Article by Trishna Dutta
The historical city of Bologna, famous for its university as being the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world, hosted the 7th European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB) between 17-21 June 2024. With the theme “Biodiversity positive by 2030” and more than 1000 registrations at the congress, it was the perfect place to present a recent review that I conducted on integrative forestry.
On the last day, I held a speed talk titled “Who is using Tree-related Microhabitats”, co-authored by Andreas Schuck (EFI) and Laurent Larrieu (University of Toulouse,INRAE and CNPF-CRPF, France). It’s a review I conducted in the frame of the European Integrate Network activities. Tree-related micro-habitats, short “TreMs”, are well-delineated structures occurring on standing trees that provide important resources and refuge for many species. They have been proposed to measure biodiversity of forests, but some gaps in research remain. To address those, I reviewed literature on TreMs and its association with different species-groups. Most studies evaluated the association between TreMs and biodiversity at smaller-scale plots (up to 1ha) or individual trees. All studies evaluated tree cavities, and several looked at crown deadwood and fruiting fungal bodies. These TreMs were associated with a wide variety of species-groups ranging from insects, mammals, and birds. Overall, though, we found a bias in the studies towards certain TreMs and biodiversity groups, and are calling for more studies on other TreMs, scales, and species-groups.
This was my first time presenting a speed talk, which, as the name suggests, is a 5-minute quick talk aimed at highlighting a main message. I signed up for this format on a whim, but really enjoyed the challenge of introducing a topic and presenting the whole study in a very concise manner. It was a good crowd to present to, as this concept was relatively new for most of the audience. Most forest ecologists were probably getting ready for the IUFRO congress in Stockholm the very next week. I personally chose to attend ECCB because I have been a member of the society for more than 12 years and it feels like my academic and research home. I met potential future collaborators and was able to inform them on the activities of the Integrate Network. Presenting the TreMs review in Italy, one of the three countries that I found many studies from, was also a great coincidence.
The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) originated in mid-1980 and has grown into a large non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating, promoting, and advancing the scientific study and conservation of biological diversity with more than 3000 members. It is organized into six regions, Europe being one of them. The regional conferences, such as the one in Bologna, meet every other year, with a global meeting in the alternate years.
The conference organizers created a short film from the week-long gathering titled “There is hope”. Personally, I love the title because there is indeed a need for ecological positivity and the motivation to improve the world we live in and leave for future generations.