Professor Andrzej Zalewski
Professor Zalewski is Leader of the Ecophysiology and Behavioral Ecology Unit of The Mammal Research Institute, an independent scientific research unit of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
His main research fields include the ecology and conservation of carnivores, especially mustelids and their social systems, feeding habits, predator-prey relationships and population regulation. His current research projects focus on:
1 Space use and reproduction strategies in solitary carnivores (mainly medium-size mustelids)
2 The influence of introduced American mink on native fauna and its competition with native predators.
Professor Zalewski is the author of more than 100 scientific papers as well as books on American mink and Martens. He is also an Associate Editor of the international journal, Acta Theriologica.
Dr Mihai Marinov
Dr. Marinov leads the Centre for the Study of Transborder and Emergent Diseases and Zoonosys, within the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources at the Danube Delta National Institute for Research and Development.
His main research interests are the ecology of birds, zoonosys involving birds and mammals in the Danube Delta, wildlife resources and implementation of the Natura 2000 Network in Romania. He is an expert in European mink in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, one of the last remaining strongholds of the critically endagered European mink.
Professor Andrei Mihalca
From Romania, Prof Mihalca specialises in the ecology of vectors, including mustelids, and vector-borne diseases, wildlife diseases, tropical parasitology and conservation medicine. He has published more than 230 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and is currently the Chair for Guidelines at the Tropical Council for Companion Animal Parasites and the leader of Capacity Building in VectorNet.
Previous Keynote Speakers at the 34th EMC
Dr. David Jachowski
Dr. David Jachowski is an Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation at Clemson University. Dr. Jachowski has been studying the ecology and conservation of small carnivores in North America for over 20 years, with much of his past research and conservation efforts focused on the critically endangered black-footed ferret. Over the past decade, his lab group has also led studies on the declining eastern spotted skunk, and he is the founder and immediate past chair of the Eastern Spotted Skunk Cooperative Study Group. Most recently, Dr. Jachowski and colleagues completed a review of weasels of North America, finding evidence of a precipitous decline in weasels which has led to the creation of a North American Weasel Study Group that is attempting to identify causes of the decline and develop a continental monitoring strategy for the 3 weasel species in North America.
Dr. Anne-Claire Fabre
Dr. Anne-Claire Fabre is a mammal curator working at the Naturhistorisches Museum Bern in Bern, Switzerland. She is an evolutionary biologist focusing on the origin and evolution of morphological and functional diversity of organisms. A major goal of her research is to disentangle the impact of the different internal (e.g., development) and external (e.g., environment, climate) factors shaping the past and current phenotypic diversity of organisms and how it relates to function. To understand the multiple factors shaping the current diversity of form and function in organisms, she uses cross-disciplinary approaches, combining specimen-based work with in vivo studies (in zoos and in the field) and quantitative analyses of the musculoskeletal system (bone and muscles) in the context of function (feeding and locomotion), behavior, and life history traits in a comparative phylogenetic framework. She addresses questions such as what factors shape the diversity in form and function? How does development foster morphofunctional diversification? How does variation in form translate into variation in function and behaviour? How can in vivo data on extant species shed light on the paleoecology of extinct species? She integrates tools including geometric morphometrics and multivariate and phylogenetic comparative methods to quantitatively link morphology, behavior, and performance in a phylogenetic context in several group of vertebrates (including mustelids).
Dr. Malin Aronsson
Dr. Malin Aronsson is a researcher at Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Her research focus on understanding what is influencing abundance and distribution of animals in northern boreal and alpine ecosystems, and its application for wildlife conservation and management. The core of her work is within the Swedish wolverine project, where she conducts individual-based studies of wolverine ecology; including demography, space use, habitat selection, feeding ecology and interactions with other species. Much of these studies have been done in northern alpine areas where depredation on semi-domestic reindeer owned by indigenous Sámi reindeer herders is an important focus for wolverine management. Following the southward expansion by wolverines in Scandinavia, Dr. Aronsson and colleagues are now also studying wolverines at the southern periphery of their distribution to understand how they affect, and are affected by, other species as well as human activity. A special focus is to investigate the influence of climate (e.g. snow cover and temperature) on wolverine ecology and distribution. By studying wolverines within their entire range, from north to south, the aim is to provide knowledge that will facilitate sound management of the wolverine population, now and in the future.
