30. November 2022
From November 2nd - November 4th, we attended the workshop "WildOMICs: Application of molecular biological methods in environmental monitoring“ discussing environmental DNA approaches in modern environmental monitoring at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biologie and Applied Ecology (IME) at Schmallenberg, Germany. From our Department Evolutionary Ecology and Environmental Toxicology our head of the department, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Henner Hollert and two of our Ph.D. students, Markus Schmitz (RoadTox Project) and Florian Gigl (Resurrected Daphnia, Bad Waldsee Project) participated. Not only did we learn a lot about state-of-the-art application scenarios of genomic new approach methods in environmental biomonitoring, but also got exciting insights into current research performed at the Fraunhofer IME and the other participants' institutions, namely the University of Trier, University of Duisburg-Essen, the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) and the LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics/Senckenberg World of Biodiversity, Frankfurt am Main. Moreover, the Federal Environmental Specimen Bank was introduced to all participants and future research collaborations involving the specimen Bank were intensively discussed with promising outcomes. Besides the overarching project TrendDNA, already involving the specimen Bank, many more collaborative research ideas, mutually considering each participant's expertise and building fruitful scientific synergisms were discussed. We're excited and looking forward to future meetings and further shaping the ideas we took home from this workshop into promising research proposals.