@phdthesis{Welters2025, author = {Welters, Nina}, title = {Hunting "the wild": (re-)configurations of "the wild" through dynamics of practices, imaginations and place}, doi = {10.17904/ku.opus-1012}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus4-10120}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, pages = {173 Seiten : Illustrationen, Karte}, year = {2025}, abstract = {Hunting is typically regarded and publicly often criticized as a rather archaic and outdated process of tracking and shooting an animal. However, it can also be understood in a more symbolic way. As a superordinate term, hunting can be referred to as a practice of going after or chasing a specific desire - be it a material object, a living being or immaterialities. One thing that has gained a special value in today´s modern(ised) world, is the experience of seemingly "original" nature and animals - often phrased under the term "the wild". More and more people can be found participating in a variety of practices of hunting "the wild", influenced by certain desires, motivations, and geographical imaginations at predestined places. While there already is a great range of research revolving around what is understood as wilderness, it is rarely discussed how these varying desires and seemingly pre-existing configurations come into practice and thereby shape the places of "the wild". Therefore, this project aims at dissecting elements of practices and imaginations revolving around "the wild" and place them in a wider context of postcolonial discussions. Furthermore, it wants to contribute to a practice-based approach to better understand desire as well as the process of succeeding at its fulfillment and its volatility. As tools, a variety of ethnographic methods like observatory participation, go-along interviews or hanging outs is used and complemented by semi-structured interviews to capture different practices and types of hunting "the wild".}, subject = {Namibia}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Tayierjiang2015, author = {Tayierjiang, Aishan}, title = {Degraded Tugai Forests under rehabilitation in the Tarim riparian ecosystem, Northwest China: monitoring, assessing and modelling}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus4-2938}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, pages = {XIX, 130 Seiten : Illustrationen, Diagramme, Karten}, year = {2015}, abstract = {The Tarim River, located along the northern and eastern borders of the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, Northwest China, is about 1320 km long and thus one of the longest continental inland waterways in the world. In an undisturbed state, it is accompanied on both sides by floodplain forests of Euphrates Poplar (Populus euphratica Oliv.), also known as "Tugai Vegetation" or "Tugai Forests". These forests form typical desert riparian forests as the so-called "Green Corridor" and prevent the two deserts, the Taklamakan and the Kuruk-Tagh, from merging together. At present, large areas that were originally P. euphratica riparian forests have disappeared, with the remaining areas in critical condition. Specifically, the greatest threats over the past few decades have been the rising water consumption in the upper and middle reaches and massive hydro-technical interventions (construction of embankments and dams) in the development of uncultivated land (including the direct clearance of forests) for cotton production. These have led to widespread destruction of the natural ecosystems, particularly in the lower reaches of the river where about 320 km of the floodplain forests are either highly degraded or dead as the result of nearly 30 years of river desiccation. As a consequence of these deteriorations, land desertification has been aggravated and has expanded in the region. Because of the challenges facing this ecosystem, restoration measures with the diversion of "Emergency Ecological Water" have been implemented in the affected areas since 2000. This new process of recovery measures needs efficient and extensive long-term monitoring. In this thesis, current restoration measures as implemented to date are presented and hydrological dynamics as a function of water diversion are analysed. The structure, distribution and health statues (referred to as "vitality") of the dominant species Populus euphratica have been monitored by measuring Eco-morphological parameters of more than 5000 trees in two sampling sites (a 100-ha permanent plot and five random sampling plots of 50-m radii) at Arghan village in the lower reaches of the Tarim River in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. The effects of restoration measures on the revitalization of degraded trees have been analysed and assessed by using individual-based repeated measurements of the tree data. From a long-term point of view, and taking labour intensity and the high cost of tree height measurements into account, a suitable height-diameter model for obtaining the tree height (TH) of P. euphratica based on the diameter at breast-height data (DBH) has been developed and evaluated. The average annual groundwater depth within 300 m of the river