Some guiding questions to think about:

• Are there any comments about this approach?
  
• Are there major and general shortcomes (important concepts not considered, etc.)?
  
• Do you think this can be applied for LTER sites?
• Is the group of actually included people the right one? If not, how should the discussion be broadened (now or later?) => within national LTER-Europe networks? Any proposals for additional experts? 

 

The base document produced for A2 by Benjamin Burkhard and Felix Müller (and some additions by me) => draft version of conceptual framework for indicator selection (vers. 1, 28 October 2010) is available for download in the members are => Document repository => a2 => A2 own documents.

Hi Mark

I agree that forum could help a lot in this project (and possibly avoid some meeting?)

I just started studying the document you sent, I find you did a great job, first comments and integration will be posted in a few days.

All the best to all users/collegues

Yes , really you did a great job.

Beyond a doubt, the indicator concept is a high quality review of the state of the art and moreover a really good basis for the further work in EnvEurope.

The subject is quite complex and well structured, but I found some inconsistency within text and some gaps, which make the understanding at least for me difficult. I would like to raise some points, maybe as starter for the discussion at the Halle meeting.

 

1. Inconsistency in the relation between “Ecosystem integrity” and “Ecosystem services”.

Ecosystem integrity as integrative measure for self-organisation ability is discussed in the middle of the paper as base or pre-requisite of ecosystem services (see Figure 2). In Chapter 4 ecosystem integrity is an ecosystem service itself (see table 9). ??? What is true?

If ecosystem integrity is regarded as ESS or at least as indicator for ESS, how can it be differentiated from the “other” regulating ecosystem services?? Isn´t there too much overlap? Self-organization is in my understanding a synonym for self-regulation and self regulation is a part of the regulation services or in the way around: no regulation service without intrinsic regulation of the compartments (self-organization).

 

 

2. Weakness according the normative load of the biotic integrity and ecosystem service indicators

As manager of a test site, I read the paper with special emphasis on its practical utilization later on. Of course, the indicator concept can be applied in a given test site in a certain time shoot. But how can or should it be used for comparisons between sites or chronosequences or land use scenarios?? Here the explanations are quite sparse.

The regions differ according their diversities in structures and in the weights for particular processes already due to their natural pre-configuration. The same for the ecosystem services,  the natural potential of different regions vary for particular services. We have hot spots and “cold spots”. How can this be taken into account?

Furthermore, the comparison between regions is influenced by methodological errors, when you are using varying input data. Is it realistic to believe, that we can gain totally equal data inputs? Or should the comparison be done only with higher aggregated data??

Especially the evaluation of land management impacts seems difficult to me since a high frequency of changes is typical for land use. The definition of a reference state is essential in this context. This reference system can not be a natural or semi-natural biotope! (different functionalities and drivers!)

 

3. Gaps regarding the indication of land management

Land management is nowadays more than only an impact factor for natural, semi-natural systems! Since more than 300 years, the predominant part of the European land surface is under use and looking forward according to population growth on earth, the area and intensity of land use will increase further in future.

Many ecosystem services are already provided by the used land and the sustainable use of this land is essential for the further human development. But exactly the increasing land use intensity and the self-regulation of the managed land (sustainability) are coming more and more into conflict. In my opinion it is the greatest challenge of an indicator system to contribute to this discussion.

For the managed land the structure and diversity of land use is a similar basic orientor as the abiotic and biotic landscape configuration. Only as an example, in Germany 75 % of the endangered species are related to extensive land use, while only 25% of the red list species are related to protected areas. Following the argumentation of the indicator concept, I would like to suggest to insert a group of land use structure parameters as indicandum for ecosystem structures in the indicator frame work (f.i. in table 5 after the biotic diversity and abiotic heterogeneity).

 

4. Selection and specification of targeted ecosystem services

This is in my opinion the key for the further success in EnvEurope. Many of the problems and misunderstandings can not be solved with the discussion on the abstract level (which is also necessary but more for the conceptual things). I believe we might be able to select some focal issues ourselves. The set of the selected services (ESS) must not be complete, because the demand is changing and the demand-supply system itself is an open system. But the services to be indicated must be agreed and defined.

 

Sorry, my comments are much too long, but hopefully they encourage all of you to contribute to the discussion!

