Kerstin Bach

Tree diversity in primary forest and different land use systems in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

We studied the tree communities in primary forest and three different land use systems (forest gardens, ca. 5-year-old secondary forests, cacao plantations) at 900–1200 m elevation in the environs of Lore Lindu National Park, Central Sulawesi. The primary forests had ca. 150 tree species ≥10 cm diameter at breast height (dbh) per hectare, which is unusually high for forests at this elevation in southeast Asia. Basal area in the primary forest was 140 m2 ha−1, one of the highest values ever recorded in tropical forests worldwide. Tree species richness declined gradually from primary forest to forest gardens, secondary forests, and cacao plantations. This decline was paralleled by shifts in tree family composition, with Lauraceae, Meliaceae, and Euphorbiaceae being predominant in primary forests, Euphorbiaceae, Rubiaceae and Myristicaeae dominating in the forest gardens and Euphorbiaceae, Urticaceae, and Ulmaceae in the secondary forests. Cacao plantations were composed almost exclusively of cacao trees and two species of legume shade trees. Forest gardens further differed from primary forests by a much lower density of understorey trees, while secondary forests had fewer species of commercial interest. Comparative studies of birds and butterflies demonstrated parallel declines of species richness, showing the importance of trees in structuring tropical forest habitats and in providing resources.

A comparative evaluation of technical solutions for long-term data repositories in integrative biodiversity research

Abstract The current study investigates existing infrastructure, its technical solutions and implemented standards for data repositories related to integrative biodiversity research. The storage and reuse of complex biodiversity data in central databases are becoming increasingly important, particularly in attempts to cope with the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity and ecosystems. From the data side, the main challenge of biodiversity repositories is to deal with the highly interdisciplinary and heterogeneous character of standardized and unstandardized data and metadata covering information from genes to ecosystems. Furthermore, the technical improvements in data acquisition techniques produce ever larger data volumes, which represent a challenge for database structure and proper data exchange. The current study is based on comprehensive in-depth interviews and an online survey addressing IT specialists involved in database development and operation. The results show that metadata are already well established, but that non-meta data still is largely unstandardized across various scientific communities. For example, only a third of all repositories in our investigation use internationally unified semantic standard checklists for taxonomy. The study also showed that database developers are mostly occupied with the implementation of state of the art technology and solving operational problems, leaving no time to implement users requirements. One of the main reasons for this dissatisfying situation is the undersized and unreliable funding situation of most repositories, as reflected by the marginally small number of permanent IT staff members. We conclude that a sustainable data management system that fosters the future use and reuse of these valuable data resources requires the development of fewer, but more permanent data repositories using commonly accepted standards for their long-term data. This can only be accomplished through the consolidation of hitherto widely scattered small and non-permanent repositories.