Germany -2010

� ) Arco J. VAN STRIEN, Jeroen PANNEKOEK, David W. GIBBONS:

Indexing European bird population trends using results of

national monitoring schemes: a trial of a new method, Bird

Study (2001) 48, 200–213

References