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116-572: The party was founded in 1986 under the name "Green Alternative" ( Grüne Alternative ), following the merger of the more conservative Green party Vereinte Grüne Österreichs (United Greens of Austria VGÖ, founded 1982) and the more progressive party Alternative Liste Österreichs (Alternative List Austria, ALÖ, founded 1982). Since 1993, the party has carried the official name Die Grünen – Die Grüne Alternative (Grüne) , but refers to itself in English as "Austrian Greens". There are still differences between

232-656: A Member of the European Parliament (MEP). The results in Innsbruck were particularly good: there the Green party received 28.28%, which made it the strongest party, even before the Christian-democratic ÖVP and the social-democratic SPÖ. The Greens were able to score on a number of issues that they have been fighting for years. Besides the social topics above all the problems of transit traffic over

348-465: A dramatic effect on community structure. Hunting of sea otters, for example, is thought to have led indirectly to the extinction of the Steller's sea cow ( Hydrodamalis gigas ). While the keystone species concept has been used extensively as a conservation tool, it has been criticized for being poorly defined from an operational stance. It is difficult to experimentally determine what species may hold

464-428: A dramatic impact on the ecology of individual species or whole ecosystems. For instance, the replacement of an ant species by another (invasive) ant species has been shown to affect how elephants reduce tree cover and thus the predation of lions on zebras . A trophic level (from Greek troph , τροφή, trophē, meaning "food" or "feeding") is "a group of organisms acquiring a considerable majority of its energy from

580-412: A flattened body relative to the main populations that live in open savanna. The population that lives in an isolated rock outcrop hides in crevasses where its flattened body offers a selective advantage. Habitat shifts also occur in the developmental life history of amphibians, and in insects that transition from aquatic to terrestrial habitats. Biotope and habitat are sometimes used interchangeably, but

696-612: A higher one." Small scale patterns do not necessarily explain large scale phenomena, otherwise captured in the expression (coined by Aristotle) 'the sum is greater than the parts'. "Complexity in ecology is of at least six distinct types: spatial, temporal, structural, process, behavioral, and geometric." From these principles, ecologists have identified emergent and self-organizing phenomena that operate at different environmental scales of influence, ranging from molecular to planetary, and these require different explanations at each integrative level . Ecological complexity relates to

812-444: A keystone role in each ecosystem. Furthermore, food web theory suggests that keystone species may not be common, so it is unclear how generally the keystone species model can be applied. Complexity is understood as a large computational effort needed to piece together numerous interacting parts exceeding the iterative memory capacity of the human mind. Global patterns of biological diversity are complex. This biocomplexity stems from

928-408: A keystone species can result in a community collapse just as the removal of the keystone in an arch can result in the arch's loss of stability. Sea otters ( Enhydra lutris ) are commonly cited as an example of a keystone species because they limit the density of sea urchins that feed on kelp . If sea otters are removed from the system, the urchins graze until the kelp beds disappear, and this has

1044-741: A legacy niche that was constructed before their time. Biomes are larger units of organization that categorize regions of the Earth's ecosystems, mainly according to the structure and composition of vegetation. There are different methods to define the continental boundaries of biomes dominated by different functional types of vegetative communities that are limited in distribution by climate, precipitation, weather, and other environmental variables. Biomes include tropical rainforest , temperate broadleaf and mixed forest , temperate deciduous forest , taiga , tundra , hot desert , and polar desert . Other researchers have recently categorized other biomes, such as

1160-439: A linear successional route, changes might occur quickly or slowly over thousands of years before specific forest successional stages are brought about by biological processes. An ecosystem's area can vary greatly, from tiny to vast. A single tree is of little consequence to the classification of a forest ecosystem, but is critically relevant to organisms living in and on it. Several generations of an aphid population can exist over

1276-439: A macroscopic view of the system. While the notion of trophic levels provides insight into energy flow and top-down control within food webs, it is troubled by the prevalence of omnivory in real ecosystems. This has led some ecologists to "reiterate that the notion that species clearly aggregate into discrete, homogeneous trophic levels is fiction." Nonetheless, recent studies have shown that real trophic levels do exist, but "above

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1392-761: A member of the Austrian Parliament ( Nationalrat ) between 1986 and 1991 and since 1999. From 1992 to 1994 he also was federal spokesperson of the Greens. His main area of interest is legal matters and political corruption . Commonly known wearing a black jacket and a red, grey or green T-shirt, he was the first Austrian politician to keep a blog on the Internet. In January 2005, Pilz made international news when he called for Arnold Schwarzenegger to be stripped of his Austrian citizenship . As Governor of California , Schwarzenegger had refused to intercede in

1508-421: A members meeting or a delegates meeting. Similar to the federal executive, there are federal state executives ( Landesvorstände ). The party charter also allows for each federal state group to hold a vote on basic issues as well that affect the whole party. Ecology Ecology (from Ancient Greek οἶκος ( oîkos )  'house' and -λογία ( -logía )  'study of')

1624-516: A mix of herbivores and predators). Omnivores do not fit neatly into a functional category because they eat both plant and animal tissues. It has been suggested that omnivores have a greater functional influence as predators because compared to herbivores, they are relatively inefficient at grazing. Trophic levels are part of the holistic or complex systems view of ecosystems. Each trophic level contains unrelated species that are grouped together because they share common ecological functions, giving

