ITCER EN Wikipedia Sandbox

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template: Panguana

template: IndExs

template: ICIPE

template: TREE

template: Kalamos Island biological field station

template: LTER

template: Self Help Africa

template: NEON

template: Gerhard Rambold

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Beck_(Botaniker)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Kenya

content: ITCER

exact: 0.03282071° N, 34.36266809° E

Page title: International Training Centre for Environmental Research

Environmental sciences is on studying ecological processes over extended temporal and spatial scales. The International Training Centre for Environmental Research (ITCER) with its staff in Western Kenya provides a local logistic infrastructure for regional, national and international professionals and projects in academics and around working in this area. The facility supports training events, keeps rooms for seminars, a biological laboratory and an area of 1 ha for sustainable long-term field experiments. Informatics expertise, data infrastructure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_infrastructure and software services are available.

Template:Infobox organization

Geography, Climate and Environment

The ITCER facility is located in the Uradi village, Ng’iya, Siaya County https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siaya_County, 60 km from Kisumu at Lake Victoria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Victoria. The area is part of western Kenya western Kenya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyanza_Province (East Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Africa) and categorised as belonging to Sub-Saharan Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-Saharan_Africa. The equatorial region has a typical tropical climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_climate and vegetation. Kenya is a mega bio-diverse country with over 35,000 species of flora and fauna. *** https://ke.chm-cbd.net/biodiversity**, but faces a lot of environmental issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues.

Facility providing infrastructure and research-related training

The infrastructure of the facility is established as an answer to the sozio-economical needs of the region for sustainable environmental projects. Subjects are biodiversity and ecosystem monitoring, soil and water conservation, plant pathology, and data management in relation to the requirements of the local human population. Long-term monitoring initiatives and projects related to biodiversity, nature conservation and citizen science will be encouraged and supported by ITCER expertise. ITCER supported studies are done together with universities from inside and outside of Kenya as well directly with institutions of the research and nature conservation sector. Ref *** website ***. Current projects focus on topics like microplastic in western Kenya, fungal pathogens in terrestrial ecosystems and ethnobiology in Africa. *** Ref 1-3. A collaboration with the international network "Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, https://www.gbif.org/)" for free and open access of data and with the "German National Infrastructure for Research Data" (NFDI4Biodiversity, https://www.nfdi4biodiversity.org/en)" for concepts on data management is on the way. Ref. ***Weibulat & Triebel***, ***Kinge et al.***. ITCER works as an training and education unit with invited experts and stakeholders. Between 2022 and 2024 more than 20 events (mainly seminars, workshops and field trips) were organised. *** website ***. A number of software for education purposes was realised.

History and outcome

ITCER started in 2016 as a result of activities of some academic members of the University of Bayreuth https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/en, among others the botanists Erwin Beck https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Beck_(Botaniker) and Gerhard Rambold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Rambold Gerhard Rambold together with local stakeholders in Siaya and members of the JOOUST University Bondo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaramogi_Oginga_Odinga_University_of_Science_and_Technology and Maseno University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maseno_University. Two NGOs were founded in 2016 and 2017 one in Germany and one under Kenyan law. Both are non-profit organisations in the tertiary education sector and have their own constitution and board of directors.***website *** In the meanwhile there are more than 20 academic and non-academic members who give support by personal and financial engagement to realise the NGO goals. The management of the ITCER facility is done together with and accepted by the local communities and stakeholders in Siaya County and uproad.

References

Gkoutselis, G., Rohrbach, S., Harjes, J. et al. Plastiphily is linked to generic virulence traits of important human pathogenic fungi. Commun Earth Environ 5, 51 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-01127-3

Gkoutselis G, Rohrbach S, Harjes J, Obst M, Brachmann A, Horn MA, Rambold G. Microplastics accumulate fungal pathogens in terrestrial ecosystems. Sci Rep. 2021 Jul 15;11(1):13214. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-92405-7. PMID: 34267241; PMCID: PMC8282651.

Kinge, T., Jefwa, J., Houdanon, R., Kamalebo, H., Abdel-Azeem, A., Gryzenhout, M., Triebel, D., Weibulat, T., Rambold, G. 2023. Management and publication of scientific data on traditional mycological and lichenological knowledge in Africa. – The Lichenologist, 55(5): 169–179. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0024282923000294

Weibulat, T. M., & Triebel, D. 2024. Continuation of partnership Germany-Kenya with two workshops in 2023. GBIF Europe and Central Asia Nodes meeting 2024 (GBIF ECA 2024), Zagreb, Croatia. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12082639

Stoffsammlung

Locality: Uradi Village, Mur Ng’iya, East Alego, Siaya County, Kenya (0.03282071° N, 34.36266809° E)