The Days of Biodiversity will be organized this year as a joint conference by ABOL, BOKU, Network Biodiversiy, NOBIS and ZooBot at BOKU in Vienna, so there will be no separate ABOL conference in 2023. The program will be very diverse and is intended to appeal to science, stakeholders and the general public. Planning is in full progress, we’ll keep you informed!
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
For the second time, the ABOL meeting was conducted as online conference because of to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and also for the second time it was held under the common title Days of Biodiversity following the Austrian Biodiversity Forum. A number of interesting topics had already been presented and discussed in the workshops of the pre-phase of the biodiversity forum. The results of the workshops as well as the Annual Barometer of the Austrian Biodiversity Policy were presented at the 4th Austrian Forum on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services on November 29th. In addition, there were top-level lectures, a virtual panel discussion and poster presentations. The ABOL meeting followed on the second day with a consistently high level of content. In the introductory lecture by Nikola Szucsich, the participants were brought up to date on ABOL’s activities. We were able to win Otso Ovaskainen from the University of Helsinki as a keynote speaker, who reported on the global biodiversity project Lifeplan, in which Austria is participating with three study sites. The other talks covered very diverse topics and represented the broad spectrum of biodiversity and DNA barcoding – from the detection of cercaria in lakes, illegaly used shark products in the food trade, tracing Corona viruses in sewage, analyzing beetle food intake, reconstruction of historical vegetation from lake sediments and much more. One of the sessions focused on the progress made in the Hochschulraumstrukturmittel (HRSM) project, a large cooperation project of universities to install DNA barcoding pipelines.
The ABOL meeting was again very well attended with more than 130 registrations and up to 100 concurrent participants.
We would like to thank for all the interesting contributions, for remarks and discussions, our sponsors and, last but not least, the organizers from the Biodiversity Hub and the University of Continuing Education Krems for the constructive cooperation!
The abstracts of the talks can still be downloaded from the conference website: www.abol.ac.at/abol-tagung-2021/
Dear ABOL Community
the joint registration page for the ABOL meeting and the Biodiversity Forum is now online.
Please register on the following page: -> Days of Biodiversity – Program & Registration
Abstracts for talks (15 min. + 5 min. discussion) and flash talks (5 min. + 3 min. discussion) can still be submitted for the ABOL meeting on November 30th. Please send your abstract by Nov. 7th by email to: abol@nhm-wien.ac.at. We look forward to your interesting talk!
Unfortunately we have to announce that the ABOL meeting will take place again this year as a pure ONLINE conference. The Covid-19 regulations do not allow a cozy get-together, so we did not consider it useful to hold a face-to-face conference. However, we are confident that the online meeting will also be successful thanks to your help!
The ABOL coordination team
Dear ABOL Community
We would like to continue the tradition of annual ABOL conferences. The 8th ABOL meeting will take place on Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 following the Forum on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services at the Danube University Krems. The two events will again be organized together as Days of Biodiversity. We hope that face-to-face events are possible, but if necessary we will hold them ONLINE.
We will keep you informed and ask you to save the date!
*** It is planned to hold the Days of Biodiversity 2021 as a Green Meeting. ***
Best regards,
the ABOL coordination team
Under the title Days of Biodiversity 2020, the ABOL meeting took place this year together with the 3rd Austrian Forum on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services as an online event.
During the pre-phase, various topics were discussed in workshops, the results of which, together with other interesting lectures, were presented in the Biodiversity Forum on December 4th.
The last day of the event was dedicated to the ABOL meeting. With – as usual – quite diverse contributions regarding organisms and methods, the 7th annual meeting gave an impressive overview of the various activities within the initiative. The national networks were further strengthened through the exchange beyond the individual areas of interest. The online format also gave the conference more international visibility. We are very pleased that Dr. Katrin Vohland, Director General of the Natural History Museum Vienna, opened the ABOL meeting and underlined the important role of her institition in national and international biodiversity agendas. She also emphasized the importance of participating in EU-wide initiatives such as DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections) and the EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) in Austria. The the morning session was devoted to the activities in ABOL and GBOL. We would like to thank our colleagues from GBOL for their interesting keynote on the recently launched Dark Taxa project, which will be of importance for many activities throughout Europe and not least ABOL will benefit from it. At the end of the morning session, Dr. Karolina Begusch-Pfefferkorn from the Federal Ministry of Science (BMBWF) gave a first insights into the European Partnerships in Horizon Europe, a very promising initiative. The afternoon sessions with a total of 13 flash talks were dedicated to a wide variety of DNA barcoding projects and applications. Covering a broad range of topices and geography they were met with great interest.
