I am a PhD student in the Research Group Ecosystem and Landscape Ecology. I am interested in (insect) biodiversity and want to study its spatial patterns and temporal trends as well as drivers of these. There are two different projects that I work for: “Viel-Falter: Butterfly-Monitoring” and “Green roof: habitats facing climate change and biodiversity crisis”. In both I have the opportunity to conduct research on biodiversity in different contexts, expand my knowledge and learn a wide range of new skills from field methods to data analysis.
The Viel-Falter: Butterfly-Monitoring started as monitoring program for butterflies in Tyrol in 2018. Vorarlberg joined in a year
later and this year the monitoring was expanded to the whole of Austria with additional surveys for moths on 80 of the over 400 surveys sites that are part of the monitoring. The monitoring combines surveys from experts with surveys conducted by citizen scientists. While a lot of studies show that biodiversity is declining, we lack systematic long-term data on many groups. Monitoring insect diversity is especially challenging due to the large number of species and our lack of knowledge about the ecology of many of them. With the monitoring of butterflies, we want to contribute to closing that knowledge gap and gather data on the distribution and trends of biodiversity in Austria. We work with butterflies because they are a well understood group that can be monitored relatively easily and is representative of many other insect groups.
I joined the monitoring for my master’s thesis. For my thesis I had a closer look at the methods and the monitoring scheme used for the surveys. This included doing many days of fieldwork counting butterflies on meadows and pastures in Tyrol. I could learn a lot about the different butterfly species and how to distinguish them at the Natural History Collection of the Tyrolean State Museums. Benjamin Wiesmair who is responsible for the butterfly collection there taught me a lot before I started my surveys and was a great support during my field season. Since then, I spent some time each summer travelling through Tyrol and Vorarlberg to count butterflies and soon also took over some of the data analysis. During that time, I also worked for the Nature Park Karwendel in a climate change education project.
After a few years with two jobs, I decided to focus on my research work and started my PhD last year in fall. One goal of my thesis is the comparison of different methods used for butterfly monitoring to ensure data compatibility in between monitoring programs. We already published results from this work: “Standardized butterfly surveys: comparing transect counts and area-time counts in insect monitoring”. In addition, I will analyse the data from the Viel-Falter: Butterfly-Monitoring regarding the spatial distribution of butterfly species richness and abundance to better understand patterns of biodiversity. Finally, I want to develop methods for the combined use of the expert and citizen science data in the Viel-Falter: Butterfly-Monitoring.
“Green roof: habitats facing climate change and biodiversity crisis” is a Sparkling Science project. Together with researchers from the Department of Botany and in collaboration with schools in Tyrol and Vorarlberg we investigate the contribution of green roofs to promoting biodiversity and how green roofs are affected by extreme events in the context of climate change. Next to my scientific interest in the topic I enjoy working with pupils in different age groups for the project. I am trained as a Hiking Guide and a Tyrolean Nature Guide and want to raise awareness for the importance of biodiversity and the protection of natural habitats.
My work at the University involves a lot of different tasks such as doing butterfly surveys, setting up instruments on green roofs, giving workshops at schools, analysing data and writing articles to communicate our work within and beyond the scientific community. While this diversity of tasks can sometimes be challenging, I normally enjoy it a lot. I am grateful that I can learn so many different things, exchange with other scientists and can contribute to a better understanding of biodiversity.
Friederike BARKMANN
Research Group: Ecosystem and Landscape Ecology
Friederike.Barkmann@uibk.ac.at