1740-455: A month. It takes care of the implementation of the party-guidelines, which were set by the party congress. It also chooses the representatives of the party spokesperson. The highest office in the party is that of the federal spokesperson (Bundessprecher). The party's federal spokesman is Werner Kogler . The federal state organisations ( Landesorganisationen ) are organised similarly: There are federal state meetings, which sometimes convene as

1856-420: A new appreciation for the influence that organisms have on the ecosystem and evolutionary process. The term "niche construction" is more often used in reference to the under-appreciated feedback mechanisms of natural selection imparting forces on the abiotic niche. An example of natural selection through ecosystem engineering occurs in the nests of social insects , including ants, bees, wasps, and termites. There

1972-435: A population-level phenomenon, as with the migration routes followed by plants as they occupied northern post-glacial environments. Plant ecologists use pollen records that accumulate and stratify in wetlands to reconstruct the timing of plant migration and dispersal relative to historic and contemporary climates. These migration routes involved an expansion of the range as plant populations expanded from one area to another. There

2088-401: A region), and sites are classed either as sources or sinks. A site is a generic term that refers to places where ecologists sample populations, such as ponds or defined sampling areas in a forest. Source patches are productive sites that generate a seasonal supply of juveniles that migrate to other patch locations. Sink patches are unproductive sites that only receive migrants; the population at

2204-561: A revival in the 2019 European election , in which they scored 14.1% and elected 2 MEPs. The election saw the collapse of JETZ. The party eventually later this year, experienced a strong recovery and performed better well leading up to the 2019 snap legislative election , the Greens returned to the National Council ( German : Nationalrat ) with their best ever result in a legislative election, scoring 13.9% and electing 26 MPs, an upswing of 10.2% from 2017. The chart below shows

2320-517: A seasonal influx of new immigrants. A dynamic metapopulation structure evolves from year to year, where some patches are sinks in dry years and are sources when conditions are more favorable. Ecologists use a mixture of computer models and field studies to explain metapopulation structure. Community ecology examines how interactions among species and their environment affect the abundance, distribution and diversity of species within communities. Johnson & Stinchcomb (2007) Community ecology

2436-456: A species describes the environment over which a species is known to occur and the type of community that is formed as a result. More specifically, "habitats can be defined as regions in environmental space that are composed of multiple dimensions, each representing a biotic or abiotic environmental variable; that is, any component or characteristic of the environment related directly (e.g. forage biomass and quality) or indirectly (e.g. elevation) to

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2552-402: A specific habitat, such as a cave or a pond, and principles gleaned from small-scale studies are extrapolated to larger systems. Feeding relations require extensive investigations, e.g. into the gut contents of organisms, which can be difficult to decipher, or stable isotopes can be used to trace the flow of nutrient diets and energy through a food web. Despite these limitations, food webs remain

2668-569: A timeline of the Green chairpersons and the Chancellors of Austria . The left green bar shows all the chairpersons ( Bundessprecher , abbreviated as "Chair.") of the Green party, and the right bar shows the corresponding make-up of the Austrian government at that time. The red (SPÖ), black (ÖVP), and light grey (Independent) colours correspond to which party led the federal government ( Bundesregierung , abbreviated as "Govern."). The last names of

2784-446: A valuable tool in understanding community ecosystems. Food webs illustrate important principles of ecology : some species have many weak feeding links (e.g., omnivores ) while some are more specialized with fewer stronger feeding links (e.g., primary predators ). Such linkages explain how ecological communities remain stable over time and eventually can illustrate a "complete" web of life. The disruption of food webs may have

2900-582: A whole functional system, such as an ecosystem , cannot be predicted or understood by a simple summation of the parts. "New properties emerge because the components interact, not because the basic nature of the components is changed." Peter Pilz Peter Pilz (born 22 January 1954) is an Austrian politician ( JETZT ). From 1986 to 2017, he was a member of the Austrian Green Party . Born in Kapfenberg , Styria , Pilz has been

3016-399: A wide array of interacting levels of organization spanning micro-level (e.g., cells ) to a planetary scale (e.g., biosphere ) phenomena . Ecosystems, for example, contain abiotic resources and interacting life forms (i.e., individual organisms that aggregate into populations which aggregate into distinct ecological communities). Because ecosystems are dynamic and do not necessarily follow

3132-485: Is a central concept in the ecology of organisms and is sub-divided into the fundamental and the realized niche. The fundamental niche is the set of environmental conditions under which a species is able to persist. The realized niche is the set of environmental plus ecological conditions under which a species persists. The Hutchinsonian niche is defined more technically as a " Euclidean hyperspace whose dimensions are defined as environmental variables and whose size

3248-504: Is a function of the number of values that the environmental values may assume for which an organism has positive fitness ." Biogeographical patterns and range distributions are explained or predicted through knowledge of a species' traits and niche requirements. Species have functional traits that are uniquely adapted to the ecological niche. A trait is a measurable property, phenotype , or characteristic of an organism that may influence its survival. Genes play an important role in

3364-414: Is a larger taxonomy of movement, such as commuting, foraging, territorial behavior, stasis, and ranging. Dispersal is usually distinguished from migration because it involves the one-way permanent movement of individuals from their birth population into another population. In metapopulation terminology, migrating individuals are classed as emigrants (when they leave a region) or immigrants (when they enter

