EXploitation of Aphid Monitoring systems IN Europe
Environment Project EVK2-1999-00151

Objectives

The project will co-ordinate existing independent observing systems at 73 sites in 19 countries to provide an integrated, standardised, long term, consolidated, Europe-wide database on aphid incidence. The database will be used to detect, understand and predict the impacts of environmental change on the dynamics of aphids as key indicative components of terrestrial ecosystems. The database will be made available to the International Geosphere and Biosphere Programme's Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems project to allow comparative worldwide assessment of global change impacts on pests of agroecosytems.

The objectives of the project are:

To integrate existing observing systems at 73 sites in 19 countries to provide a standardised, long term, consolidated, Europe-wide database on aphid incidence.
To obtain and incorporate test data on climate, atmospheric pollutants and land use in a format suitable for analysis with the aphid data.
To test this database by devising innovative analyses to detect, understand and predict the impacts of predicted changes in climate, including large scale systems such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and ENSO, on the dynamics of aphids as key indicative components of terrestrial agroecosystems.
To test this database by devising innovative analyses to detect, understand and predict the impacts of predicted changes in atmospheric gases, including pollutants, on the dynamics of aphids as key indicative components of terrestrial agroecosystems.
To test this database by devising innovative analyses to detect, understand and predict the impacts of predicted changes in land use on the dynamics of aphids as key indicative components of terrestrial agroecosystems.
To make this database available for comparative worldwide assessments of the impacts of global change on terrestrial agroecosystems.
To formulate provisional response options with respect to the impacts of environmental change on aphid dynamics.
To provide a lasting infrastructure to develop the analyses further and to validate predictions as to the impacts of global environmental change on aphid dynamics.