channel at different transects (Yingsu, Karday, Arghan) recovered significantly after a second water diversion in 2001. The same rising trend in groundwater level was retained until 2004, started to decline until 2009, and then rose again until the end of the water diversion in 2011. The Mann-Kendall statistical trend test was applied to the mean monthly and annual groundwater depth of six groundwater wells at different distances from the river on the Arghan transect. The trend test for the whole time series period from 2003 to 2011 indicated that there was a statistically significant decreasing trend for all wells, but that from January 2010 to December 2011 the groundwater level in all wells had a statistically significant increase. With the exception of a relatively favourable groundwater depth for floodplain forests within a 150 m distance of the riverbed, the groundwater depth at larger distances remained far below 5 m, causing most forest plants (with the exception of the Tamarix sp.) to suffer from water scarcity. Analyses of forest structure, distribution and health status suggested that a maximum TH of 19 m was found within 0-20 m and 100-200 m of the river. By contrast, a maximum DBH of 126 cm was found within 500-600 m of the river. Trees with a TH of over 15 m and a DBH of over 60 cm appeared sporadically. The maximum CD (crown diameter) of 16.58 cm (one tree) was found next to the river bed. There was a relatively great variation in DBH when compared to TH and other eco-morphological parameters. On average, stand structure tended to be simpler as distance from the river increased. Trees classified as healthy and good accounted for approximately 40 \% of all sample trees, with slightly and highly degraded trees representing nearly 60 \%. Some of the eco-morphological parameters of the trees vary differently with respect to the ecological water diversion measures. In particular, in the vertical (north-south) direction, the farther the trees are from the river, the weaker the response of ecological indicators. These parameters include: tree vitality classes (VS), crown diameter (CD), height to crown (HC), frequency of root suckers, number of young seedlings, and shoot growth, as well as newly developed crown types of P. euphratica trees. Generally, the floodplain forests within 200 m of the riverbed recovered remarkably, and those between 200 and 800 m from the river showed a medium response to the water transfer, while forests further than 800 m away from the riverbed showed lesser signs of recovery. Following the evaluation and comparison of the results from ten commonly used models by means of multiple-model performance criteria (such as asymptotic t-statistics of model parameters, standardized residuals against predicted height, the root-mean-square error (RMSE), Akaike's information criterion (AIC), mean prediction error (ME) and mean absolute error (MAE)), Model (1): TH=1.3+a/(1+b×e^(-c×DBH)) and Model (6): TH=1.3+DBH^2/(a+b×DBH+c×DBH^2) are recommended as suitable choices for approximating the height-diameter relationship of P. euphratica. The limitations of the other models, resulting in poor performance for predicting TH accurately, are also discussed.}, subject = {Tarim}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Ranpal2024, author = {Ranpal, Surendra}, title = {Impacts of environmental factors on pollen production of birch across different climatic conditions in Europe}, doi = {10.17904/ku.opus-963}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus4-9637}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, pages = {18 ungez{\"a}hlte Seiten, 114 Seiten : Illustrationen, Diagramme, Karten}, year = {2024}, abstract = {Pollen production in birch trees (Betula spp.) is a crucial factor influencing plant reproduction and public health, as birch pollen is a major aeroallergen. However, the complex interactions between environmental factors and birch pollen production are not fully understood. This doctoral thesis aims to investigate the impacts of genetic, climatic, and other environmental drivers on pollen production across different birch species and climatic conditions in Europe. The research therefore gains major importance since climate change conditions are believed to alter the risk and severity of allergic diseases and may change conditions for reproduction in forest tree species. The major questions addressed in this PhD thesis are: 1. What are the pollen production estimates for Betula species? In other words, how many inflorescences and pollen are produced by distinct types of the tree species? 2. Is there a year-to-year variation in birch pollen production? 