3480-711: Is a member of the European Green Party and Global Greens . In 1978 the Austrian Green movement began with the successful campaign to prevent the opening of the nuclear power plant in Zwentendorf (which had been favoured by Bruno Kreisky 's government), the Green Party was born in 1984 during the sit-in protests which prevented the Danube power plant at Hainburg from being built. In

3596-461: Is an emergent homeostasis or homeorhesis in the structure of the nest that regulates, maintains and defends the physiology of the entire colony. Termite mounds, for example, maintain a constant internal temperature through the design of air-conditioning chimneys. The structure of the nests themselves is subject to the forces of natural selection. Moreover, a nest can survive over successive generations, so that progeny inherit both genetic material and

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3712-404: Is another statistical approach that is often used in conservation research . Metapopulation models simplify the landscape into patches of varying levels of quality, and metapopulations are linked by the migratory behaviours of organisms. Animal migration is set apart from other kinds of movement because it involves the seasonal departure and return of individuals from a habitat. Migration is also

3828-438: Is greater than respiration) by photosynthesis or chemosynthesis . Heterotrophs are organisms that must feed on others for nourishment and energy (respiration exceeds production). Heterotrophs can be further sub-divided into different functional groups, including primary consumers (strict herbivores), secondary consumers ( carnivorous predators that feed exclusively on herbivores), and tertiary consumers (predators that feed on

3944-659: Is the Die Grünen - Alternative Liste Graz party for the federal state capital Graz . In the Graz city-council the Greens are represented by Sigi Binder, Lisa Rücker, Hermann Candussi and Christina Jahn. Styria has the largest Austrian Green youth organization in Austria, called Grüne Jugend Steiermark (Green Youth Styria). Beside the Green Youth Styria there also exists Austria's first Green students' organization,

4060-571: Is the Federal Congress (Bundeskongress), which convenes at least once a year. All federal state organisations send delegates, also the immigrants-organisation is allowed to send delegates as "the tenth Austrian state ". The Federal Congress decides the electoral lists for the National Council elections and elections to the European parliament . The congress also elects the federal spokesperson ( BundesprecherIn ). The congress also decides

4176-590: Is the Park Grass Experiment , which was initiated in 1856. Another example is the Hubbard Brook study , which has been in operation since 1960. Holism remains a critical part of the theoretical foundation in contemporary ecological studies. Holism addresses the biological organization of life that self-organizes into layers of emergent whole systems that function according to non-reducible properties. This means that higher-order patterns of

4292-460: Is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment . Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population , community , ecosystem , and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography , evolutionary biology , genetics , ethology , and natural history . Ecology is a branch of biology , and is the study of abundance , biomass , and distribution of organisms in

4408-413: Is the biosphere: the total sum of ecosystems on the planet. Ecological relationships regulate the flux of energy, nutrients, and climate all the way up to the planetary scale. For example, the dynamic history of the planetary atmosphere's CO 2 and O 2 composition has been affected by the biogenic flux of gases coming from respiration and photosynthesis, with levels fluctuating over time in relation to

4524-462: Is the common platform of the Greens in Salzburg municipality . Like many other autonomous municipal groups it carries its own name. The Styrian Greens have three delegates sitting in the federal state assembly, federal state spokesperson Lambert Schönleitner, Sandra Krautwaschl, and Lara Köck. There are two independent Greens parties: on the one hand the federal state party, on the other hand there

4640-522: Is the study of the interactions among a collection of species that inhabit the same geographic area. Community ecologists study the determinants of patterns and processes for two or more interacting species. Research in community ecology might measure species diversity in grasslands in relation to soil fertility. It might also include the analysis of predator-prey dynamics, competition among similar plant species, or mutualistic interactions between crabs and corals. These ecosystems, as we may call them, are of

4756-556: Is used for managing wildlife stocks and setting harvest quotas. In cases where basic models are insufficient, ecologists may adopt different kinds of statistical methods, such as the Akaike information criterion , or use models that can become mathematically complex as "several competing hypotheses are simultaneously confronted with the data." The concept of metapopulations was defined in 1969 as "a population of populations which go extinct locally and recolonize". Metapopulation ecology

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4872-468: The 1986 parliamentary elections the Green Party started off with 4.82% of all votes cast and entered parliament with eight National Council mandates. In the early elections to National Council in 2002 , the Green Party nationwide received 9.47% of votes, and won 17 mandates to the National Council. At that time, it was the highest number of votes garnered by any European Green party. When

4988-578: The Alps was important. The Tyrolean Greens have experts on traffic issues with MEP Eva Lichtenberger, the national speaker and club chairperson Georg Willi and the speaker of group of regional of Innsbruck Gerhard Fritz. The issue of transit traffic through the Tyrol is of great importance, because the state is troubled by the massive transit traffic between Germany and Italy over the Brenner Pass . Since

5104-660: The Bezirksvorsteher (mayor of the district). The results of 2001 also allowed the Viennese Greens to nominate Stefan Schennach as federal councilor to the Upper House of Parliament ( Bundesrat ). But despite the strong gains, the Greens were not able to enter into a coalition government with the SPÖ, since the social-democrats were able to win an absolute majority. The 2004 European Parliament election were

5220-603: The Communist Party of Austria ) and later experiencing a split of Peter Pilz 's faction, forming the Peter Pilz List . The 2017 legislative election saw a collapse for the party, scoring only 3.8% and losing its representation in the Nationalrat for the first time since 1986. Following the results, party spokesman Ingrid Felipe resigned from her post and was replaced by Werner Kogler . The party saw

