On 5 February next year, the Pollination Ecology Workgroup at the University of Tartu will host the symposium “Semi-natural grasslands in the European agricultural landscape: plants, pollinators and people in the winds of change.” The event will focus on the factors shaping the relationships between plants and pollinators in semi-natural grasslands and similar grassland habitats – cornerstones of biodiversity in European agricultural landscapes – and on the role of land users in maintaining these ecosystems.
The international symposium will feature presentations by both early-career researchers and leading European scientists in grassland ecology, with speakers including Zuzana Münzbergová (Czech Academy of Sciences), Hans Jacquemyn (KU Leuven, Belgium), Jan Plue (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) and Sabrina Träger (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany). Timo Kark from the Estonian Ministry of Climate will contribute insights from a policy and practitioner perspective.
The symposium offers an excellent opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience, and to seek solutions for supporting biodiversity and sustainable land use in Europe’s grasslands. It also marks the concluding event of the Biodiversa+ Partnership Programme project “The Role of Functional Connectivity of Semi-natural Grassland Networks in Maintaining Plant–Pollinator Interactions” (FuncNet).
The event takes place in Oecologicum (Tartu, J. Liivi 2). More detailed information about the programme and registration will be sent out in the first half of January.
Contact:
Tsipe Aavik, tsipe.aavik@ut.ee
Sigrid Ots, sigrid.ots@ut.ee
Tsipe Aavik / tsipe.aavik@ut.ee / +372 516 1187