3. How do genetic and environmental factors influence birch pollen production at local and regional scales? The research presented in this thesis is based on three peer-reviewed publications that employed a multi-faceted approach to address the overarching research questions. The first study (Chapter 4) assessed pollen production in cloned individuals of weeping birch (Betula pendula) over three consecutive years (2019-2021) in a seed plantation in Germany, with catkin samples collected from 28 birch trees. The second study (Chapter 5) investigated pollen production of downy birch (Betula pubescens) along an altitudinal gradient of 522 meters in the European Alps during 2020 and 2021, with catkin samples collected from 17 birch individuals at nine different altitudinal locations. The third study (Chapter 6) evaluated the continental-scale impacts of meteorology (temperature, precipitation) and atmospheric gases (ozone, carbon dioxide) on downy birch pollen production across 37 International Phenological Gardens (IPGs) in Europe, with catkin samples collected over three consecutive years (2019-2021) and tree age was approximated by stem circumference. We adopted a standardized method to extract pollen from catkins and maintained methodological consistency across all three studies. For Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, environmental factors such as air temperature, air quality, and solar radiation were monitored at the study sites. For Chapter 6, high-resolution (0.1°) gridded meteorological data were obtained from the E-OBS dataset, and concentrations of O3, NO2 and CO2 were derived from Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reanalysis. The major statistical analyses included non-parametric tests such as the Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U test, Spearman's correlation, and mean regression. Additionally, the research incorporated a distribution-free quantile regression method, where the quantiles of the response distribution (pollen production) were modeled directly. This allowed for assessing the impacts of factors such as temperature and O3 levels across different quantiles of the response variable. All statistical analyses were carried out using R versions 4.1.2, 4.2.2, and 4.3.2. We estimated mean pollen production for two birch species: 1.66 million pollen grains per catkin for B. pendula (Chapter 4) and between 0.4 and 8.3 million pollen grains per catkin for B. pubescens (Chapter 5 and Chapter 6). Moreover, significant annual fluctuations were noted in both pollen and catkin production. Our findings also include indication of masting behaviour in the selected birch trees (Chapter 4 and Chapter 5), suggesting that annual variations in pollen production could be influenced by masting, which may mask the effects of environmental factors such as temperature. At the seed plantation site, we observed that genetic variability in birch trees leads to increased variability in pollen production (Chapter 4). Consequently, to effectively investigate the effects of environmental factors, we employed a research design that minimized genetic variability among trees. This approach was applied in our study across Europe using IPG birches, which exhibit reduced genetic variability (Chapter 6). The results from studies in the European Alps (Chapter 5) and across Europe (Chapter 6) showed significant positive correlations between air temperature and pollen production in birch. However, no correlations were observed with altitude (Chapter 5) or CO2 concentration levels (Chapter 5). Increasing O3 concentration levels tended to decrease pollen production (Chapter 6). The findings suggest that further climate warming could worsen the adverse effects on individuals with pollen allergies. This doctoral research provides novel insights into the complex environmental controls on pollen production in birch species, contributing to a more detailed understanding of the potential impacts of climate change on plant reproduction and public health.}, subject = {Europa}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Buchner2025, author = {Buchner, Lisa}, title = {From leaf traits to canopy signatures: a multiscale and multisensory assessment of ash dieback in Fraxinus excelsior L.}, doi = {10.17904/ku.opus-1015}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus4-10155}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, pages = {X, 95 Seiten : Illustrationen, Diagramme, Karten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {Ash dieback, a disease caused by the fungal pathogen Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, is severely threatening the existence of the European common ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.). The invasive pathogen leads to progressive symptoms such as leaf loss, shoot dieback, and stem necrosis, often resulting in high mortality in affected forest stands. While these visual symptoms are well documented, finer-scale physiological and morphological leaf responses remain largely unexplored. Ash dieback symptom severity is typically assessed through time-intensive field-based ratings; however, remote sensing technologies such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer new opportunities for large-scale, remote assessment of disease impact. Therefore, this dissertation applies a multiscale and multisensory approach to assess the effects of ash dieback. The main research questions were: (1) Does ash dieback, beyond visible symptoms such as leaf loss and shoot dieback, also induce fine-scale morphological and physiological alterations in the leaves of infected ash trees? (2) Can multisensory UAV data and the