5336-536: The ECO Students . In Tyrol the Greens (official name: Die Grünen – die Grüne Alternative Tirol ) were able to win seats and placed in 1994 Eva Lichtenberger as Austria's first Green state councillor in a local government, responsible for environmental affairs. The 2003 Tyrolean Landtag (state assembly) elections were the best ever for the Austrian Greens, winning 15.59% of all votes cast. In

5452-622: The Lower Austrian Greens were represented with two delegates in the federal state assembly. In the federal state elections in 2003 the Greens received 7.22% and thus won four mandates, which enabled them to form a parliamentary group - called club in Austrian politics - in the assembly. With Madeleine Petrovic , the Lower Austrian Greens have a former federal spokeswoman and one of the most outspoken animal activists of Austria as their leader ( Klubobfrau ). In 2005

5568-669: The University of Innsbruck . The communal elections of 2004 brought a doubling of the mandates for the Tyrolean Greens. City elections in Innsbruck in 2006 were a success for the Greens and they gained 8 of the 40 seats in the parliament of Innsbruck . In the elections to the European parliament the Tyrolean Greens obtained 17.32%, their best result until then. Eva Lichtenberger subsequently changed her position to become

5684-632: The Upper Austrian Greens successfully entered the Upper Austrian Landtag (state assembly) for the first time. After the state elections in 2003 (state elections in Upper Austria are held every six years, not five like in the other states), the Greens were able to win even more seats. The campaign was already aimed at gaining ministerial seats in the state government. Since the conservative Christian-democratic ÖVP

5800-405: The abundance or biomass at each level. When the relative abundance or biomass of each species is sorted into its respective trophic level, they naturally sort into a 'pyramid of numbers'. Species are broadly categorized as autotrophs (or primary producers ), heterotrophs (or consumers ), and Detritivores (or decomposers ). Autotrophs are organisms that produce their own food (production

5916-465: The execution of a convicted murderer, Donald Beardslee . Pilz pointed to an Austrian law which prohibits any Austrian from taking part in, or ordering, an execution. A few months later, Pilz claimed that a person whom he called "Zeuge D" ( German : "witness D" ) has information that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had participated in the murder of 3 Kurds in Vienna in 1989. According to him

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6032-436: The logistic equation by Pierre Verhulst : where N(t) is the number of individuals measured as biomass density as a function of time, t , r is the maximum per-capita rate of change commonly known as the intrinsic rate of growth, and α {\displaystyle \alpha } is the crowding coefficient, which represents the reduction in population growth rate per individual added. The formula states that

6148-596: The 2004 federal state elections and could not achieve the desired club status of at least three mandates. As voter-current analyses showed, the small increases in votes were largely due to former voters of the Liberal Forum (LiF), which did not run in the Salzburg elections. In March 2009 they were down from 8% to 7.3%, keeping their two seats in Salzburg State's parliament. The Bürgerliste (Citizen List)

6264-636: The 2006 elections the Greens gained four seats and ended up with 21 seats and became the third largest party in Parliament, however did not have enough mandates to form a coalition government with either the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) or Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and became the largest opposition party, while the SPÖ and ÖVP formed a grand coalition government. The party suffered from internal struggles in 2017, losing its Youth wing (which split away and formed an ephemeral joint list with

6380-648: The Austrian police had already contacted the witness, who supposedly lived in France , but this was denied by the Austrian Ministry of Justice. On 25 July 2017, with the disappointment of Green leadership and lack of responses in refugee and migrant crisis, he announced his independent campaign for the elections to the Austrian parliament in the autumn . He headed the Peter Pilz List , a group of intellectuals, artists and entrepreneurs, critical toward

6496-530: The Carinthian voting system requires a party to win a direct mandate in one of the four regional election districts, which effectively means a 10%- threshold in order to enter. Only in 2004 were the Carinthian Greens finally able to take their seats in the federal state assembly, where they are represented by cabaret artist Rolf Holub and Barbara Lesjak . On a regional level, for example in

6612-551: The Earth and atmospheric conditions within a narrow self-regulating range of tolerance. Population ecology studies the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the wider environment. A population consists of individuals of the same species that live, interact, and migrate through the same niche and habitat. A primary law of population ecology is the Malthusian growth model which states, "a population will grow (or decline) exponentially as long as

6728-430: The Greens took their seats in parliament for the first time, they chose to appear somewhat unconventional. They initially refused to adapt their behaviour to that of the other parties; an example of this is their refusal to elect a chairperson ( Klubobmann/Klubobfrau ) and designated a puppet made out of straw instead. Delegates would appear in parliament dressed in casual wear such as jeans and trainers. Worldwide attention

6844-800: The Greens were able to nominate a second Green district-mayor. The second place was won in the districts of Leopoldstadt , Margareten , Mariahilf, Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus and Alsergrund . The Green delegates to the Viennese Gemeinderat or Landtag as of 2006 were: Maria Vassilakou (club-chairlady [ Klubobfrau ]), Waltraut Antonov , Heidi Cammerlander , Christoph Chorherr , Sabine Gretner , Susanne Jerusalem , Alev Korun , Rüdiger Maresch , Martin Margulies , Sigrid Pilz , Ingrid Puller , Marie Ringler , Marco Schreuder , Claudia Sommer-Smolik . The two city-councillors are David Ellensohn and Monika Vana . The 2010 results meant that