 

Greatings to all of you

Hello, and thanks for your comments and questions, I will try to respond on them in the following: (first comes the question as copied from above, the answer is following below):

 

1. Inconsistency in the relation between “Ecosystem integrity” and “Ecosystem services”.

 

Ecosystem integrity as integrative measure for self-organisation ability is discussed in the middle of the paper as base or pre-requisite of ecosystem services (see Figure 2). In Chapter 4 ecosystem integrity is an ecosystem service itself (see table 9) ??? What is true? -

Answer: Right, integrity and respective ecosystem structures and processes are prerequisites for the provision of ESS. Therefore, integrity is misplaced in the table as an ES and will be changed accordingly.

 

If ecosystem integrity is regarded as ESS or at least as indicator for ESS, how can it be differentiated from the “other” regulating ecosystem services?? Isn’t there too much overlap?

Answer: Integrity is not regarded as ESS because for most of the components mentioned here, there are no direct "benefits" to humankind, which is the prerequisite for being denoted as ESS. We try to differentiate between ecosystem (natural or self-regulated) processes and more direct human-benefit processes and services. Indeed, there are several overlaps and these are quite classical examples for "double-counting", especially in monetary evaluations. Therefore we try to make relative quantitative assessments and look "what happens where if…", without monetarizing processes or services.

 

Self-organization is in my understanding a synonym for self-regulation and self regulation is a part of the regulation services or in the way around: no regulation service without intrinsic regulation of the compartments (self-organization).

Answer: Yes, these things are closely interlinked and we (and many others) don’t know yet finally how to categorize them most appropriately. For example therefore the term "supporting services" is not so much in use anymore for natural processes.

 

2. Weakness according the normative load of the biotic integrity and ecosystem service indicators.

 

As manager of a test site, I read the paper with special emphasis on its practical utilization later on. Of course, the indicator concept can be applied in a given test site in a certain time shoot. But how can or should it be used for comparisons between sites or chronosequences or land use scenarios?? Here the explanations are quite sparse.

Answer: We will try to improve these points. What we did at the moment was trying to find a compromise between readability (length) and degree of detail in the current text. To test the applicability of the concept and indicators at the different sites is one of the following steps of the EnvEurope action 2.

 

The regions differ according their diversities in structures and in the weights for particular processes already due to their natural pre-configuration.

Answer: Yes.

 

The same for the ecosystem services, the natural potential of different regions vary for particular services. We have hot spots and “cold spots”. How can this be taken into account?

Answer: To identify these differences and spots we will assess the capacities of different sites to support a) ecological integrity and b) ecosystem services. Hopefully the results will show respective patterns.

 

Furthermore, the comparison between regions is influenced by methodological errors, when you are using varying input data. Is it realistic to believe, that we can gain totally equal data inputs?

Answer: I don’t really understand this question.

 

Or should the comparison be done only with higher aggregated data??

Answer: In order to dilute methodological errors?

 

Especially the evaluation of land management impacts seems difficult to me since a high frequency of changes is typical for land use. The definition of a reference state is essential in this context.

Answer: Yes, of course. If we use CORINE data at least to start with, we would have data for 1990, 2000 and 2007 to compare.

 

This reference system can not be a natural or semi-natural biotope! (different functionalities and drivers!)

Answer: The reference points are indeed a difficult question. But so far we did not use any system as reference system. We looked at the different services/integrity parameters and where the highest capacity to support these were found in our regions/sites, the highest rank was given. Experience showed that normally very high values for integrity were found in natural biotopes, whereas modified biotopes have highest values for selected services (whose optimization often also was the driver for the modification).

 

3. Gaps regarding the indication of land management

Land management is nowadays more than only an impact factor for natural, semi-natural systems! Since more than 300 years, the predominant part of the European land surface is under use and looking forward according to population growth on earth, the area and intensity of land use will increase further in future.

Many ecosystem services are already provided by the used land and the sustainable use of this land is essential for the further human development. But exactly the increasing land use intensity and the self-regulation of the managed land (sustainability) are coming more and more into conflict. In my opinion it is the greatest challenge of an indicator system to contribute to this discussion.

Answer: Yes.

 

For the managed land the structure and diversity of land use is a similar basic orientor as the abiotic and biotic landscape configuration. Only as an example, in Germany 75 % of the endangered species are related to extensive land use, while only 25% of the red list species are related to protected areas. Following the argumentation of the indicator concept, I would like to suggest to insert a group of land use structure parameters as indicandum for ecosystem structures in the indicator frame work (f.i. in table 5 after the biotic diversity and abiotic heterogeneity).

