9th ABOL meeting 2022 – a retrospect
After 2 years of virtual conferences, we were very happy to be able to hold the ABOL annual conference physically again this year. On November 18th the time had come. The 9th ABOL conference took place in the Haus für Natur, Museum Niederösterreich, after the 5th Austrian Biodiversity Forum. As usual, the lecture program was exciting and very broad in topics. The inspiring keynote lecture by Natasha de Vere from the University of Copenhagen on pollen metabarcoding was one of the morning highlights, followed by lectures on different applications of metabarcoding and eDNA barcoding. We were also very pleased to welcome Cyprian Katongo from the University of Zambia to the ABOL meeting and hear about planned DNA barcoding activities in Zambia. The focal points in the afternoon were the detection of disease vectors using DNA barcoding, but also various groups of organisms such as molluscs, butterflies, gentians and the impressive dung fungi. We would like to thank all the speakers for their exciting contributions and the participants for the lively discussions. Unfortunately, with around 55 participants, the conference was less well attended than the conferences before the pandemic.
Special thanks also go to the Museum Niederösterreich for the good cooperation and our sponsors Microsynth, Eppendorf and MDPI Diversity.
Impressions of the meeting (Photos: M. Sonnleitner):
Gruppenfoto ABOL 2022
