The lesser spotted eagle is one of the key species in northeast Germany. To improve understanding of the fuzzy modeling technique, a simplified fuzzy model using the lesser spotted eagle will be explained. (The real model discriminates more details in the habitat structure, but this is not important for understanding.)
The habitat structure of any animal depends on nutrition, the possibility of reproduction, and protection against predators and other dangers. For the lesser spotted eagle this means that:
• When hunting, it can either be flying or sitting and waiting. If it hunts in flight, plant cover must not be too dense, so that it can see the prey on the ground. To enable it to sit and wait some 'structure elements' to perch on must be available.
• The lesser spotted eagle breeds in a forest. It must be able to reach the hunting area from the nesting place.
• There are no predators in the region, but wind energy plants or roads and railways might be dangerous too.
The investigated area is located northeast of Berlin, and measures approximately 18 km x 30 km. Most of the area is used for agriculture but there are also grasslands, forests, lakes, and settlements.
Before the fuzzy model 'nutrition.fis' can be used the coverage of the soil with plants must be calculated. The coverage depends on the type of crops and therefore on the time of year. The crops covering the soil are shown in Figure 4. As an example the year 1995 and the year day 160 was selected.
Another input for the nutrition part of the habitat model for the lesser spotted eagle is the structure density
map (in this map the mean distance to structure is shown). A high density of structure can partly compensate a high cover of crop degree because the bird is able to use a structure element (hedge, tree, etc.) as hunting point. This input is represented in Figure 5.
Remark This map was produced using moving window technology to generalize from the real structure to a more characteristic landscape.
The output is calculated using a fuzzy model. The two fuzzy inputs, degree of coverage and structure density, are shown in the following:
Very small |
-0.100 |
0.000 |
0.100 |
0.200 |
Small |
0.100 |
0.200 |
0.300 |
0.400 |
Medium |
0.300 |
0.400 |
0.600 |
0.750 |
High |
0.600 |
0.750 |
1.000 |
1.100 |
High |
-0.1 |
0 |
100 |
200 |
Medium |
100 |
200 |
250 |
300 |
Small |
250 |
300 |
1000 |
1001 |
Very |
Small |
Medium |
Medium |
Medium |
High |
Very |
small |
0.2 |
small |
0.5 |
high |
0.8 |
high |
0 |
0.4 |
0.6 |
1 |
The rule base is very simple. It |
can be presented as | ||
follows: | |||
Coverage | |||
degree |
Structure |
Output |
Numoutput Weight |
Very small |
High |
Very high |
1 1 |
Very small |
Medium |
Very high |
1 1 |
Very small |
Small |
High |
0.8 1 |
Small |
High |
Very high |
11 |
Small |
Medium |
Medium |
0.6 1 |
high | |||
Small |
Small |
Medium |
0.5 1 |
Medium |
High |
Medium |
0.6 1 |
small | |||
Medium |
Medium |
Medium |
0.4 1 |
small | |||
Medium |
Small |
Small |
0.2 1 |
High |
High |
Medium |
0.4 1 |
small | |||
High |
Medium |
Small |
0.2 1 |
High |
Small |
Very |
0 1 |
model it is easy to estimate the influence of planned wind energy plants or of some alternative land use modes. The model can be used to optimize the location for new wind energy plants. The big advantage of this modeling approach is that all influences for the habitat quality will be considered. It is not logical to protect the lesser spotted eagle in a region where it cannot live.
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