Answer: In principle I agree to include this land use category. But what we try to do is to separate the different components (natural vs. human) a bit (see Figure 2 in the text). There, land use is a result of human drivers and action which have an influence on ecosystem state/integrity. Of course, this is rather static and things are interwoven in reality. The message behind that is that ecosystems have been there with there structures and processes and now they are modified and under impact of human activities. These modifications and following changes are shown by the indicators.

 

4. Selection and specification of targeted ecosystem services

This is in my opinion the key for the further success in EnvEurope. Many of the problems and misunderstandings can not be solved with the discussion on the abstract level (which is also necessary but more for the conceptual things). I believe we might be able to select some focal issues ourselves. The set of the selected services (ESS) must not be complete, because the demand is changing and the demand-supply system itself is an open system. But the services to be indicated must be agreed and defined.

 

Answer: Of course, but it is not so easy to find common selection a) without conceptual background and b) having a set of services/indicators (relevant for all over Europe) to choose from.

 

Looking forward to further discussion and improvement of the material,

Yours Benjamin.

Dear Benjamin, Mark and all other authors,

Congratulations to your work! This is an excellent base to start with. I would only like to add the issue of uncertainty analysis. We are dealing with a very heterogenous data set regarding both quality of measurements and documentation of methods. Time trends will be key, so uncertainty should be dealt with throughout the indicator development. From desing to implementation. See the recently published work of Magurran et al. (Trends in Ecology  and Evolution special issue on LTER, Vol. 25, 2010). There you can find a lot of good examples and issues of concern how long-term data can be used successfully and how applications can be misleading.

Yours

Thomas Dirnböck

Previously Mark Frenzel wrote:

Some guiding questions to think about:

• Are there any comments about this approach?
  
• Are there major and general shortcomes (important concepts not considered, etc.)?
  
• Do you think this can be applied for LTER sites?
• Is the group of actually included people the right one? If not, how should the discussion be broadened (now or later?) => within national LTER-Europe networks? Any proposals for additional experts? 

 

The base document produced for A2 by Benjamin Burkhard and Felix Müller (and some additions by me) => draft version of conceptual framework for indicator selection (vers. 1, 28 October 2010) is available for download in the members are => Document repository => a2 => A2 own documents.

please notice my answer to Marks questions:

1. General comments: is the draft suitable to reach A2 targets, helpful, sufficient for indicator selection? If not, give reasons.

YES/NO:

The draft provides an excellent overview on the state of the art. All relevant indicator concepts are described, most of them together with a list of particular indicators.

The comparison of the different concepts remains quite difficult, because all of them have been developed and used for a certain purpose and with a specific background, especially this information is missing in the draft.

One example:

While the DPSIR model was used to assess changes in the provision (OUTPUT) of ecosystem services mainly demanded for maintaining or improving human well-being, the concept of biotic integrity was used to make different processes and services comparable and to focus on maintaining the self-organisation (regulation) ability of ecosystems into a long run (time) (sustainability of intrinsic processes).

You can not answer the question, which of the both concepts suits better without defining the objectives either to OUTPUT or e.g. to INTRINSIC PROCESSES (Sustainability).

Therefore I suggest to add the information to which national or EU level policy issues the concepts are addressing ( or what their targets are more in general) and to which scales do they refer.

2. Gaps: Are there major and general shortcomes (important concepts not considered, etc.)?

Yes: The scale issues are missing. Here we will detect first differences between the described indicator concepts.

3. Disciplines: What has to be added from your disciplinary view?

The discussed concepts are mostly valid for natural/ semi natural ecosystems on large spatial and temporal scales. Since 50-90% of the land surface are under permanent land management (land use) , this part is quite underestimated, also in the conceptual way. Land use is an impact factor for natural /semi natural ecosystems but not only for productive ecosystems. There the land use provides the basic pattern in nearly all processes. Never disregard the role of extensive land use for e.g. biodiversity! In this sense land use act rather as state indicator on the ecosystems under permanent use.

There is an urgent need for the implementation of land use indictors into the list! (land use pattern, land use intensity)

4. Feasibility: Do you think this conceptual framework can be applied for LTER sites?

YES, we need in any case a conceptual framework. The application on the test sites will cause some difficulties due to varying historical focuses in the monitoring. The application of an unique protocol requires new measurements on the sites and probably also new equipment. This might cause difficulties in practice. Maybe remote sensing can solve the problem of getting comparable data.

I see some problems with the interpretation of the results especially for the biotic integrity concept due to some normative weakness of this concept. Maybe Felix can dissipate my doubts?

5. Indicator proposal: Proposal and justification for obligatory (most important) indicators in the context of the concept from your point of view.