6960-580: The Lower Austrian Greens managed to win and take their seats in 100 municipal assemblies and as of 2005 had four vice-mayors. Their managing director in Lower Austria is Thomas Huber. After the federal state elections in 1989 the Salzburg State Greens had two mandates in the Salzburg federal state assembly, in 1994 three and in 1999 again two. Under the leadership of Cyriak Schwaighofer the Greens performed under their expectations in

7076-497: The SPÖ was unable to hold the majority of seats in the Vienna city council and therefore had to rule together with the Greens performing for the first time as coalition partner. The current vice-governor/vice-mayor of Vienna as of 26 June 2019 is Birgit Hebein . The results of the Viennese Gemeinderat elections: ran as Alternative Liste Wien (ALW) In 2004 the Greens had about 3,000 members nationwide, although at present there are no uniform regulations for membership. Apart from

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7192-523: The Tyrol sits right in between Germany and Italy, the bulk of the commercial traffic passes through there. This heavy-duty traffic has devastating effects on the fragile alpine environment and decreases the quality of life for the inhabitants. Since the entry to the European Union, Austria had to give up any quota limitations on how much international traffic coming from EU-countries is allowed to pass through its territory. The Tyrolean Greens accused

7308-443: The best for the Viennese Greens so far. From the total tally, they received 22%, which put them ahead of the Christian-democratic ÖVP and placed them on second position behind the SPÖ (37.7%). In Neubau the Greens received 41%. They were also able to win first place in the districts of Wieden, Mariahilf, Josefstadt and Alsergrund. In the 2005 Gemeinderat elections, the Greens were able to win votes, but missed their target of becoming

7424-571: The capital city of Innsbruck the Greens reached approximately 27% of the vote. The Tyrolean election result also meant that the Greens could for the first time in history nominate a member to the Upper House of Parliament. Since 2003 the Green delegate to the Federal Council ( Bundesrat ) of Parliament is Eva Konrad , former chairlady of the Austrian National Union of Students ( Österreichische HochschülerInnenschaft ) of

7540-744: The context of the environment. It encompasses life processes, interactions, and adaptations ; movement of materials and energy through living communities; successional development of ecosystems; cooperation, competition, and predation within and between species ; and patterns of biodiversity and its effect on ecosystem processes. Ecology has practical applications in conservation biology , wetland management, natural resource management ( agroecology , agriculture , forestry , agroforestry , fisheries , mining , tourism ), urban planning ( urban ecology ), community health , economics , basic and applied science , and human social interaction ( human ecology ). The word ecology ( German : Ökologie )

7656-714: The diversity of life from genes to ecosystems and spans every level of biological organization. The term has several interpretations, and there are many ways to index, measure, characterize, and represent its complex organization. Biodiversity includes species diversity , ecosystem diversity , and genetic diversity and scientists are interested in the way that this diversity affects the complex ecological processes operating at and among these respective levels. Biodiversity plays an important role in ecosystem services which by definition maintain and improve human quality of life. Conservation priorities and management techniques require different approaches and considerations to address

7772-530: The dynamic resilience of ecosystems that transition to multiple shifting steady-states directed by random fluctuations of history. Long-term ecological studies provide important track records to better understand the complexity and resilience of ecosystems over longer temporal and broader spatial scales. These studies are managed by the International Long Term Ecological Network (LTER). The longest experiment in existence

7888-456: The ecology and evolution of plants and animals. Ecological theory has also been used to explain self-emergent regulatory phenomena at the planetary scale: for example, the Gaia hypothesis is an example of holism applied in ecological theory. The Gaia hypothesis states that there is an emergent feedback loop generated by the metabolism of living organisms that maintains the core temperature of

8004-434: The energy is transferred through a chain of organisms by consumption. The simplified linear feeding pathways that move from a basal trophic species to a top consumer is called the food chain . Food chains in an ecological community create a complex food web. Food webs are a type of concept map that is used to illustrate and study pathways of energy and material flows. Empirical measurements are generally restricted to

8120-460: The environment experienced by all individuals in the population remains constant." Simplified population models usually starts with four variables: death, birth, immigration , and emigration . An example of an introductory population model describes a closed population, such as on an island, where immigration and emigration does not take place. Hypotheses are evaluated with reference to a null hypothesis which states that random processes create

8236-451: The equilibrium, r / α {\displaystyle r/\alpha } as K , which is known as the "carrying capacity." Population ecology builds upon these introductory models to further understand demographic processes in real study populations. Commonly used types of data include life history , fecundity , and survivorship, and these are analyzed using mathematical techniques such as matrix algebra . The information

8352-508: The establishment. His new party cleared the 4 percent threshold for entering parliament in the election and handed a major defeat to the Greens, whose support fell to 3.9 percent from more than 12 percent in 2013. On 4 November 2017, after sexual harassment allegations came to light, Pilz announced that he would not take his seat in the National Council, and the seat was assumed by Martha Bissmann . On 22 May 2018, Pilz and his party announced that he would return to parliament before summer, as

8468-470: The federal government of not having pushed for a better deal with the European Union concerning transit-traffic and in effect abandoning the concerns of the citizens. They also heavily criticised the government's failure to negotiate a follow-up of the 1994 transit-treaty signed with the EU. Apart from the Greens, various anti-transit civic movements have formed to protest against the environmental damages caused by