thereof calculated vegetation indices detect different degrees of damage caused by ash dieback? (3) What level of segmentation accuracy is required to ensure reliable estimation of mean vege-tation index values for individual ash tree crowns? Field investigations were carried out at four study sites in 2022 and 2023, combining visual vitality assessments with detailed analyses of leaf physiology and morphology in ash trees affected by ash dieback. The examined leaf traits included chlorophyll fluorescence, chlorophyll content, Specific Leaf Area (SLA), leaf thickness, and Fluctuating Asymmetry (FA), all of which were evaluated in relation to visually assessed damage severity. In addition, at two of the sites, repeated UAV-based aerial surveys were conducted from May to October over two consecutive years to capture the whole vegetation period of the common ash, using RGB, multispectral and thermal sensors. Complementing this, close-range multispectral images of individual tree crowns were acquired in 2023 to provide higher spatial resolution data for detailed crown analysis. In Publication 1 of this dissertation, physiological and morphological leaf traits were investigated in relation to visually assessed disease severity. Among the measured traits, SLA exhibited the most consistent and significant correlation with increasing damage severity, highlighting a potential link between leaf morphology and ash dieback. In Publication 2 a novel UAV-based monitoring workflow that utilizes RGB and multispectral imagery is introduced to classify ash dieback severity via vegetation index thresholds. The study demonstrated that both RGB and multispectral indices, particularly the Green-Red Vegetation Index (GRVI) and Difference Vegetation Index (DVI), can effectively distinguish between mildly and severely damaged trees. The combination of both multispectral and RGB indices achieved a combined classification accuracy of 77.2 \%. Publication 3 explored the influence of ash tree crown segmentation precision on vegetation index reliability. A newly developed fine segmentation method, based on unsupervised machine learning, successfully excluded non-foliar elements such as ground pixels and canopy gaps, improving spectral data interpretation. Although mean vegetation index values per crown did not differ significantly between coarse and fine segmentation, vegetation index heterogeneity increased with disease severity, emphasizing the added value of detailed crown delineation for detecting subtle stress patterns. Collectively, these studies contribute a scalable and interdisciplinary framework that bridges leaf-level physiological and morphological measurements with crown-level spectral data and machine learning-based crown segmentation. They further demonstrate how UAV-based remote sensing can be effectively integrated into long-term conservation strategies for Fraxinus excelsior L. This work underscores the importance of combining plant physiology, remote sensing, and machine learning to advance forest health monitoring and offers practical insights for the conservation of Fraxinus excelsior L. under ongoing disease pressure.}, subject = {Eschen}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Betz2021, author = {Betz, Florian}, title = {Biogeomorphology from space}, doi = {10.17904/ku.opus-694}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus4-6942}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, pages = {xi, 173 Seiten : Illustrationen, Diagramme, Karten}, year = {2021}, abstract = {In the arid and semi-arid climate of Central Asia, the endorheic rivers and their ecosystems play a crucial role as regional hotspots of biodiversity and for the provision of ecosystem services for local people. The Naryn River in Kyrgyzstan as the object of interest of this thesis is one of these rivers. On a flow length of more than 600 km, it is still in a widely natural condition making it an interesting study object in a world where most large rivers are distorted by anthropogenic activities. Despite this relevance, no comprehensive scientific studies are available about the Naryn River except water resource related research. In particular, large scale information about the structure and functioning of the Naryn River system from an interdisciplinary perspective is missing. Against this background, this thesis aims to fill the research gap and deliver up-to-date information about the Naryn River corridor with a special focus on biogeomorphology, i.e. the dynamic interaction between hydromorphology and vegetation. First, this thesis delivers the necessary background information about the Naryn River corridor including a general overview, an assessment of ecosystem services, a field based overview of the structure of the riparian ecosystems and an in-depth analysis of hydrology. Basing upon this background, remote sensing methods adapted to the data-scarce environment of Central Asia are used to derive various parameters of the structure of the Naryn River on the scale from reaches to the entire river corridor. Then, the large scale biogeomorphological structures and dynamics are assessed based on dense time series of