Karl Reiter

University of Vienna | UniWien · Department of Conservation Biology, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology

Oceanic islands are vulnerable ecosystems and their flora has been under pressure since the arrival of the first humans. Human activities and both deliberately and inadvertently introduced biota have had and continue to have a severe impact on island endemic plants. The number of alien plants has increased nearly linearly on many islands, perhaps r...

The Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis) is one of a few insectivorous long distance migrants with a slightly positive population trend. In spring 2015 we examined habitat preferences of a population in the Donau-Auen National Park. Singing males were counted at randomly chosen points in six survey rounds. Additionally, possible breeding compe...

Vegetation Inventory of the Juan Fernández Islands A number of studies on vegetation of the Robinson Crusoe Archipelago have been completed over the past 120 years. A first summary of the general vegetation of the archipelago was provided by Johow (1896) in addition to his treatment of the flora of the archipelago. In the years 1908, 1916, and 1917...

Poster presenting the preliminary results of my Master’s thesis on habitat preferences of Collared Flycatchers in Donau-Auen national park.

This poster presents preliminary results of my master`s thesis on habitat preferences of Collared Flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) in the Donau-Auen national park, Lower Austria.

Large River Restoration: effects of inshore restoration measures in the main stem of the free-flowing Danube in Witzelsdorf, Lower Austria, on relevant bio-indicators (vegetation, bird-and fish assemblage). A comparison of vegetation-types, birds and fish assemblage before (2007) and after (2012) rehabilitation measures along an approx. 2 km long r...

The chapter is an experience in transdisciplinarity illustrated by the case of the Upper Ötztal, part of the Tyrolean LTSER Platform in the Austrian Alps. In this effort, the search was for an effective framework for integrated monitoring that would not be limited to observing and monitoring the state of nature alone, but one that would assess and...

We analyzed the vegetation of Alejandro Selkirk Island using the Zürich-Montpellier approach for taking relevés and subsequent classification by a multivariate approach and manual refinement. The resulting vegetation table demonstrates patterns of dominance and variation and the resulting vegetation units that were mapped onto aerial photographs to...

Riverine landscapes are shaped by the spatio-temporal dynamics of the water regime. Water level transitions induce a shift in plant species composition from aquatic to ephemeral vegetation communities in riparian habitats. Hence, the occurrence of these ephemerals is strongly related to the hydrological connectivity and therefore used as indicator...

Due to their trophic position owls represent important indicator species for an intact environment. However, little is known about the population density and habitat preferences of owls in European floodplain forest ecosystems. Therefore, we mapped owl territories and analyzed the habitat use of the Tawny Owl in the largest remaining floodplain for...

This study aims at evaluating (a) whether concentrations of a suite of elements in mosses sampled in the arctic region around Zackenberg reflect background concentrations useful for estimating pollution levels in industrialized parts of the northern hemisphere as is attempted, e.g. in the framework of the UNECE ICP Vegetation monitoring programme,...

Bryophytes, especially mosses, represent a largely untapped resource for monitoring and indicating effects of climate change on the living environment. They are tied very closely to the external environment and have been likened to 'canaries in the coal mine'. Bryophyte Ecology and Climate Change is the first book to bring together a diverse array...

[In the 2009 field season, the VEGMON project continued to collect data with relevance to the long-term vegetation monitoring summits of the GLORIA programme (cf. Ertl et al. 2009). Investigations were therefore concentrated around these sites, covering different aspects of the relationship between soil and vegetation. Additionally, a sub-project f...

Landscape pattern displays the interaction between natural and cultural forces (Baudry, 1989; Naveh, 1995; Bürgi, Hersperger, & Schneeberger, 2004; Haber, 2004). In times of changing land-use systems (intensification and unification), climate change and biodiversity loss it is necessary and helpful to know how landscapes were built up in former tim...

[The GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments) programme aims at establishing and maintaining a long-term observation network to obtain standardised data of plant species diversity and vegetation patterns of mountain biota at a global scale. Its purpose is to assess risks of biodiversity losses and the vulnerability of...

Die Arbeit "Hemerobie der Wälder im Biosphärenpark Wienerwald" (2009) stellt eine Hemerobiestudie der Waldökosysteme des Biosphärenparks Wienerwald dar. Die Re-ferenzstudie "Hemerobie österreichischer Waldökosysteme" (GrabhErr et al. 1998) wurde im genannten Untersuchungsgebiet wiederholt und die Ergebnisse auf 39 Er-hebungsflächen, die sowohl 1998...

Summary 1. The stress gradient hypothesis suggests a shift from predominant competition to facilitation along gradients of increasing environmental severity. This shift is proposed to cause parallel changes from prevailing spatial segregation to aggregation among the species within a community. 2. We used 904 1-m 2 plots, each subdivided into 100 1...

We investigated the nitrogen (N) dynamics of an alpine–nival ecotone on Mt. Schrankogel, Tyrol, Austria, in relation to temperature. Natural abundance of 15N was used as a tool to elucidate differences in N cycling along an altitudinal transect ranging from 2,906 to 3,079m, corresponding to a gradient in mean annual temperature of 2.4°C. The amount...

