Researching ecosystems from the air

Jan Lehmann makes the final preparations before the drone can take off. WWU - Kathrin Kottke It looks absolutely idyllic, watching the Heck cattle and Konik horses grazing in the meadows in the Emsaue wet meadows near the village of Vadrup. This pasture landscape, covering an area of 33 hectares and used all year round, lies in the Emsaue nature conservation area and was set up in 2004 as part of the implementation of the plan to protect the wet meadows by the River Ems. The area is around 15 kilometres north-east of Münster and is run by the NABU ( Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union ) nature station for the Münsterland. Since 2016, landscape ecologists at the University of Münster have been taking a close look at the area in order to find about more about the flora and fauna there. The researchers frequently make use of a drone weighing almost five kilos. These unmanned aerial vehicles (short UAV) produce ecosystem analyses from the air.