In cooperation with the University of Helsinki (UH), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) organize a summer school in Finland on pollination ecology. We invite students (Bachelor, Master or PhD level) from Germany and Finland to participate.

The summer school aims to provide an introduction to the study of plant-pollinator interactions. We will teach students how to collect data on plant-pollinator networks in the field and how to perform basic analyses in order to assess the structure and dynamics of these networks. The data collected will be analysed in order to:

• identify the pollinating insects (Hymenoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera) to broad taxonomic groups
• determine the structure of the plant-pollinator visitation networks for different communities of co-flowering plant species
• assess the effectiveness of different pollinator taxa as pollinators for selected plant species

The summer school will take place in the Southern Finnish lake district, in the surroundings of Lammi biological station (FI, 61.053742, 25.041234), near Hämeenlinna.

All statistical analyses and network analyses will be conducted using the programming language R. The language of the summer school is English.

30 June - 7 July 2019
(arrival on 30 June; departure on 7 July)

Prof. Dr. Tiffany Knight (UFZ/MLU/iDiv): expertise in pollination ecology, experimental design and network analyses

Dr. Øystein Opedal (UH): expertise in floral evolution and plant-animal interactions

Leana Zoller (MLU/iDiv):expertise in plant-pollinator interaction networks

Elisabeth Kühn (UFZ):expertise in butterfly identification

• Bachelor students (in their final years), MSc students or PhD candidatesin the fields of botany, ecology, entomology, or other related fields (please note that the course is designed as an introduction to the topic of plant-pollinator interactions, and the content is designed for students that are new to this field of study)
• Interest in pollination ecology
• Good English skills
• Motivation to learn in an intercultural working environment

Applications for the summer school must be submitted by 28 February 2019.

Prospective participants of the summer school should send their application to leana.zoller@idiv.de. Please enclose the following documents in one PDF document:

- a short CV (1 page), including detailed contact information

- a statement (max. 1 page) explicitly addressing

• why you want to attend the summer school
• your research interests
• how you expect to benefit from this summer school
• your experience (if any) with statistics using R

 - names of two people that can provide references

The summer school committee will select 10 students.

28 February 2019