Prior experience has shown to be a highly influencing factor for risk perceptions and behavioral patterns. Yet, often prior experience is connected to a personal threat and damage. We assume that people’s mere perception of nature changes, even if it is an impersonal risk and therefore not threatening humans but rather nature, is crucial for explaining effects in environmental and risk communication. A joint survey of biologists and communication scientists was conducted within a field experiment in two waves (N₁ = 479; N₂ = 295) in 12 German districts. Those regions differ in observable nature changes, evoked by the invasive moth Cameraria ohridella, which creates early leaf foliage on white flowering horse chestnut trees. Results show that the biological method, of deciding on sampling region, helps to define a sample of participants, who show different extents in nature change and risk perception. Further we could show that over a longitudinal design, nature change and risk perception increased, having slightly higher change scores in low infested areas, and that changed scores correlate with each other. Mediation analysis reveals that the overall effect of nature change perception on communicative and another active pro-environmental behavior is almost completely mediated by risk perception. Implementations of these results will be discussed.

先前的经验已证明是影响风险认知和行为方式的重要因素。但是，通常以前的经验与人身威胁和损害有关。我们假设，人们对自然变化的单纯感知，即使这是个人风险，因此不是威胁人类而是自然威胁，对于解释环境和风险沟通中的影响至关重要。在一次野外实验中， 在德国12个地区的两次浪潮中（N ₁  = 479; N ₂ = 295）对生物学家和传播科学家进行了联合调查。这些区域在可观察到的自然变化方面有所不同，这是由入侵蛾Camereria ohridella引起的。，在白色开花的七叶树上产生早期的叶子。结果表明，决定采样区域的生物学方法有助于定义参与者样本，这些参与者表现出不同程度的自然变化和风险感知。进一步，我们可以证明，在纵向设计中，自然变化和风险感知增加，在低度受灾地区的变化得分略高，并且变化的得分彼此相关。中介分析表明，自然改变感知对交流和另一种积极的环保行为的总体影响几乎完全由风险感知所介导。将讨论这些结果的实现。