I would like to make a series of introduction posts to welcome our keynote speakers at the Dead Wood Meeting 2021

Jacob Heilmann-Clausen

Jacob Heilmann-Clausen, PhD is based at Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, GLOBE institute, University of Copenhagen in Denmark. His dead wood interests rotate around: fungal biodiversity, community ecology, habitat specialization, veteranization and conservation. He has studied fungal communities on beech logs from Sweden to Italy and from Spain to Iran, and is teaching courses on field mycology and forest conservation at the University of Copenhagen. In the Dead Wood Meeting on 28th October, his keynote will provide highlights from 20 years of research on fungal communities on beech logs. Learn more about Jacob through his Homepage Link, https://globe.ku.dk/research/cmec/heilmann-clausen-group

I would like to make a series of introduction posts to welcome our keynote speakers at the Dead Wood Meeting 2021

Talya Hackett

Dr Talya Hackett is currently working at the University of Oxford as part of the Target Malaria research consortium coordinating research on the ecological consequences of supressing populations of the key malaria-transmitting mosquito, Anopheles gambiae. She is a community ecologist using empirical ecological network analysis to answer applied questions about how species interactions are structured across the landscape and how perturbations spread between habitats and guilds. Her keynote on 29 October 2021 will focus on ecological networks and how interaction data can be used to answer a range of exciting ecological questions. She will cover data collection, visualization and some of the metrics used to describe a community, as well as the power of network analysis as a predictive tool. Learn more about Talya through her university webpage and follow Talya @Landscape_Webs in Twitter

It is still possible to register for e-attendance of the Dead Wood Meeting 2021, but call for presentations and workshops is now closed.

I would like to make a series of introduction posts to welcome our keynote speakers at the Dead Wood Meeting 2021

Nick Porch

Nick Porch is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Earth Sciences in the School of Life and Environmental Science at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. He uses the recent fossil record to explore how humans impact island ecosystems, primarily in Polynesia (Pacific) and the Mascarenes (Indian Ocean), and works on modern Australian beetles. He is a keen amateur macro-photographer, photographing many Australian species that have never previously been photographer, focusing, especially, on smaller and browner taxa that few people notice. In the Dead Wood Meeting on 27^th October he will talk about both these interests. First, he will explore the resilience of dead wood beetles in the face of human colonization of oceanic islands, using examples from Hawaii, SE. Polynesia and Mauritius; this story is not a happy one. Second, he will talk about macrophotography of dead wood fauna, illustrated with his own images of Australian and oceanic island taxa. As @invertophiles, Nick frequently communicates about these issues through Twitter.

Register for the Dead Wood Meeting 2021 by 10 October.

I would like to make a series of introduction posts to welcome our keynote speakers at the Dead Wood Meeting 2021

Martin Hofrichter

Martin Hofrichter, Prof. Dr. is based at TU Dresden (International Institute Zittau, Chair of Environmental Biotechnology) in Germany (Saxony). His dead wood interests rotate around fungal enzymes, functional diversity, lignin degradation, and peroxidases. He has been doing teaching on enzymology, mycology and microbial ecology at TU Dresden and is currently working on dead wood degradation in the German Biodiversity Exploratories and fungal peroxygenases. In the Dead Wood Meeting on 26 October, his keynote will cover such topics as lignin degradation, white-rot fungi and the manganese peroxidase system. Learn more about Martin through his homepage https://tu-dresden.de/ihi-zittau/ubt#.

Register for the Dead Wood Meeting 2021 by 10 October.

