Research

Road networks account for 47% of the sealed surface area in Lower Austria and thus represent a central component of the cultural landscape. On the one hand, roads are an indispensable foundation for our social life; on the other hand, they have significant impacts on biodiversity. Lower Austria leads the official statistics on wildlife-vehicle collisions in Austria. Nevertheless, comprehensive data are still lacking on animals that are road-killed but are not classified as game species. In the Citizen Science project “Roadkill” at BOKU University, more than 1,000 citizen scientists have been collecting data on road-killed vertebrates in Austria since 2013. Up to now, only presence data have been recorded. As part of the present project, this methodology is to be expanded by collecting presence–absence data through citizen scientists. The central question is: where are animals not being road-killed? The model organism used is the hedgehog genus (Erinaceus sp.). Public outreach campaigns will be conducted via the established social media channels of the project partners, as well as a drawing competition, evening lectures in rural communities, and, not least, events at the Museum of Lower Austria to raise public awareness. The insights gained will not only deepen the scientific understanding of the factors influencing hedgehog roadkills, but also provide an evidence-based foundation for planning and implementing targeted conservation measures. In the long term, the developed methodology is intended to be transferred to other animal species.

Pollinators, especially bees, are essential for biodiversity and food security. In Vienna, a hotspot of bee diversity, urban beekeeping is growing, raising concerns about food competition between honeybees and wild bees due to spatial and temporal limited floral resources. The BeEcoVIE II project aims to assess and mitigate these issues by evaluating Vienna's current wild and domesticated bee populations and modeling the city's carrying capacity for bees. In BeEcoVIE I, we gathered over 12,000 wild bee records from literature and different scientific and citizen science databases. We identified areas with high bee diversity and potential competition zones based on functional trait similarity. BeEcoVie II will expand this work through three main objectives: a comprehensive survey of wild bees in understudied areas, especially conservation areas (e.g., Natura 2000), modeling foraging resources and habitat quality to determine bee carrying capacity, and developing an open-access tool, Hive.City, for sustainable beekeeping practices. This tool will help beekeepers and urban planners make informed decisions to reduce competitive pressures and enhance wild bee conservation. By promoting evidence-based strategies, the project aims to balance urban beekeeping with the preservation of wild bee populations, positioning Vienna as a leader in urban bee conservation and sustainable beekeeping.

The REGRASS 3 project builds on the findings of the previous REGRASS 1 and 2 projects. It serves to maintain 10 m wide meadows established in 2016 in the years 2024-26. This is essential in order to carry out the comparative survey of plants and animals in the meadows newly established in 2016 and ÖPUL-funded biodiversity areas in 2026. These surveys are necessary to see how the contribution to the promotion of insect biodiversity of the established meadows is developing 10 years after sowing. The continuous intensive observation of a biodiversity-promoting landscape element over 10 years is unique and allows conclusions to be drawn about its long-term success. REGRASS 3 serves to provide management and action recommendations in order to test the flowering mixtures developed in REGRASS for ÖPUL suitability. Ultimately, the added value of maintaining a biodiversity-promoting landscape element over 10 years is to be demonstrated. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)