Dear ABOL community and biodiversity enthusiasts,

as announced at the ABOL meeting in December, ABOL is participating in this year’s Biodiversity Days (Tage der Artenvielfalt, TdA). The aim of the ABOL BioBlitz Actions is the creation of DNA barcodes of as many species as possible collected at the TdAs and determined by the participating experts (our BioBlitz website, in German).… Read more

We are pleased to announce that under the lead of the University of Graz (Dr. Stephan Koblmüller) in cooperation with the Universalmuseum Joanneum (Mag. Wolfgang Paill) and the Ökoteam as economic partner (Dr. Werner Holzinger) another ABOL project has started. In the BRIDGE-1 project BIO-PLANBAR (FFG, BMVIT) the use of DNA barcoding for more efficient species identification in the context of conservation conformity of planning processes of major construction projects will be investigated.… Read more

With March 1st the HRSM (Hochschulraumstrukturmittel) project has been launched. The project is funded with 1 Million Euro by the Ministry of Science, Research and Economy and aims at developing DNA barcoding pipelines for ABOL at universities. Commendably, the University of Graz has taken the leadership.… Read more

Dear supporters of ABOL!

Complementing our current projects on fungi and animals we are happy to announce the start of two associated projects on DNA-barcoding in plants.

A project at the University of Salzburg, headed by Andreas Tribsch, generates DNA barcodes in spring gentians, a morphologically challenging group.… Read more

Dear biodiversity community,

Wild bees enjoy increasing awareness in general public, due to several campaigns in the recent past. Austria is known as a biodiversity hotspot of wild bees and many species are especially worthy of protection because of their narrow food spectrum and/or restricted distribution area.… Read more

Italienische Schönschrecke (Calliptamus italicus)

Recently a new associated project joined ABOL – DNA barcoding of Central European Orthopterans

A first transnational cooperation between GBOL, SwissBOL and ABOL adresses the genetic diversity of many species of Central European grasshoppers. The project funded by the Verein der Freunde des Naturhistorischen Museums will be extended by further national projects.… Read more

Just before the end of the old year fortunately a new associated project joined the steadily growing ABOL community.

The project of Dr. Wolfram Graf and colleagues aims at recording of the genetic diversity of the Austrian caddisfly fauna comprising some 310 species. Caddisflies, especially their larval stage, are important bioindicators in freshwater ecology.… Read more

It is a plesure to welcome a new associated project!

Manfred Hartbauer, Doris Reineke and Liza Nemes investigate collective defence mechanisms in non-myrmecophilous aphid species by means of various playback experiments and analysis of alarm pheromones. Additionally. the evolution of collective physical defence will be reconstructed in a phylogenetic approach encompassing different species of the subfamily of Aphidinae.… Read more

The project operated by Harald Letsch and Sven Winter aims at unravelling phylogenetic relationships within this morphologically difficult group in addition to DNA-Barcodes. Despite a recent restructuring of the genus Apion based on feeding plants and morphology still some taxonomic uncertainties remain. Preliminary Barcoding data suggest the existence of cryptic species in some groups.… Read more