Biology subjects

Rainer, H.

Publications and source records attributed to Rainer, H..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

How to catch flies in the city (fast): Citizen Science on Drosophila ecology helps to raise awareness for biodiversity in urban environments

To efficiently mitigate biodiversity loss both robust ecological data and broader societal engagement are needed. Citizen science offers a pathway to address these dual challenges by combining data collection with public involvement. Here, we introduce the citizen science project Vienna City Fly, conducted at the Natural History Museum Vienna (NHMW), which used fruit flies (Drosophila) as a model organism group for urban biodiversity research and public engagement. Participants deployed standardized traps across Vienna, enabling systematic sampling and active participation in research, which resulted in hundreds of fly collections, thousands of sampled fly specimens and new insights into the biodiversity and ecology of the collected fly species, demonstrating the feasibility of large-scale ecological research through public collaboration. To assess motivational drivers and perceived impacts of participation, we conducted an online survey (N=59) using the validated psychometric MORFEN-CS scale. Survey results revealed that nature conservation values and the intention to contribute to biodiversity conservation emerged as the strongest drivers of engagement, complemented by sociopolitical responsibility and citizen science-based motivations. Reported outcomes include knowledge gain (61%), more positive attitude toward study organisms (50%), and increased awareness of biodiversity (30%). Satisfaction was very high, with 85% rating their experience at the top of the scale and all participants expressing willingness to join future citizen science projects. Recruitment occurred mainly via social networks, and the sample of participants was highly educated, indicating limits to inclusivity and reach. Our findings demonstrate that citizen science can contribute to robust ecological data collection while gaining knowledge and awareness. Natural history museums, as trusted institutions, play a key role in facilitating such initiatives. Overall, Drosophila research proves to be a suitable field for citizen science, combining accessibility with strong potential for advancing ecological and biodiversity research as well as public engagement in urban biodiversity research.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2023

Threat of mining to African great apes

The rapid growth of clean energy technologies is driving a rising demand for critical minerals. In 2022 at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15), seven major economies formed an alliance to enhance the sustainability of mining these essential decarbonization minerals. However, there is a scarcity of studies assessing the threat of mining to global biodiversity. By integrating a global mining dataset with ape density distribution estimates, we explored the potential negative impact of industrial mining on African great apes. Our findings reveal that up to one-third of Africas great ape population faces mining-related risks. This is especially pronounced in West Africa, where numerous mining areas overlap with fragmented ape habitats, often occurring in high-density ape regions. For 97% of mining areas, no ape survey data are available, underscoring the importance of increased accessibility to environmental data within the mining sector to facilitate research into the complex interactions between mining, climate, biodiversity and sustainability. TeaserMining for clean energy minerals could put one-third of Africas ape population at risk.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Global Phylogeny of the Brassicaceae Provides Important Insights into Gene Discordance

The mustard family (Brassicaceae) is a scientifically and economically important family, containing the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and numerous crop species that feed billions worldwide. Despite its relevance, most published family phylogenies are incompletely sampled, generally contain massive polytomies, and/or show incongruent topologies between datasets. Here, we present the most complete Brassicaceae genus-level family phylogenies to date (Brassicaceae Tree of Life, or BrassiToL) based on nuclear (>1,000 genes, almost all 349 genera and 53 tribes) and plastome (60 genes, 79% of the genera, all tribes) data. We found cytonuclear discordance between nuclear and plastome-derived phylogenies, which is likely a result of rampant hybridisation among closely and more distantly related species, and highlight rogue taxa. To evaluate the impact of this rampant hybridisation on the nuclear phylogeny reconstruction, we performed four different sampling routines that increasingly removed variable data and likely paralogs. Our resulting cleaned subset of 297 nuclear genes revealed high support for the tribes, while support for the main lineages remained relatively low. Calibration based on the 20 most clock-like nuclear genes suggests a late Eocene to late Oligocene icehouse origin of the family. Finally, we propose five new or re-established tribes, including the recognition of Arabidopsideae, a monotypic tribe to accommodate Arabidopsis. With a worldwide community of thousands of researchers working on this family, our new, densely sampled family phylogeny will be an indispensable tool to further highlight Brassicaceae as an excellent model family for studies on biodiversity and plant biology.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2021

The colonial legacy of herbaria

Herbarium collections shape our understanding of the worlds flora and are crucial for addressing global change and biodiversity conservation. The formation of such natural history collections, however, are not free from sociopolitical issues of immediate relevance. Despite increasing efforts addressing issues of representation and colonialism in natural history collections, herbaria have received comparatively less attention. While it has been noted that the majority of plant specimens are housed in the global North, the extent of this disparity has not been rigorously quantified to date. Here, by analyzing over 85 million specimen records and surveying herbaria across the globe, we assess the colonial legacy of botanical collections and how we may move towards a more inclusive future. We demonstrate that colonial exploitation has contributed to an inverse relationship between where plant biodiversity exists in nature and where it is housed in herbaria. Such disparities persist in herbaria across physical and digital realms despite overt colonialism having ended over half a century ago, suggesting ongoing digitization and decolonization efforts have yet to alleviate colonial-era discrepancies. We emphasize the need for acknowledging the inconvenient history of herbarium collections and the implementation of a more equitable, global paradigm for their collection, curation, and use.

ecology↗