8584-630: The federal state capital Klagenfurt , the Carinthian Greens have already played a political role for a longer time. In the Klagenfurt city council , the Greens are represented by Andrea Wulz , Matthias Koechl, Angelika Hoedl and Reinhold Gasper . Since the local election in 2003, the Klagenfurt Greens were able to take one of nine seats in the proportional city-government, Andrea Wulz is the town councillor for issues relating to women, family matters and social housing projects . In 1998

8700-589: The flux of energy and matter through an environment. Ecosystems have biophysical feedback mechanisms that moderate processes acting on living ( biotic ) and abiotic components of the planet. Ecosystems sustain life-supporting functions and provide ecosystem services like biomass production (food, fuel, fiber, and medicine), the regulation of climate , global biogeochemical cycles , water filtration , soil formation , erosion control, flood protection, and many other natural features of scientific, historical, economic, or intrinsic value. The scope of ecology contains

8816-400: The former applies to a community's environment, whereas the latter applies to a species' environment. Definitions of the niche date back to 1917, but G. Evelyn Hutchinson made conceptual advances in 1957 by introducing a widely adopted definition: "the set of biotic and abiotic conditions in which a species is able to persist and maintain stable population sizes." The ecological niche

8932-521: The former members of the old Alternative and VGÖ factions within the party, reflected in the differing approaches of the national and state parties. Apart from ecological issues such as environmental protection , the Greens are Pro-European and campaign for the rights of minorities and advocate a socio-ecological ( ökosozial ) tax reform . Their basic values according to their charter in 2001 are: " direct democracy , nonviolence , ecology , solidarity , feminism and self-determination ". The party

9048-544: The former relates only to the physical modifications of the habitat whereas the latter also considers the evolutionary implications of physical changes to the environment and the feedback this causes on the process of natural selection. Ecosystem engineers are defined as: "organisms that directly or indirectly modulate the availability of resources to other species, by causing physical state changes in biotic or abiotic materials. In so doing they modify, maintain and create habitats." The ecosystem engineering concept has stimulated

9164-518: The full ecological scope of biodiversity. Natural capital that supports populations is critical for maintaining ecosystem services and species migration (e.g., riverine fish runs and avian insect control) has been implicated as one mechanism by which those service losses are experienced. An understanding of biodiversity has practical applications for species and ecosystem-level conservation planners as they make management recommendations to consulting firms, governments, and industry. The habitat of

9280-408: The herbivore trophic level, food webs are better characterized as a tangled web of omnivores." A keystone species is a species that is connected to a disproportionately large number of other species in the food-web . Keystone species have lower levels of biomass in the trophic pyramid relative to the importance of their role. The many connections that a keystone species holds means that it maintains

9396-406: The human and oceanic microbiomes . To a microbe , the human body is a habitat and a landscape. Microbiomes were discovered largely through advances in molecular genetics , which have revealed a hidden richness of microbial diversity on the planet. The oceanic microbiome plays a significant role in the ecological biogeochemistry of the planet's oceans. The largest scale of ecological organization

9512-404: The interplay among ecological processes that operate and influence patterns at different scales that grade into each other, such as transitional areas or ecotones spanning landscapes. Complexity stems from the interplay among levels of biological organization as energy, and matter is integrated into larger units that superimpose onto the smaller parts. "What were wholes on one level become parts on

9628-412: The interplay of development and environmental expression of traits. Resident species evolve traits that are fitted to the selection pressures of their local environment. This tends to afford them a competitive advantage and discourages similarly adapted species from having an overlapping geographic range. The competitive exclusion principle states that two species cannot coexist indefinitely by living off

9744-402: The latter focuses on materials and energy fluxes. System behaviors must first be arrayed into different levels of the organization. Behaviors corresponding to higher levels occur at slow rates. Conversely, lower organizational levels exhibit rapid rates. For example, individual tree leaves respond rapidly to momentary changes in light intensity, CO 2 concentration, and the like. The growth of

9860-418: The liberals failed to enter any legislature. The traditional strongholds in Vienna for the Greens are the districts of Neubau (2005: 43.26%), Josefstadt (32.26%), Alsergrund (29.43%), Mariahilf (28.97%) and Wieden (25.14%). In the 2001 Gemeinderat elections, the Greens were able to win the majority of a district for the first time. In the district of Neubau they won 32.55% and were able to nominate

9976-424: The lifespan of a single leaf. Each of those aphids, in turn, supports diverse bacterial communities. The nature of connections in ecological communities cannot be explained by knowing the details of each species in isolation, because the emergent pattern is neither revealed nor predicted until the ecosystem is studied as an integrated whole. Some ecological principles, however, do exhibit collective properties where

10092-432: The lower adjacent level (according to ecological pyramids ) nearer the abiotic source." Links in food webs primarily connect feeding relations or trophism among species. Biodiversity within ecosystems can be organized into trophic pyramids, in which the vertical dimension represents feeding relations that become further removed from the base of the food chain up toward top predators, and the horizontal dimension represents

10208-528: The members, the Greens rely on a large number of volunteers. The party used to function on the principles of grassroots democracy ( Basisdemokratie ) and rotation principle ( Rotationsprinzip ), but this was stopped in the course of the time. The last basic-democratic element is the Urabstimmung , which is a vote on any issue that can be initiated with the petition of at least 100 members. As of 2003 however, no such vote has taken place. The highest body

