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© OekoFor GbR -
© OekoFor GbR -
© OekoFor GbR -
© OekoFor GbR -
© OekoFor GbR
What is this project about?
NatForWINSENT II stands for nature conservation (Natur-Forschung) in the wind energy test site WINSENT, an on-shore wind energy test site in Germany.
It is a multi-year research project funded by the BfN (German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation).
The main focus of this project is to investigate the occurrence and behaviour of bats and birds in close vicinity to wind turbines, with the aim of deriving and testing mitigation measures for these animals.
One theory for the reason that bats are observed to spend time in the proximity of wind turbines is that they hunt for insects there. As such, the occurrence of insects at wind turbines is being recorded, in order to investigate the relationship between bat activity and insect abundance at wind turbines.
The results are expected to help improve predictions of bat activity at wind turbines and thus optimise mitigation measures for these animals.
What does OekoFor do?
OekoFor has been commissioned to record insect abundance.
To record insect abundance, we have modified our ecoPi and developed an insect photo trap - the ecoPi:Bug. It enables automatic, visual detection of insects.
Many nocturnal insects are attracted to ultraviolet (UV) light. The ecoPi:Bug is equipped with an attraction surface that reflects UV light and is illuminated at night by a UV LED in a specific rhythm. Insects are attracted in this way. During the attraction phases, the attraction surface is automatically photographed again and again and insects that are on the attraction surface are visually detected.
Even diurnal insects are detected by the camera in the latest development of the ecoPi:Bug. For this purpose, the UV attract surface has also been dyed bright yellow. A color that is also used for traditional pollinator detection.
Like the other ecoPis, the ecoPi:Bug also has an internet connection and therefore allows remote access. This makes it possible to check the function or adjust functional settings (e.g. changing the attraction phases). In addition, the camera recordings can still be viewed in the field during recording.
For this purpose, we have developed an intuitive app which - similar to the ecoPi-LiveApp ↗ - provides an overview of the functions of the installed ecoPis and allows the targeted retrieval of camera recordings. The evaluation of the data is to be automated in a next step. We are currently working on the creation of a training data set.
How the ecoPi:Bug works
Further links
More information about the project NatForWINSENT II:
News
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April 2024
Official start for the second phase of the project.
The wind turbines should go into operation in August 2024, then the experimental phase “AFTER” the construction of the wind turbines will begin. -
August 2023
The first phase of the project - investigations “BEFORE” the constructions of the wind turbines is complete, the data are evaluated and the results have been published in a BfN Report ↗ (only available in German language)
You can find out more about the report in our blog post blog post ↗
Partners and Funding Organisations
The project was funded by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) with funds from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV). Dr Frank Musiol from the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) is the project manager.
OekoFor GbR is a project partner of ZSW. Other project partners co-operating in this project investigating other species groups are the Freiburger Institue for applied animal ecology (FrInaT), Swiss Ornithological Institute (Vogelwarte) and Institute for Measurement and Sensor Technology (UMIT).