First, we have to define the indicandum, after that it will be more easy to agree on the indicator sets. The selection of indicators should be driven first of all by the sensitivity concerning the indicandum. Compromises should be done later on, not at the beginning.

6. Linkage between concepts: What is the best way to link Ecosystem Integrity and Ecosystem Services in LTER-Europe? (proposals of parameters and/or methods)

Yes of course there are many interactions between both concepts, but the focuses are quite different. As I have mentioned already for the first question: The ecosystem service approach is output-oriented and considers a short to medium time scale (more or less dependent on human demands and its definitions, which are changing quite quickly). The ecosystem integrity approach focuses on intrinsic functionalities and considers rather the large time scale. Either, we decide by our own which focus do we want to address and on which scale do we want to work or we link them over the scale issues. Then both concepts can be combined (No outputs into a long run without functioning processes!).

Dear all,

Thanks to Mark for starting this forum, to the authors and contributors to the (updated) base document, and to the people who have posted comments so far.

I would like to share some thougts at a more basic level than discussed until now.

It seems to me that the basic questions in Action 2 are: what to monitor?, for what?, and how to monitor it (including here adoption or design of indexes)? I'm sure you are aware that these things have been (and previsibly will be) long term discussed. My feeling is that there is not a single response to this, and that it depends very much on the purpose of the monitoring. The variety of indexes listed in the base document is a clear indication of this. I think there is not a unifying concept under which one can prescribe an index, a set of parameters, or a set of methods as the definitive ones for the present day, and even less for the future. In my opinion, a flexible and adaptive approach has to be taken to design an ecological monitoring network. Rather than relying on a particular pre-conceived view or concept (e.g., ecosystem integrity) it would be more desirable to develop a knowledge base (in the specific sense of knowledge management technology, i.e., database + semantics + one or several ontologies). This would be a similar approach to the one increasingly used by the molecular biology community to deal with massive yet incomplete data, and only partly known reactions and mechanisms of regulation, in order to study complex biological systems - I see many similitudes between this and the data and knowledge produced (both already existing and forthcoming) within a global ecological monitoring network. Such a knowledge base should be able to provide tools for developing indicators being the ecosystem integrity theory one of its possible ontologies, for instance. The good thing, is that other ontologies may coexist, they can be combined, they can be updated with new knowledge, all this providing flexibility. And, above all, a knowledge base can be also used also for discovery, not just for surveillance purposes. 

I think that there should be a close relationship between Actions 1 and 2, because adopting one or another strategy for collecting data and encoding knowledge may have technical implications - and viceversa. Making the same request for flexibility and adaptability, I believe that the efforts in A1 should be addressed to ensure interoperability of distributed 'domestic' databases more than to defining a structure for a single, comprehensive central database and trying to compile all data in it. Domestic databases are more easily curated, and the reluctance of the data producers to deposit their data is lower than in distant databases. Provided that interoperability is good enough, diverse schemes of integration can be applied, increasing the potential for retrieving information. There are techniques available to deal with things like inconsistency, incompleteness and inaccuracy when integrating diverse databases that lighten the need for too rigid structures of data.   

I am sorry not to be able to attend the next coming workshop. I wish you a fruitful meeting, and hope these ideas may be of some inspiration.

Dear all, thanks for reading the document (the draft version of the conceptual framework for indicator selection) and the consturctive comments. Of course the document is not complete yet and some important points are missing (scale issues, long-term perspectives, ecosystem modification by land use). I am happy to read that the comments go on a very detailled level already and addressing very special questions. So I am looking forward to discussions during our next workshop where we hopefully can focus on an improvement and consensus on the framework which we later will include into the document. Michael raised in his comments some important points, especially concering the key concepts (DPSIR, ecological integrity and ecosystem services): "While the DPSIR model was used to assess changes in the provision (OUTPUT) of ecosystem services mainly demanded for maintaining or improving human well-being, the concept of biotic integrity was used to make different processes and services comparable and to focus on maintaining the self-organisation (regulation) ability of ecosystems into a long run (time) (sustainability of intrinsic processes). You can not answer the question, which of the both concepts suits better without defining the objectives either to OUTPUT or e.g. to INTRINSIC PROCESSES (Sustainability)." I think it is not necessary to find an answer to the question which concept suits better. Both concepts are integrated and linked in our framework: ecological integrity denotes the intrinsic processes and structures (therefore we dont use the term "supporting services" anymore) which can be assessed separately (without human benefit, e.g. in more or less nature-near areas) also. Ecosystem services provide the link between ecosystems and human systems by describing the outputs (goods and services available and used by societies). The DPSIR model is used as a general framework to illustrate this supply-demand (or cause and effect) chain. best regards from snowy Kiel, Benjamin

Dear All,

sorry for the delay.

