We are delighted to share that researchers and students from the Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences took part in the 8th European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB) in Leiden, the Netherlands – the largest conservation biology congress in Europe! ????????????
Effective biodiversity conservation requires collaboration across disciplines and communities, bringing together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and conservation organizations. We are proud that our Institute could contribute to this important event.
A special congratulations goes to Nika Knez, who received the ECCB’26 Best Student Poster Award for her poster “Feeding the giants: How winter buffets reshape European bison biology”. Congratulations on this outstanding achievement! ???? You can view the poster here: https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.27039.11689
During the congress, our team presented a wide range of research topics through talks, panel discussions, and poster sessions:
???? Nika Knez – the effects of winter supplementary feeding on European bison biology.
???? Kathi Kasper – functional ecology in conservation, technologies supporting human–wildlife coexistence, and the social and scientific boundaries of neutrality in the debate surrounding the downgrading of the wolf’s protection status.
???? Beata Bramorska – biodiversity indicators, particularly birds, as measures of human health.
???? Rosanne Michielsen – natural forest dynamics as a conservation target, illustrated by forest bird communities inhabiting natural canopy gaps in Białowieża Primeval Forest.
???? Luca Ranza – morphological changes in European bison skulls based on preliminary 3D geometric morphometric analyses.
???? Katarzyna Nowak – opportunities and challenges of nature-based solutions in the context of national defence, and the effects of forest fragmentation by a physical border barrier on edge vegetation in Białowieża Primeval Forest.
???? Izabela Stachowicz – TRAPPER as a scalable infrastructure for camera trap data management, and the challenges posed by misinformation and deepfakes in nature conservation.
???? Michał Żmihorski – participant in the panel discussion “Nature on the Frontline: The Promise and Peril of Nature-Based Solutions for National Defense”, organized by Katarzyna Nowak and Svitlana Kudrenko, exploring the relationships between biodiversity conservation and national security.
We would like to thank all participants for representing Mammal Research Institute PAS so well, and congratulate them on their inspiring presentations, engaging discussions, and new collaborations. Events like ECCB demonstrate how essential dialogue, interdisciplinary cooperation, and evidence-based action are for advancing biodiversity conservation. ????