10324-558: The most various kinds and sizes. They form one category of the multitudinous physical systems of the universe, which range from the universe as a whole down to the atom. Tansley (1935) Ecosystems may be habitats within biomes that form an integrated whole and a dynamically responsive system having both physical and biological complexes. Ecosystem ecology is the science of determining the fluxes of materials (e.g. carbon, phosphorus) between different pools (e.g., tree biomass, soil organic material). Ecosystem ecologists attempt to determine

10440-456: The nature of the unique physical environments that shapes the biodiversity within each. A more recent addition to ecosystem ecology are technoecosystems , which are affected by or primarily the result of human activity. A food web is the archetypal ecological network . Plants capture solar energy and use it to synthesize simple sugars during photosynthesis . As plants grow, they accumulate nutrients and are eaten by grazing herbivores , and

10556-445: The newly constructed Landtag building in 1981 only provided space for the traditional three parties (ÖVP, SPÖ, FPÖ), not four. Since the traditional organic farming sector is important in the western Austrian regions, the Greens were able to gain support. In the following years the Greens were able to consolidate their position by gaining seats on the communal and municipal level. Occasionally they lost their official club status in

10672-573: The niche is called the ecotope , which is defined as the full range of environmental and biological variables affecting an entire species. Organisms are subject to environmental pressures, but they also modify their habitats. The regulatory feedback between organisms and their environment can affect conditions from local (e.g., a beaver pond ) to global scales, over time and even after death, such as decaying logs or silica skeleton deposits from marine organisms. The process and concept of ecosystem engineering are related to niche construction , but

10788-531: The number of nitrogen fixers , can lead to disproportionate, perhaps irreversible, changes in the system properties." Biodiversity refers to the variety of life and its processes. It includes the variety of living organisms, the genetic differences among them, the communities and ecosystems in which they occur, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that keep them functioning, yet ever-changing and adapting. Noss & Carpenter (1994) Biodiversity (an abbreviation of "biological diversity") describes

10904-399: The observed data. In these island models, the rate of population change is described by: where N is the total number of individuals in the population, b and d are the per capita rates of birth and death respectively, and r is the per capita rate of population change. Using these modeling techniques, Malthus' population principle of growth was later transformed into a model known as

11020-406: The organization and structure of entire communities. The loss of a keystone species results in a range of dramatic cascading effects (termed trophic cascades ) that alters trophic dynamics, other food web connections, and can cause the extinction of other species. The term keystone species was coined by Robert Paine in 1969 and is a reference to the keystone architectural feature as the removal of

11136-467: The party program and sets the party guidelines. In the last few years, the federal executive (Bundesvorstand) has developed into the actual decision-making centre. It meets at least once a week, mostly on Tuesdays, and determines the guidelines of daily politics. The federal executive also decides on party finances. The extended federal executive (Erweiterter Bundesvorstand) consists of a smaller number of delegates from each state and meets at least once

11252-468: The published work of George Perkins Marsh ("Man and Nature"). Within an ecosystem, organisms are linked to the physical and biological components of their environment to which they are adapted. Ecosystems are complex adaptive systems where the interaction of life processes form self-organizing patterns across different scales of time and space. Ecosystems are broadly categorized as terrestrial , freshwater , atmospheric, or marine . Differences stem from

11368-502: The rate of change in population size ( d N ( t ) / d t {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} N(t)/\mathrm {d} t} ) will grow to approach equilibrium, where ( d N ( t ) / d t = 0 {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} N(t)/\mathrm {d} t=0} ), when the rates of increase and crowding are balanced, r / α {\displaystyle r/\alpha } . A common, analogous model fixes

11484-497: The respective chancellors are shown, the Roman numeral stands for the cabinets . The Green party also entered the parliaments or assemblies ( Landtag ) of Austrian federal states and communal governments. Following is an analysis of the party on the federal state ( Länder ) level: The Burgenland Greens were able to take their seats in the federal state parliament (Landtag) for the first time in 2000. The party received 5.49% of

11600-424: The same limiting resource ; one will always out-compete the other. When similarly adapted species overlap geographically, closer inspection reveals subtle ecological differences in their habitat or dietary requirements. Some models and empirical studies, however, suggest that disturbances can stabilize the co-evolution and shared niche occupancy of similar species inhabiting species-rich communities. The habitat plus

11716-516: The second most powerful party and ended up on fourth place, right behind the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ). Because of the different weighing by districts, the Greens received 14 mandates, one more than the FPÖ. They were also able to place another city-councillor. In the districts, the party was able to consolidate their holding on Neubau, as well as win the majority of votes in Josefstadt. With that,

11832-399: The site will disappear unless rescued by an adjacent source patch or environmental conditions become more favorable. Metapopulation models examine patch dynamics over time to answer potential questions about spatial and demographic ecology. The ecology of metapopulations is a dynamic process of extinction and colonization. Small patches of lower quality (i.e., sinks) are maintained or rescued by

11948-723: The state assembly, when they fared poorly from 1999 to 2004. In 2006 the speaker of the Vorarlberg Greens was Johannes Rauch . The results of the Vorarlberg Landtag elections: Combined result of ALÖ and VGÖ The Viennese Greens started nominating candidates in the Vienna Gemeinderat (municipal council or state assembly) in 1983 and were able to enter in 1991. Over the years they have been able to continually gather support. A lot of support has been coming from former Liberal Forum voters, after