1. General comments: is the draft suitable to reach A2 targets, helpful, sufficient for indicator selection?
Yes

2. Gaps: Are there major and general shortcomes?
Yes. The scale issue was mentioned, but not covered at all. I see at least three areas where scale issues must be considered:
a. The ecosystem indicators and biodiversity indicators are often  measured at different scales, especially in terrestrial habitats - the biodiversity usually measured at coarser scales than the ecosystem indicators which are based on equiment data or laboratory data from destrucutive sampling.
b. The biophysical (ecosystem+biodiversity) and ecosystem service variables are usually measured/estimated at different scales - the ecosystem services are usually estimated at coarser scales
c. Sites versus platforms, cf. 4.b.

3. Disciplines: What has to be added from your disciplinary view?
Nothing

4. Feasibility: Do you think this conceptual framework can be applied for LTER sites?
Yes, but:
a. I suggest to apply a multistage approach: we should propose a core set and additional parameters for sites where more data available, either because of better instrumentation or because more spacialists are available.
b. I also suggest to refine the requirement for sites and platforms: the platforms are more suitable for estimating ecosystem services related variables as well as habitat heterogeneity variables.

5. Indicator proposal: Proposal and justification for obligatory (most important) indicators in the context of the concept from your point of view.
I have the most problem with the gross and net ecosystem production. In terrestrial ecosystems they are very difficult to estimate unless you have a well operated eddy correlation tower and a lot of specialists for non primary producers.

6. Linkage between concepts: What is the best way to link Ecosystem Integrity and Ecosystem Services in LTER-Europe? (proposals of parameters and/or methods)
I do no know.

Regards,

Miki

Dear Mark and colleagues,

After careful reading of the indicator framework draft versions 2 and 3 and discussion with some of my colleagues we would like to report our comments and issues according to the points Mark suggested:

General comments

Definitely Yes!! This is a great work you’ve done leading to better understand the precedents, the state of the art on the subject and the main shortcomings and gaps in the existing frameworks. Therefore, we believe ecological integrity might be an appropriate framework to depict the picture of state and functioning of our ecosystems. Defining consequently our space will help us to propose and select adequate indicators.

Gaps

We have missed several relevant issues such as:

1. Working Scales: Both spatial and temporal.
1. Spatial scale: LTER sites are rather small portions of the territory and their size range should be considered as a factor to take into account in indicator and indicandum selection. Moreover, spatial scale will provide a minimum sampling size for measurements and might eventually help to extrapolate captured information to equivalent spatial units across the landscape and upscale processes and functions.
2. Temporal scale: Even if these remarks are much more related with the phase of methods development to be used to measure the proposed indicators set, we should point out the main advantage of our approach which is the provision of long-time series of ecological data. Such long-term information, supplied by indicators changes will be suitable for time-series analysis and concepts such as stability, thresholds or resilience arise as our most important contribution to the available European data sets. Few hints should be addressed about how to deal with indicators trends, trajectories and temporal gaps in order to provide synthetic temporal indicators.
2. We also have missed the proposal of structural (aggregative) indicators that might reveal details on ecological food and interaction webs and report the role of engineering species inside the ecosystem. Same for functional groups and energy compartments which were originally proposed as the indicanda of our project.
3. There is a large gap when defining methods to estimate Ecosystem Services at marine sites.

 Disciplines

My working experience has dealt with the long-term ecological monitoring at landscape scale and specifically using remote sensing (RS), sensu lato, tools to do it. RS provides very pragmatical sources and tools to provide indicators. Some arguments have been exposed in the forum webpage about “Potential of remote sensing for ecosystem indication”.

Mark, I will prepare a short presentation (10-15 minutes) for the meeting to introduce the data availability, potential and limitations for its wide use at LTER sites under this proposed conceptual framework.

Feasibility

I also agree this framework might be applied for LTER sites but feel in strong agreement with Miki’s last post about, i.e. we need to define core set of parameters and indicators and open up the ground for the implementation of ancillary ones.

Indicator proposal

Our opinion here is biased mainly by our interests and traditional data collection what might bias our final selection on the proposed set of indicators. We think this is the major issue to be discussed at the meeting in Halle.