I would like to make a series of introduction posts to welcome our keynote speakers at the Dead Wood Meeting 2021

Lynne Boddy

Lynne Boddy is Professor of Fungal Ecology at Cardiff University UK. She has taught and researched into the ecology of fungi associated with trees and wood decomposition for 40 years. She is currently studying the fascinating communities of fungi and other organisms that rot the centres of old trees, the ash dieback fungus that is rampaging across the UK from Europe, the ways in which fungi fight each other and form communities, how they search the forest floor for food resources and respond to their finds, and how climate change is affecting fungi. She is a prolific author having co-authored “Fungal Decomposition of Wood” and “The Fungi”, her most recent (early 2021) being “Fungi and Trees: their Complex Relationships”, and the children’s book “Humongous Fungus”. She has edited six books, published over 300 scientific papers, and is chief editor of the journal Fungal Ecology. She was (2009–2010) president of the British Mycological Society. Lynne is an ardent communicator of the mysteries and importance of the amazing hidden Kingdom of Fungi to the general public including TV, radio, popular talks, videos, articles and exhibitions. She was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2019 for Services to Mycology and Science Outreach. Learn more about Lynne from her webpage https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/81120-boddy-lynne and follow Lynne @FungusProf in Twitter.

Register for the Dead Wood Meeting 2021 by 10 October.

I would like to make a series of introduction posts to welcome our keynote speakers at the Dead Wood Meeting 2021

Jogeir Stokland

Jogeir Stokland, researcher professor, is based at the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (the former Forest Research Institute) in Norway. His dead wood interests rotate around biodiversity, wood decomposition and carbon dynamics in dead wood. He has been doing research on forest biodiversity for more than 30 years and is first author of the book Biodiversity in dead wood. In the Dead Wood Meeting on 28 October, his keynote will cover such topics as tree growth, natural mortality and carbon dynamics in the contexts of climate change and biodiversity conservation.

Register for the Dead Wood Meeting 2021 by 10 October.

I would like to make a series of introduction posts to welcome our keynote speakers at the Dead Wood Meeting 2021

Rannveig M. Jacobsen

Dr. Rannveig M. Jacobsen currently works as a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, and as an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, where she teaches advanced entomology. She describes herself as a forest ecologist, and her main interest is insect-fungus interactions in dead wood and how this affects community composition and decomposition. Her keynote will focus on this topic, aiming to provide both an overview of this broad and exciting topic, and some in-depth examples from her own work. More information about Rannveig can be found through employee info at NINA. For Norwegian readers, she also has several contributions to the insect ecology blog Insektøkologene – En forskerblogg om insektenes fantastiske verden (nmbu.no).

Register for the Dead Wood Meeting 2021 by 10 October.

I would like to make a series of introduction posts to welcome our keynote speakers at the Dead Wood Meeting 2021

Vikki Bengtsson

Vikki Bengtsson is a senior ecologist working at Pro Natura in Sweden. She has worked professionally with nature conservation for 30 years with issues relating to practical management and restoration of wood pastures and ancient trees, management of old pollards and veteranisation. She trains arborists, landscape architects, site managers and planners in the care and management of ancient trees. In the Dead Wood Meeting on 28^th October, her keynote will describe how damaging young trees, known as veteranisation, helps create decaying wood habitats more quickly. Most of the inspiration for the techniques that have been used in recent years has come from observing natural processes. This presentation will describe why veteranisation is worth considering, where it may be appropriate, potential benefits for biodiversity associated with old trees and some different techniques that may be tried. In addition some of the early results from an international trial that was set up in 2012 with 980 oak trees, to evaluate the impact of veteranisation on a more scientific basis will be presented.

Register for the Dead Wood Meeting 2021 by 10 October.

This is a good text, with “allocation of research funding on the basis of rapid societal impact is unethical”. Bandwagon funding priorities should stop; research funding is not fashion industry, nor mobile phone business, nor entertainment industry. Taxpayers who fund research are not electorate nor direct customers. When funding tries to please the crowds / get into news, the strategic balance suffers. Therefore, I believe, internal regulation of research funding priorities, with all the ivory-tower counter-arguments, has better chances to achieve fundamental progress long term. Independence of academia is an utopia, but it is good to have ideals; it is more attractive to try reach in the unachievable independence, than to downlplay science into service.

I am very grateful to my son Peter Schigel for a totally new compilation, colour and sound editing that resulted in the Dead Wood Movie trailer II