European Vegetation in the 21st Century
Provisional programme
Tuesday 21 June
09.00Formal opening and opening address. Dr Alan Craig, Director, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Ireland.
Session 1 The EU Habitats Directive
09.25Keynote address. Title to be confirmed. Michael O Briain, Commission of the European Union, Brussels.
09.55Title to be confirmed. Dr Doug Evans, European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity, Paris, France.
10.20Natura 2000 habitat types of Greece evaluated in the light of distribution, impact factors and responsibility. Dr Panayotis Dimopoulos, University of Ioannina, Greece.
10.45Coffee
Session 2 Irish vegetation
11.15Irish vegetation; the best of its kind in Europe! Dr John Cross, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Dublin, Ireland.
11.40Visual representations of Irish vegetation by artists and cartographers. Dr James White, University College Dublin, Ireland.
12.05The likelihood of human introduction as an explanation for the anomalous biogeographical distributions of certain plant groups in Ireland. Dr Tom Curtis, Dublin, Ireland.
12.30Where did Ireland’s trees come from? Dr Fraser Mitchell, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
13.0Lunch.
Session 3. Vegetation Mapping
14.30The use and application of the Map of Natural Vegetation of Europe in Germany. Dr Udo Bohn, Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Bonn, Germany.
14.55SynBioSys (To be confirmed). Dr Stephan Hennigens, Netherlands.
15.20Mapping ecological pattern and process in the UK using the concept of the ecoscape. Dr John Rodwell, Lancaster, UK.
15.45Coffee
16.15Mapping the epiphytic lichen diversity and assessment of environmental quality in an Irish semi-natural woodland. Ms Lenka Brodeková, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland.
Session 4. General vegetation descriptions 1
16.40 Geography of the birch woodlands of northern European Russia
and the Caucasus Galina Ogureeva, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian Federation.
17.05Forest vegetation past and present in Turkey and its conservation planning. Dr Alper Çolak, Istanbul University, Turkey.
17.30Woody plant assemblages in the hedges of eastern Ireland: products of history or of ecology? Dr Declan Doogue, Dublin, Ireland.
Wednesday 22 June
Session 5. Vegetation classification and mapping
09.0Semi-natural grassland vegetation in Bulgaria. Dr Iva Apostolova, Institute of Botany, Sofia, Bulgaria.
09.25Grasslands from the sky – fact or fiction. Dr Grace O’Donovan, University College Dublin, Ireland.
09.50A vegetation classification demonstrating continua within grasslands and heaths of conservation interest in the Burren. Dr Sharon Parr, University College Dublin, Ireland.
10.15A cluster analysis approach to classifying Irish native woodlands. Dr Philip Perrin, BEC Consultants, Dublin, Ireland.
10.40Coffee
11.15The vegetation of artificial drainage channels in the UK: how does its composition correspond with described communities? Dr Owen Mountford, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Huntingdon, UK.
11.40Using GPS and GIS in the mapping and analysis of vegetation patterns along streams in southern Ireland. Mihai Coroi, Univeristy College Cork, Ireland.
12.05Instruments for vegetation surveillance along the Belgian coast: combining remote sensing and field mapping. Dr Sam Provoost, Institute of Nature Conservation, Brussels, Belgium.
12.30A review and floristic analysis of grey dune vegetation in the UK. Dr Peter Rhind, Countryside Council for Wales, UK.
13.0Lunch
Session 6. Vegetation and climate change
14.30Modeling climate change impacts on species’ distributions in Britain and Ireland based on dispersal characteristics, climatic suitability and land cover. Dr Paula Harrison, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, UK.
14.55Climate change impacts on Irish vegetation. Professor Mike Jones, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
15.20Ecological change on topoclimate gradients in south-east Spain: evidence for global warming at middle latitudes. Dr Tom Dargie, Boreas Ecology, UK.
15.45Coffee
Session 7. General vegetation descriptions 2
16.15Machair vegetation in Ireland. Ms Karen Gaynor, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Dublin.
16.40Karst vegetation in the Czech Republic. Mr Jiří Kolbek, Institute of Botany, Průhonice, Czech Republic.
17.05The vegetation of Ireland’s Bkanket Bogs. Ms Caitriona Douglas, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Dublin, Ireland.
17.30The vegetation of Clara Bog, Ireland (Title to be confirmed). Dr Matthijs Schouten, Netherlands.
Thursday 23 June
Session 8. General vegetation descriptions 3.
09.0Treelines and habitats in European alpine environments. Dr Laszlo Nagy, McConnell Ecological Research, Edinburgh, UK.
09.25High mountain vegetation of the Caucasus. Professor George Nakhutsrishvili, Institute of Botany, Tblisi, Georgia.
16.41Alluvial woodlands in the Czech Republic and Ireland – a comparison. Dr Zdenka Nëuhauslová, Institute of Botany, Průhonice, Czech Republic.
09.55Species inventory and conservation of bryophytes in Ireland. Dr David Holyoak. Cambourne, UK.
10.45Coffee
Session 9. Management, landuse change and restoration.
11.15A recent history of oak (Quercus petraea L.) - dominated woodland in Killarney, Ireland, based on tree-ring analysis. Dr Aileen O’Sullivan, Coillte Teoranta, Ireland.
11.40Changes in the vegetation of Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, UK. Dr Keith Kirby, English Nature, UK.
12.05Restoration of poor fen vegetation on Clara Bog. Mr Patrick Crushell, University College Cork, Ireland.
12.30Alvar vegetation of Öland – changes, monitoring and restoration. Dr Ejvind Rosén, Uppsala University, Sweden.
13.0Lunch
14.30Vegetation-hydrology-herbivore interactions on Skealoghan Turlough, Co. Mayo: implications for the grazing management of turloughs. Dr James Moran, Teagasc Resource Centre, Ireland.
Session 10 Monitoring and condition assessment.
15.20Biodiversity and disturbance in a semi-arid ecosystem – patterns and scale. Dr Gerald Jurasinski, University of Bayreuth, Germany.
14.55The environmentally sensitive area (ESA) scheme in Northern Ireland: ten years of agri-environment monitoring. Dr P. McEvoy, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK.
15.45Coffee
16.15Assessment of biological condition in EU habitat types. Dr Jesper Fredshavn, National Environmental Research Institute, Denmark.
16.40BioHab: a European framework for monitoring changes in the landscape and vegetation using plant life forms. D. Paelinckx, Institute of Nature Conservation, Brussels.
17.05To be confirmed. Professor Franco Pedrotti.
17.30Closing session. Mr John Wilson, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Dublin, Ireland