Linkage between concepts (EI and ES)

I think the best way to link both sets of indicators, from different conceptual frameworks, is spatial representation. Once we are able to spatially represent ecosystems structure and function on one hand and on the other, ecosystem services or at least capacities to provide them –as the example reported by Burkhard et al. 2009- we will be able to address changes along time on both concepts, which is again our major potential for contribution as LTER sites.

Ricardo Díaz-Delgado and Juan Manuel Infante

Dear Mark and colleagues,

ready to travel to Halle and, as usually, late comer to comment.

 

However, I think we will have time to discuss points and issues in Halle in the next two days.

 

 

General comments

: is the draft suitable to reach A2 targets, helpful, sufficient for indicator selection? If not, give reasons.

 

I think that the draft is a very good starting point and would be suitable to reach A2/EnvEurope targets.

As stated by other "commenters", we should connect indicators to what is really measured at LTER sites.

The tables in the last part of the Draft surely provide a first analysis of what is available.

 

 

Gaps

: Are there major and general shortcomes (important concepts not considered, etc.)?

 

Agree with others that we should focus a bit more on the issue of scale.

However, we should also consider that, if we "enlarge" too much the scale, the number of actual (and potential) ecosystem services that a site could provide will increase, sometime "artificially" (i.e. services not really linked to the scale at which the LTER site is investigated).

 

The scale issue becomes fundamental when assessing the "representativeness" (whatever this would mean...) of a site for the surrounding landscape/area. In this respect, I think that Remote Sensing will be useful.

 

Disciplines

: What has to be added from your disciplinary view?

 

All the basic is there. So no much to be added.

I think that for forest site, something more can be said for the MCPFE (now Forests Europe) indicators that would be, in general, relatively easy to assess (at least for the main categories).

 

Feasibility

: Do you think this conceptual framework can be applied for LTER sites?

 

In general, yes.

The comments provided above are also related to feasibility.

We should try to be ambitious, albeit maintaining our "feet on the ground" with reference to the possible cost of assessing too "complex" indicators and parameters at our site within the frame of EnvEurope.

However, we should also have a certain degree of freedom for site where something more could be done.

 

Indicator proposal

: Proposal and justification for obligatory (most important) indicators in the context of the concept from your point of view.

 

I think that the general framework/matrix of indicators related to the main processes and aspects (table 3 to 5 in the draft) is a good proposal.

We should try to assess at least one indicator for each aspects/process of the first column.

 

One of the point in Action 5 is to assess both parameters (related to indicators) that are relevant for specific ecosystem type but also "some" that could be cross-cutting among ecosystems.

We should elaborate and discuss on it.

 

Linkage between concepts

: What is the best way to link Ecosystem Integrity and Ecosystem Services in LTER-Europe? (proposals of parameters and/or methods)

 

We should discuss, as proposed by others, the concept of "Ecosystem Integrity", how we define it and if we have references or benchmarks for it.

 

Maybe, once the services to be assessed have been decided, the "level of integrity" could be related to the "satisfaction" or "provision" of "more" services.

 

See you in Halle shortly....

 

Giorgio Matteucci

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Colleagues,

please find some  reflections from behalf of the “terrestrial group” of the Halle meeting, Dec. 2., afternoon on the discussion on the Ecological integrity indicators

1. Ecosystem structure

a. One missing item is the physical structure of the biotic component, which is not covered by the abiotic heterogeneity, e.g. the vertical layering of the vegetation, or the horizontal mosaic of shrubby grassland. So this component should be added to the indicators of biotic diversity.

b. Another point in the discussion was the ecological role of the species and their relationships. For many of us, the high abundance and/or diversity of invasive species indicate the degraded integrity of the ecosystem. We concluded that invasive species should be treated as parameters for “other state variables” of the biotic diversity.

2. Ecosystem processes

We rated the importance and the proposed indicators, as well as our capacity to provide reliable parameters for their estimations.

a. We found that we can provide a lot of parameters for estimating the “other state variables” for the energy, matter, and water budget, although we did not rated them particularly essential for indicating the ecological integrity.

b. On the other side, we rated energy, matter, and water efficiency very important indicators, but we are short of providing reliable parameters to estimate them.

c. In general, indicators of water budget were considered less important than those of energy and matter budget, perhaps because forest sites with no water deficiency was well represented in the group.

Regads,

Miki

Dear Colleagues,

 

here you are some outline of the discussion of terrestrial working group on scale issues in the Halle meeting, 3. Dec.