multispectral satellite imagery. From the results, it becomes obvious that the structure of the corridor of the Naryn River is heterogeneous and mainly controlled by geological contraints. Only in a laterally unconfined segment, dynamic braided river reaches can form. In these reaches, the majority of biogeomorphological interactions take place. The outcome of this thesis is on the one hand the provision of large scale and up-to-date information about the structure and functioning of the Naryn River corridor as a basis for further research or decision making. On the other hand, this thesis presents innovative remote sensing methods for large scale characterization of river corridors. In particular, an approach for the characterization of dynamic processes of biogeomorphological interactions on a large scale is developed based on time series analysis of satellite imagery. This approach can complement biogeomorphological research on smaller spatial scales by delivering spatially and temporally continuous information for entire river corridors. This has the potential to obtain new insights of the processes and emergence of structure in river systems across multiple scales.}, subject = {Aue}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Bader2012, author = {Bader, Malek}, title = {Religious tourism in Jordan: current situation, future developments and prospects : a case study on Islamic and Christian holy sites}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus-1110}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The purpose of this research study is to analyse the state of the religious tourism product in Jordan from three main perspectives: To present the current state of religious tourism in Jordan through studying the tourism movement in the holy sites and analysing the potentials and future prospects. The relationship between the local community and these sites will be the second perspective from which the researcher will form the study. A third perspective is studying the visitors' satisfaction about the services presented to them and the evaluation of the current state of the selected holy sites, whether they are Islamic or Christian. The study was carried out at the Islamic and Christian sites of Jordan: five Christian holy sites and eight Islamic holy sites. The selection of these sites was based on their religious and tourist significance, both Islamic and Christian. The researcher obtained data by implementing different tools of study and research; most data depend on national and international statistics, indices of tourism and religious tourism in particular. The researcher's observations were a significant tool in this study and he made valuable observations that could play an important role in developing the religious tourism product in the kingdom if they are well implemented. The researcher conducted very fruitful qualitative research (interviews) with officials working in the field of tourism and, in particular, religious tourism, and he did a lot of interviews with visitors, tourists, and pilgrims at the holy sites, local communities around the holy sites, directors of the holy sites, directors of tourism directorates and religious men (Imams or priests). 211 self-completed questionnaires were filled during the study period (from the beginning of May to the end of August 2009) to analyse religious tourism at the sites from many different perspectives. The questionnaires were analysed with the programme SPSS 17.0, and the interviews were analysed with the help of the programme MAXQDA 10. In other words, the researcher used both qualitative and quantitative methods of research. The overall target of the study was to find answers to the central question whether religious tourism is or can be used as a tool which may help to bring Muslims and Christians in Jordan closer together through a deeper understanding of their common religious heritage. One of the main and important results was about the main aim which shows that the vast majority of those who responded to the questionnaire (83.3\%) believe that understanding common religious heritage is a factor upon which dialogue and a better coexistence between religions can begin to take place in a part of our world which suffers a lot of problems based on religious conflicts. Less than 1\% of the respondents gave a negative answer to this question, which indicates that there are strong feelings for understanding and building relationships based on common religious heritage. This is an important finding because it reiterates the role that common religious heritage has in the promotion of religious sites and the bringing together of people from different religious backgrounds. Christians were found among the Muslims in the Islamic holy sites and vice versa; this encourages the idea of the common religious heritage and its effect on the convergence and understanding between the people of different religions. However, there is one problem and this is related to visitors from Israel, but this is because of the well-known political reasons and not due to religious beliefs of the people. Finally, on the social level and concerning intercultural and religious heritage, the researcher hopes through this project that it will contribute to develop a basis on which it is possible to bring Muslims and Christians in Jordan closer together through a deeper understanding of their common religious heritage.