Tobias Demand

Establishing an extensive ecological profile of a population is of outmost importance in conservation efforts and landscape management. The sand lizard (Lacerta agilis LINNAEUS, 1758) is a widely spread Eurasian species that prefers open to half-open habitats. This includes areas in close proximity to humans like road and railroad edges or quarries. Therefore, the species is often victim of disturbances, destruction or fragmentation of its habitat and therefore subject to a lot of compensative measures.

In collaboration with the German NABU the ZFMK has been an active partner to initiate a large joint project to understand drivers of insect decline, the DINA project (2019-2022). The goal of the project is to assess and monitor the insect fauna in 21 selected Nature-protected areas using a Malaise trap transect approach. A particular goal of this project is to demonstrate the power of metabarcoding for the rapid and efficient assessment of the insect fauna relying on the GBOL database. Additionally to the insect fauna, landscape parameters including anthropogenic influence will be recorded.