The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig offer a summer school in Romania that will provide students with hands-on experience in pollination ecology research. We will teach using a case study assessing the effects of land-use change on the diversity and composition of plants and pollinators and the structure of plant-pollinator interaction networks.

We will collect data in traditionally managed hay meadows of Romania, which harbour some of the most species rich plant and pollinator communities in Europe. Unfortunately, many of these meadows have been abandoned as hay has lost its economic importance; while others have been transformed into intensive pastures or arable fields. Our goal is to understand how these changes in land use have affected plant and pollinator communities and the structure of their interactions.

Students will learn to 1) collect data on plant-pollinator networks in the field; 2) identify the most important plant and pollinator taxa occurring in the study region (Hymenoptera and Diptera: genus level; Lepidoptera: species level; flowering plants: species level); 3) perform statistical analyses and data visualizations in order to assess how land-use change affects the diversity, composition and structure of plant-pollinator networks. All analyses will be conducted using the programming language R. The language of the summer school is English.

Location: Different sites in the surroundings of Angofa Wildlife Centre, south of Sighisoara.

19–24 June 2023
(6 full days with arrival on 18 June and departure on 25 June 2023) 

• Prof Dr Tiffany Knight (MLU/UFZ/iDiv): expertise in pollination ecology, ecological synthesis (https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=38645)
• Dr Demetra Rakosy (UFZ/iDiv): expertise in entomology, network analyses (https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=47437) 
• Dr Stefan Klotz (UFZ): expertise in Botany, understanding land use change, experimental design (https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=38614)
• Dr Annette Trefflich (State Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany): expertise in Botany, agroecology (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Annette-Trefflich)
• Dr Reinart Feldmann (UFZ): expertise in entomology, ecological monitoring (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Reinart-Feldmann)
• Elisabeth Kühn (UFZ): expertise in entomology, ecological monitoring (https://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=48161) 

• Interest in pollination ecology and data analysis
• Interest in botany and entomology are an asset
• Good English skills
• Motivation to learn in an intercultural working environment

Who can participate? 

Bachelor students (in their final years), MSc students or PhD candidates from Romania and Germany, specializing in botany, ecology, entomology or other related fields (please note that the course is designed as an introduction to the topic of pollination ecology, and the content is designed for students that are new to this field of study). 

Prospective participants of the summer school should send their application to reinart.feldmann@ufz.de. Please enclose the following documents as one single PDF:

• 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
  • your level of English skills 

The summer school committee will select 10 students. 

27 March 2023