 

1. Difference in size of the sites

  a. We need site size distribution info – where site level information are representative

    - starting with the minimum area and then scaling up

  b. Also it is needed a query for land cover represented

    - starting with the CLC of the site itself and then scaling up

  c. Catchments approach if possible?

2. Spatial reference of parameters: the area to where measurements are representative

  a. One landscape unit: CLC for first

    - because this provides more or less reliable spatial extent as a harmonized product at EU level

    - later EUNIS (or EBONE, or BIOHAB), if required

  b. Starting with the minimum size and then scale up, e.g. by no. of pixels

3. RS resolution vs. site extents

  a. Site (platform) boundaries information ?

    - NO: a lot of problems for the spatial reference of parameters

    - but YES: for many of us those would provide good information

4. Time series length

  a. Info from InfoBase and query – done

  b. Minimum temporal resolution should be defined parameter by parameter

    - annually, seasonally, depends on eco-domain

  c. Flagship species phenology should be included (or at least very desirable)

    - automated insect traps might be not reliable, for uncertain spatial coverage, long delay of species identification

  d. Minimum time span

    - cf. baseline issue

    - issue: how to integrate data obtained by outdated methods

  e. Focus on provision of data for the “EnvEurope testing year”

5. Baseline, reference line

  a. Use of RS would provide basic information on temporal changes

  b. Query required on the question if the sites could provide baselines for the parameters

  c. Methodological issue of detecting temporal changes: techniques, statistics

6. Sites vs. platforms

  a. It is NOT a crucial issue for parameter harmonization

  b. It will be important for cross-domain integration (ESs)

7. Relation to A3 – to be decide

 

Regards,

Miki

Dear Miki and all,

first I would like to thank you for the good meeting we had in Halle in such a constructive atmosphere. I think the main targets to discuss and improve our concept of ecological integrity and to look for data for the indicators from each site was definetely reached.

Soon I will start to work on the new version of the conceptual framework document.

What I took from the meeting is that:

- a new category covering the physical structure of the biotic component will be included in the "ecosystem structure" group. Could for example be "habitat structure" or "habitat heterogeneity"

- as was included in the last version of the document already, we will have a "other state variable" section for all indicator topics where important data such as on invasive species can be integrated

Moreover, I realized that clearer definitions of indicators and respective parameters are needed. They will come with the next version.

I really like the idea to start to derive land cover information for each site from CORINE and then look how we can find suitable scales for the individual sites and their representative surroundings.

best regards from snowy Kiel

Benjamin

Dear Benjamin and all,

regarding invasive species as indicator I suggest to refer to the SEBI2010 initiative (mentioned in the framework). It is listed as indicator: Invasive alien species in Europe (code: SEBI010).

The link is: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/invasive-alien-species-in-europe/invasive-alien-species-in-europe.

I just report here the justification for the indicator:

 

 

MAIN ADVANTAGES OF THE INDICATOR

The main advantages of the 'Cumulative number of alien species in Europe since 1900' are:

• sound underlying assumption, i.e. that the risk of establishment, spread, ecological and socioeconomic damage of invasive alien species increases with the number of alien species and individual introductions;
• consistent with the ideas developed within CBD and in line with other international initiatives;
• it is robust, shows trend over time and is easily communicated to a wide target group.

Main advantages of the list of worst invasive species threatening biodiversity in Europe are that:

• it is easily communicated to policy-makers, stakeholders and the wider public;
• it helps prioritise management actions to control IAS;
• it provides a basis for regional collaboration with respect to IAS control;
• it provides a simple and affordable, although subjective, indication of impact of invasive alien species, which are otherwise hard to measure;
• it provides a basis for monitoring additional aspects, such as more detailed mapping of expansion and impact, of IAS, ultimately aiming at establishing early warning systems and/or to evaluate policy-effectiveness.

 

Yours

Alessandro

The link doesn't work. Try this: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/invasive-alien-species-in-europe/invasive-alien-species-in-europe#toc-2.

 

Alessandro

 

 

Previously Alessandro Campanaro wrote:

Dear Benjamin and all,

regarding invasive species as indicator I suggest to refer to the SEBI2010 initiative (mentioned in the framework). It is listed as indicator: Invasive alien species in Europe (code: SEBI010).

The link is: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/invasive-alien-species-in-europe/invasive-alien-species-in-europe.

