Despoina Maria Vlachaki
@duth.gr
Democritus University of Thrace
Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
Werner Gerwin, Frank Repmann, Spyridon Galatsidas, Despoina Vlachaki, Nikos Gounaris, Wibke Baumgarten, Christiane Volkmann, Dimitrios Keramitzis, Fotis Kiourtsis, and Dirk Freese
Copernicus GmbH
Abstract. The cultivation of bioenergy plants in fertile, arable lands increasingly results in new land use conflicts with food production and cannot be considered as sustainable. Marginal lands have been frequently considered as potential alternatives for producing bioenergy from biomass. However, clear definitions and assessment methods for selecting marginal lands and for calculating potentials are still widely missing. The project “SEEMLA” aims at triggering the exploitation of currently underused marginal lands for biomass production for energy purposes. Study sites have been selected in different European countries: Germany, Greece, and Ukraine. The selected sites represent a wide variety of different types of marginal lands. Based on a soil assessment set given by the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating (SQR) system potentially “marginal” sites have been investigated. The SQR system allows for clearly distinguishing between soils of higher and lower quality. Soils with SQR scores below 40 are regarded as “marginal”. They can be classified into different groups with regard to the importance of soil hazard indicators as evaluated by the SQR approach. The calculated SQR scores correlate significantly with biomass yields of bioenergy plants. Further, the SQR method was adapted for use in a GIS study on marginal-land potentials in Europe. Thus, 46 % of the investigated European area could be classified as “marginal” with SQR scores below 40. From that area 22.6 % can be considered as potentially suitable for producing renewable resources after eliminating protected sites or other places not suitable for any kind of land use. Taking the ecological demands of selected bioenergy plants into account it is possible to give first preliminary recommendations for regional crop cultivation. It can be concluded that Europe offers a large potential for renewable resources from marginal sites. However, the implementation into practice is often impeded by missing or varying policies and regulations. A proper implementation needs clear regulations and also incentives for farmers at the European level.
Dimitris Kaltsas, Konstantinia Dede, Jamie Giannaka, Themis Nasopoulou, Stavros Kechagioglou, Elpida Grigoriadou, Dimitrios Raptis, Petros Damos, Ioakim Vasiliadis, Vasilios Christopoulos,et al.
Wiley
We investigated the patterns of taxonomic and functional diversity of butterflies within the limits of the NATURA 2000 sites at two national parks, on the mountains Olympus and Rhodopes, in Greece. The study was conducted along an elevation gradient in 24 sampling sites on each mountain using the line transect technique. Species richness and abundance followed a monotonic decline on Olympus which is much higher, steeper and has a smaller area size, whereas there was no significant pattern on Rhodopes where average richness and abundance were highest at the extended mid‐elevations with flatter landscape. The altitudinal zonation of butterfly communities on both mountains was primarily due to the specificity of some red‐listed species to high elevations, as well as to the preference of common butterfly species for low or intermediate altitudes. Additive partitioning and null model analyses suggest an ecological redundancy on both mountains, as the environment is filtering species in terms of their environmental requirements rather than their functional position per se. Butterfly communities at high altitudes were not nested subsets of lowland communities. Environmental filtering led to the dominance of generalist species of which many were taxonomically close and had also similar life‐history traits. The application of complementary networks showed that butterfly SPecies of European conservation Concern (SPEC) are good surrogates of the overall butterfly fauna on both mountains. Thus, our study highlights the importance of the conservation targeting of SPEC's especially at high elevations, where red‐listed butterflies are more frequent and potentially threatened by climate change.