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Plant Population Biology
The GfÖ working group Plant Population Biology was founded in 1987. Our aim is to promote research in plant population biology, and to provide a forum for national and international scientific exchange in this field. We are interested in both population ecology and population genetics, and we exchange ideas with closely related disciplines such as biogeography, evolutionary ecology and plant systematics. Our working group has a particularly pleasant age structure and sex ratio, with many young and female researchers, and a growing number of colleagues from other, non-German speaking European countries.
We have an annual working group meeting which usually takes place in May. In addition, we frequently organize symposia at the annual GfÖ meeting or at other scientific meetings.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Markus Fischer
Institute of Plant Sciences
University of Bern
Altenbergrain 21
CH-3013 Bern, Switzerland
markus.fischer (at) ips.unibe.ch
Phone +41 31 631-4943 (Fax -4942)
Our latest activities include:
- The working group meeting 2005 at the University of Potsdam, which was attended by 130 colleagues from 19 countries. The theme was “Progress in Plant Population Biology”. Four key note lectures explored the role of ecological modelling, metapopulation biology and molecular biology in plant population biology.
- At the XVII International Botanical Congress 2005 in Vienna (http://www.ibc2005.ac.at) there were 16 symposia on plant population biology, several of which were organised by the members of our working group.
- At the GfÖ annual meeting 2005 in Regensburg, the working group Experimental Ecology and our group organized a joint symposium “Population biology meets functional ecology”, which allowed exchange of ideas between population biologists and ecophysiologists.
- The working group meeting 2006 in Halle was jointly organised by the University of Halle and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ. The emphasis of this meeting was on biotic interactions.
- In 2007, the 20th (!) meeting of our working group was held in Basel under the theme “Perspectives of Plant Population Biology for the next 20 years”. For more details see http://pages.unibas.ch/botschoen/2007popbio/programme.shtml.
- The pleasant 2008 meeting of our working group was held at the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg. There were 120 participants from 13 countries. A detailed programme and all abstracts can be found here: http://www.symposium.lu/popbio2008/.
The next meeting of our working group in 2009 will be held either in Bern or in Amsterdam. Stay tuned. The current chair of the working group is Markus Fischer (markus.fischer@ips.unibe.ch) at the University of Bern.