I just report here the justification for the indicator:

 

 

MAIN ADVANTAGES OF THE INDICATOR

The main advantages of the 'Cumulative number of alien species in Europe since 1900' are:

• sound underlying assumption, i.e. that the risk of establishment, spread, ecological and socioeconomic damage of invasive alien species increases with the number of alien species and individual introductions;
• consistent with the ideas developed within CBD and in line with other international initiatives;
• it is robust, shows trend over time and is easily communicated to a wide target group.

Main advantages of the list of worst invasive species threatening biodiversity in Europe are that:

• it is easily communicated to policy-makers, stakeholders and the wider public;
• it helps prioritise management actions to control IAS;
• it provides a basis for regional collaboration with respect to IAS control;
• it provides a simple and affordable, although subjective, indication of impact of invasive alien species, which are otherwise hard to measure;
• it provides a basis for monitoring additional aspects, such as more detailed mapping of expansion and impact, of IAS, ultimately aiming at establishing early warning systems and/or to evaluate policy-effectiveness.

 

Yours

Alessandro

 

Previously Lluís Camarero wrote:

Dear all,

Thanks to Mark for starting this forum, to the authors and contributors to the (updated) base document, and to the people who have posted comments so far.

I would like to share some thougts at a more basic level than discussed until now.

It seems to me that the basic questions in Action 2 are: what to monitor?, for what?, and how to monitor it (including here adoption or design of indexes)? I'm sure you are aware that these things have been (and previsibly will be) long term discussed. My feeling is that there is not a single response to this, and that it depends very much on the purpose of the monitoring. The variety of indexes listed in the base document is a clear indication of this. I think there is not a unifying concept under which one can prescribe an index, a set of parameters, or a set of methods as the definitive ones for the present day, and even less for the future. In my opinion, a flexible and adaptive approach has to be taken to design an ecological monitoring network. Rather than relying on a particular pre-conceived view or concept (e.g., ecosystem integrity) it would be more desirable to develop a knowledge base (in the specific sense of knowledge management technology, i.e., database + semantics + one or several ontologies). This would be a similar approach to the one increasingly used by the molecular biology community to deal with massive yet incomplete data, and only partly known reactions and mechanisms of regulation, in order to study complex biological systems - I see many similitudes between this and the data and knowledge produced (both already existing and forthcoming) within a global ecological monitoring network. Such a knowledge base should be able to provide tools for developing indicators being the ecosystem integrity theory one of its possible ontologies, for instance. The good thing, is that other ontologies may coexist, they can be combined, they can be updated with new knowledge, all this providing flexibility. And, above all, a knowledge base can be also used also for discovery, not just for surveillance purposes. 

I think that there should be a close relationship between Actions 1 and 2, because adopting one or another strategy for collecting data and encoding knowledge may have technical implications - and viceversa. Making the same request for flexibility and adaptability, I believe that the efforts in A1 should be addressed to ensure interoperability of distributed 'domestic' databases more than to defining a structure for a single, comprehensive central database and trying to compile all data in it. Domestic databases are more easily curated, and the reluctance of the data producers to deposit their data is lower than in distant databases. Provided that interoperability is good enough, diverse schemes of integration can be applied, increasing the potential for retrieving information. There are techniques available to deal with things like inconsistency, incompleteness and inaccuracy when integrating diverse databases that lighten the need for too rigid structures of data.   

I am sorry not to be able to attend the next coming workshop. I wish you a fruitful meeting, and hope these ideas may be of some inspiration.

Dear Llouis,

sorry for let you wait so long for a reply to your comment. Indeed your ideas are quite basic and require some response from my side, as we are now at a different stage. The conceptual framework developed by A2 has been considered by most of the people being very useful, as it really helps to answer questions like: what to monitor? for what? => this is definitely the question for indicators and why to choose them. We are aware (and this is an important issue) that a high variety of monitoring and research programs are performed on LTER sites which demands for a unifying and agreed(!) framework. However, any (superior) alternatives are welcome. 

 

I do not see that creating a knowledge base would be a different, but rather a complementary approach which is definitely necessary and a prerequisite to make data available. A first, very basic step in this direction was done by collecting parameter meta data at the site level. A knowledge base in the sense you mentioned it (in the specific sense of knowledge management technology, i.e., database + semantics + one or several ontologies) is not in the focus of A2, but I will draw the attention of Johannes Peterseil (lead A1) to this point and ask him to comment.

I think we will be open for additional ontologies (however, we do not have the resources to create new ones) but for the moment we are happy to have the ecological integrity concept at hand (still far from being translated in an ontology and up to now not within the scope of ENVEurope).

All the best,

Mark