High mountain ecosystems are defined by low temperatures and are therefore considered to react sensitively to climate warming. Responding to observed changes in plant species richness on high peaks of the European Alps, an extensive setup of 1 m × 1 m permanent plots was established at the alpine-nival ecotone (between 2900 and 3450 m) on Mount Sch...

Beside their ecological value, urban flood plains often provide a wide range of socio-economic services, which may be in conflict with their ecological development. New management strategies are needed in order to protect these areas and preserve the potential for future socio-economic utilisations. The Lobau, an urban flood plain of the Danube wit...

Without sustainable rehabilitation measures, the Lobau, a freshwater Biosphere Reserve, will soon became a primarily terrestrial ecosystem with major implications for its rich aquatic and amphibic biodiversity. An innovative ecosystem management scheme for this Danube floodplain needs to optimally balance between conservation and restoration object...

Beside their ecological value, urban flood plains often provide a wide range of socio-economic services, which may be in conflict with their ecological development. New management strategies are needed in order to protect these areas and preserve the potential for future socio-economic utilisations. The Lobau, an urban flood plain of the Danube wit...

Low temperatures and the short growing season in high altitude snow patches in temperate mountains constrain life cycles and reproduction of snowbed species. This leads to it highly adapted timing of sexual reproduction. Winter precipitation and temperature, the main factors determining growing season length, are predicted to change with global War...

Megaherbivores have a considerable impact on species composition and structure of natural plant assemblages at the alpine/nival ecotone of the Alps, but their role as dispersal vectors has scarcely been investigated. This study examined the diet selection of free-ranging ungulates on high-alpine swards with special focus on their potential for endo...

https://www.data.gv.at/datensatz/?id=2280ac2c-75c2-4687-bf5d-f5fa707a80c3

High mountain ecosystems are sensitive to climate change (Box 1). Historical records of the flora on high summits in the Alps provide an important baseline against which climate-induced effects on high mountain ecosystems can be assessed. Reinvestigations of these old “monitoring summits” have shown that mountain plants have migrated upwards during...

Sustainability has become a central term in environmental planning and policy since the late 1980s. However, an understanding of landscapes in terms of sustainability is still poorly developed. The project Spatial Indices for Land Use Sustainability was conducted to elaborate spatially explicit indicators for mapping ecological sustainability. Ecol...

We present a numerical classification of 2145 objectively sampled relevés from the entire forest area of Austria (Central Europe). The sample sites were selected by a combined method involving a systematic matrix and stratified random sampling. A TWINSPAN classification led to 32 clusters which are described in detail. Three main groups can be dist...

GLORIA, a Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments, aims to establish an urgently required global indicator network to detect climate-induced changes in high mountain regions. High mountains appear to be particularly appropriate for such a global initiative, because they still comprise low-temperature determined, natural ecosys...

Satellite images or aerial photos are often the most appropriate method of gaining a first general view of large areas. In order to detect different spatial patterns (e.g. vegetation patterns, soil patterns), aerial or satellite images can assist ecological studies. The revealed patterns could provide the basis for the selection of sampling points....

Summary Induced by global warming, mountain plant species are migrating upwards. Species inhabiting the nival zone of today are threatened by competitors which move from the alpine zone towards the summits. The manner in which species move depends on their abilities to cope with microtopographical situations. We present a spatially explicit predict...

The elaboration of an indicator set reflecting the spatial configuration of elements in landscapes - the so-called landscape structure, is proposed. Referring to the outcome of an interdisciplinary research project in different Austrian agricultural regions it can be shown that certain features of landscape structure are suitable for describing sus...

The spatial patterns of vascular plant diversity in cultivated landscapes can be seen as the result of different land-use systems which interfere with the given natural conditions. The degree to which human impact can explain these biodiversity patterns differs widely between different landscapes. For the case of Austria – a small but very heteroge...

Sustainable development of cultural landscapes has become an important issue in Austria. To enable decision makers to set up appropriate policy measures especially in the field of land-use planning and agriculture, indicators are needed which are powerful and sensitive at the same time. The presented paper refers to the outcomings of an interdiscip...

To get an empirical database on the spatial configuration of landscape elements in Austrian cultural landscapes, fieldwork was carried out during two years in more than 140 sample sites. The data collection focussed on classical attributes like land-use or anthropogenous influence as well as on different features of landscape structure such as patc...

Classifying cultural landscapes by means of criteria which reflect the ecological background of sustainability and nature conservation shall provide the Austrian administration as well as the scientific community with land- units that have an "ecological meaning". These regions are identified as "Cultural Landscape Types" and characterized not only...

Die Erstellung eines Stichprobcnplans in der Vegetationsökologie weist noch einen Mangel an befriedigenden methodischen Ansätzen auf. Die reine Zufalls-entnahme ist teilweise zu arbeitsintensiv, die traditionelle Form der subjektiven Aufnahmenwahl verletzt manche grundlegende Forderung für eine weitere statistisch abgesicherte Bearbeitung. Moderne...