The almost 190 registrations for the Zoom-Meeting exceeded all previous ABOL meetings and the sessions were equally well attended!
We would like to thank all speakers, all participants, our sponsors and especially Heidi Weinhäupl and the organizing team of the Days of Biodiversity 2020 at the DonauUni Krems for the great cooperation!
Your ABOL coordination team
Dear ABOL Community,
the conference program for the ABOL meeting is now complete. We are happy about the many interesting contributions that have been submitted!
Registration for the ABOL meeting is possible until the meeting!
programme-abol-meeting3-forwebWe look forward to an interesting event in a format that is new to us!
Your ABOL coordination team
Dear ABOL Community,
probably not surprising to anyone, we decided to hold the Days of Biodiversity ONLINE.
We kindly ask for contributions for the 7th ABOL meeting – either for talks of 20 minutes (+ 10 minutes discussion) or for flash talks of 5 minutes (+ 3 minutes of discussion). Please register and send your abstract to abol@nhm-wien.ac.at by November 15. The conference language at the ABOL meeting is English (German at the Biodiversity Forum).
Participation is free this year – however we kindly ask for donations -> here!
For more information about the ABOL meeting visit our conference page: https://www.abol.ac.at/en/abol-meeting-2020/
The 3rd Austrian Forum on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services will also take place online for the first time this year (Forum Dec. 4, 2020 / Pre-Workshops Nov. 23-30, 2020). Registration will be possible from next Wednesday, October 28, 2020.
The call for posters is open until November 11, 2020.
Further information here: https://www.biodiversityaustria.at/tage-der-biodiversitaet-2020/
We look forward to exciting days together despite the changed circumstances!
Your ABOL coordination team
Dear ABOL community,
due to the current situation, we can finally announce that there will be an ABOL conference this year, on December 5th following the Biodiversity Forum.
Both events will take place together as Days of Biodiversity in St. Pölten – the 3rd Austrian Forum on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on December 4th and the 7th ABOL conference on December 5th. At the same time, it will also be possible to take part in the conference virtually (live streaming).
The conference fee for the ABOL meeting of € 20 for meals will be collected on site (free for students).
Abstracts for lectures and posters on DNA barcoding and its practical application can now be submitted! Please send an email to abol@nhm-wien.ac.at.
Please save the date! More detailed information will follow!
With kind regards,
the ABOL coordination team
Dear ABOL community,
this year, the ABOL meeting took place in Innsbruck for the first time. Gorgeous winter weather formed the framework for the 3-day event, which consisted of the first D-A-CH User Group Meeting (UGM) on the subject of DNA methods in environmental management and the 6th ABOL meeting. The first two days with top-class lectures and interesting discussions were dedicated to the application of DNA-based methods in environmental monitoring and implementation at the legal level. At the method pitch, the participants could explore details about different methods. The last day’s ABOL meeting amended the scientific basis of DNA barcoding and the important issue of creating reliable references that are essential for further applications. The breadth of international participation and the diversity of the presentations ideally reflected the opening up of ABOL to the entire biodiversity community. We thank all speakers for the exciting contributions and all participants for coming!
Special thanks go to Michael Traugott and his team for the perfect organization and last but not least for the world premiere of the first genetic determination of a Krampus at the conference dinner :-)
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and hope for fruitful cooperation next year.
Best Regards,
the ABOL coordination team
***
Some impressions from the DACH-UGM and ABOL meeting (Photos by Veronika Neidel and Michaela Sonnleitner):
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