}, subject = {Religion; Wallfahrt; Jordanien; Tourismus}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Aihemaitijiang2016, author = {Aihemaitijiang, Rouzi}, title = {Sustainable land use alternatives in the Tarim Basin, China}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus4-3044}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, pages = {XV, 115 Seiten : Illustrationen, Diagramme, Karten}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This doctoral thesis explores a paradigm of sustainable land use in the oases along the Tarim River of northwest China, where a fragile, semi-arid riparian ecosystem is being deteriorated by excessive land and water use for agriculture, in particular for the growing of cotton. This situation poses a grave threat not only to the natural Tugai vegetation in the area but also to the long-term sustainability of the region. We explore the hypothesis that the species Apocynum pictum may act as a sustainable crop substitute for the region, thereby replacing the water-demanding and widely distributed cash crop, cotton. This idea is motivated by the former having a lower water demand, as well as a number of other traditional and modern uses. To substantiate this hypothesis, a multidisciplinary research scheme has been designed, permitting the analyses of both the ecological and socio-economic potentials of this plant, its potential benefits relative to cotton and a comprehensive analysis of its productivity, water demand and economic potentials. This analysis is divided into three distinct sections. Biomass and nutrient analysis: Field investigations were conducted to sample biomass and map the spatial distribution of Apocynum pictum (abbreviated as A. pictum) at five selected sites. At each site, 3-5 plots were randomly selected and the point center quarter method, as outlined by Mueller-Dombois and Ellenberg (1974), was applied for biomass sampling. Concurrently, soil profiles were dug at each site so as to obtain soil samples from the various layers and electrical conductivity was measured as a mean of investigating soil salinity. These steps are essential for determining the physical and production basis for alternative land-use considerations. The results obtained show that the total above-ground biomass ranges from 0.6 t/ha (Qongaral 1) to 1.25 t/ha (Xayar 1), and that the total below-ground biomass of A. pictum is at 11.25 ± 5.41 t/ha. The biomass of A. pictum, relatively moderate when compared to other steppe and desert ecosystems, reflects strains of soil and water conditions for plant growth in desert margins. Evapotranspiration and water budget: Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component of water balance and is closely linked to ecosystem productivity. Climate parameters were measured with mobile climate stations to calculate reference crop evapotranspiration (ET0) via the Penman-Monteith equation. Diurnal foliar transpiration and conductance were measured with a porometer to calculate canopy resistance. Leaf samples were photographed and analyzed for the leaf area index (LAI) in the study area so as to calculate crop evapotranspiration under standard conditions (ETc) and crop factors (Kc). Finally, the water consumptions of A. pictum and cotton were calculated and compared so as to identify which is better suited for dry environments. The results show that cotton in this study attained a high yield compared to the world average, and at a rather low ETc. Among the three plants tested, A. pictum required the least amount of water during the vegetation season with 217.2 mm a year, while the Chinese red date came close second with 339 mm and cotton was least water-efficient with 524.7 mm, thus demonstrating the viability of A. pictum as an alternative with significant water-saving potential. Economic analysis: Purposive sampling was used, with relevant participants in the study being approached by flow population and snowballing or chain sampling methods. The desired information was then obtained via a structured-questionnaire survey. Three natural resource management types of Apocynum were identified and a cost-revenue analysis was carried out for each. The results show that all three types of institutional arrangements - open access, ranching and farming - are present in our study and at various levels. Apocynum costs 1083.35 Yuan/mu, generates 3267.63 Yuan/mu of revenue from raw materials and brings a profit of 2184 Yuan/mu - the highest among of all three cash crops compared. We conclude that A. pictum offers opportunities for the restoration of vegetation in riparian ecosystems on salinized sites under the arid conditions of the Tarim Basin, while also serving as a viable land-use alternative to cotton for cash crop agriculture, as it may generate a certain income in the form of tea and fibers, as well as fodder for livestock.}, subject = {Tarimbecken}, language = {en} }