12064-534: The state capital of Linz under the leadership of city councillor Jürgen Himmelbauer were most against this black-green project. On the national level, the Upper Austrian Greens were able to nominate and send to the parliamentary Upper House Federal Council ( Bundesrat ) councillor Ruperta Lichtenecker . The Vorarlberg Greens were the first to ever win mandates in an Austrian state assembly election. Already in 1984 they were able to win 13% of

12180-524: The study of ecology into a conceptually manageable framework, the biological world is organized into a nested hierarchy , ranging in scale from genes , to cells , to tissues , to organs , to organisms , to species , to populations , to guilds , to communities , to ecosystems , to biomes , and up to the level of the biosphere . This framework forms a panarchy and exhibits non-linear behaviors; this means that "effect and cause are disproportionate, so that small changes to critical variables, such as

12296-432: The sum of the components explain the properties of the whole, such as birth rates of a population being equal to the sum of individual births over a designated time frame. The main subdisciplines of ecology, population (or community ) ecology and ecosystem ecology , exhibit a difference not only in scale but also in two contrasting paradigms in the field. The former focuses on organisms' distribution and abundance, while

12412-467: The tally, which meant two mandates. In the federal state elections in 2005 these two seats were reaffirmed with 5.21% received of all votes cast. In the southernmost federal state Carinthia , different Green parties ran state elections: the KEL/AL in 1984, Anderes Kärnten in 1989 and 1994, and Demokratie 99 in 1999. These parties were, however, never able to enter the federal state assembly, since

12528-919: The traffic. Sitting in the National Council is Kurt Grünewald , a Tyrolean member of parliament, as well as the former leader of the Greens Alexander Van der Bellen , who has Tyrolean roots (he spent a part of his youth there and went to high school in Innsbruck). The results of the Tyrolean Landtag elections: 2003 delegates: Sepp Brugger , Maria Scheiber, Uschi Schwarzl , Elisabeth Wiesmüller und Georg Willi (club chairman); 1999 delegates: Maria Scheiber , Elisabeth Wiesmüller , Georg Willi (club chairman); 1994 delegates: Bernhard Ernst , Franz Klug, Max Schneider und Georg Willi (club chairman [ Klubobmann ]); 1989 delegates: Eva Lichtenberger, Jutta Seethaler , Franz Klug . In 1997

12644-670: The tree responds more slowly and integrates these short-term changes. O'Neill et al. (1986) The scale of ecological dynamics can operate like a closed system, such as aphids migrating on a single tree, while at the same time remaining open about broader scale influences, such as atmosphere or climate. Hence, ecologists classify ecosystems hierarchically by analyzing data collected from finer scale units, such as vegetation associations , climate, and soil types , and integrate this information to identify emergent patterns of uniform organization and processes that operate on local to regional, landscape , and chronological scales. To structure

12760-511: The two parties were subsequently called off, after the results with the ÖVP were not sufficient. The Green youth organisation Grünalternative Jugend (Green Alternative Youth or GAJ) briefly occupied the rooms of the Green parliamentary club in the Austrian parliament building in protest. In 2003 three Green federal counsellors formed their own club in the Upper House Federal Council ( Bundesrat ) of Parliament. After

12876-415: The underlying causes of these fluxes. Research in ecosystem ecology might measure primary production (g C/m^2) in a wetland in relation to decomposition and consumption rates (g C/m^2/y). This requires an understanding of the community connections between plants (i.e., primary producers) and the decomposers (e.g., fungi and bacteria). The underlying concept of an ecosystem can be traced back to 1864 in

12992-439: The use of a location by the animal." For example, a habitat might be an aquatic or terrestrial environment that can be further categorized as a montane or alpine ecosystem. Habitat shifts provide important evidence of competition in nature where one population changes relative to the habitats that most other individuals of the species occupy. For example, one population of a species of tropical lizard ( Tropidurus hispidus ) has

13108-475: The votes in the Vorarlberg state assembly elections, which for that time was an absolute sensation. The charismatic alpine farmer Kaspanaze Simma from Bregenzerwald was the leading candidate, it was mainly due to his efforts why the party was so instantly successful. Because of their strength, the Greens were allowed to form their own parliamentary fraction ( Klub ), which caused some logistical problems as

13224-593: Was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel . The science of ecology as we know it today began with a group of American botanists in the 1890s. Evolutionary concepts relating to adaptation and natural selection are cornerstones of modern ecological theory . Ecosystems are dynamically interacting systems of organisms, the communities they make up, and the non-living ( abiotic ) components of their environment. Ecosystem processes, such as primary production , nutrient cycling , and niche construction , regulate

13340-459: Was drawn when the Green delegate Andreas Wabl hoisted a swastika flag on the speakers podium in the Austrian parliament, protesting against then Federal President Kurt Waldheim . After the national election in 2002 , the Greens entered into preliminary negotiations about a possible coalition government with the conservative ÖVP. During negotiations, party leadership was accused of internally black-mailing skeptical members. Negotiations between

13456-462: Was the strongest party, this would have meant for the Greens to enter into a coalition government with them (the so-called " Schwarz-Grün " [Black-Green] coalition, named after the party-colours). This new political constellation was quite controversial amongst party members on both sides. In the Green party, the leader Rudi Anschober was able to convince party members and after some dealing became state councillor for environmental affairs. The Greens of

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