Research meets practice

(Friday afternoon in German)

The fulfilment of the Fauna-Flora-Habitat (FFH) guideline for FFH species is a major present and future challenge of European conservation biology. Although the guidelines describe very well how biodiversity on a European level should be conserved through the declaration of protected areas, the practical application of these guidelines is far behind the original intentions of the guidelines. In fact neither the principles of an effective population monitoring nor the structure and kind of compensatory actions for FFH-species are clear demonstrating that FFH-oriented research addressing these aspects is extremely mandatory. Concepts of population biology based on genetic markers could have an important and outstanding function for the fulfilment of the FFH-guidelines, however, until now they have not even theoretically been involved in this process. During the third session of our meeting (Friday afternoon, the 13th of September) we would like to present general concepts of population biology based on genetic markers and exemplified for amphibians how these concepts and markers can be effectively implemented in the fulfilment of the FFH-guideline. Such an approach for amphibian species could serve as a model also for other animal groups, which are effected by the FFH-guideline.

Program for Friday afternoon

Ulrich Joger
(Natural History Museum Braunschweig)
Ralph Tiedemann
(University of Potsdam)
Sebastian Steinfartz
(University of Bielefeld)
Michael Veith
(University of Trier)
Miguel Vences
(University of Braunschweig)