LIFEGENMON project final conference: “Forest science for future forests: Forest genetic monitoring and biodiversity in a changing environment” continued on Thursday 24 September 2020, after a day of the virtual excursion online.

The fourth day of the final conference started at 9am with voluntary oral presentations. Bruno Fadi presened the project Gentree. Project consortium studied 12 economically and ecologically important tree species, more than 4700 trees were sampled on 210 sites across Europe. Trees in populations were characterised for traits usefull for adaptations and response to climate changes, from both a conservation and a breeding perspective. The morning lecture continued with Fotios Kiourtsis lecture about the necessary protocols, selected parameters and indicators of forest genetic monitoring for species, selected as important for EU forests.

Boris Rantaša presented the implementation of Forest Genetic Monitoring system (FGM) in practise. FGM requires all levels of forest governance to be aware about FGM and implement necessary regulative adaptations. Later, Prof. dr. Hojka Kraigher elaborated in greater detail about the implementation of FGM. The lecture exposed the need for improvements in terms of FGM in the legislation. FGM is a long-term process and as such needs clearly expressed political, financial professional and scientific support to be put into practise.

Session 3 that focused on forest resilience, conservation and management of forest genetic resources closed after 2 more oral presentations by Luka Krajnc and Peter Prislan and 6 poster presentations.

Session 4 focused on Forest dynamics, interactions and biodiversity at different scales. The session featured prominent keynote speakers: Douglas Godbold whose lecture focused on taxonomic and functional diversity of ectomycorrhizas in European forest and Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat who presented Forest ecosystem restoration success factors and the role of animals in seed dispersal inferred from DNA metabarcoding. The project focused on restoring 500.000 m² fenced degraded land by overusing and grazing from local wildlife. After the, lunch break Petr Baldrian presented Seasonal dynamics of microbial communities and their activity at the root-soil interface of coniferous forest soil. The results showed that the understanding of soil microbiome functioning is impossible without considering the activity of forest trees, demonstrated by the seasonality of metabolomes of soil microhabitats. It was observed that forest soils represent highly complex systems where bacteria and fungi locally dominate and contribute together to the C and N cycling in the ecosystem.

The 5^th session science – policy interface continued after coffee break with 3 keynote speakers. Michele Bozzano gave a live inspiring speach about genetic aspects in production and use of forest reproductive material – coordination and dialog. Ewa Hermanowicz told us that one of the most efficient ways of communication is through Story telling. Katja Kavčič Sonnenschein presented the LIFEGENMON communication and disseminiation activities. The 5^th session ended with the presentations of the last 6 posters all available here.

Links:

• https://conference.lifegenmon.si/ – the official conference website
• conference programme and the schedule of presentations