Last week, Rob, Hernani, Vincent, Lucka and Yannick attended the 5th Global Biodiversity Conservation Conference held at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague-Suchdol. Rob was invited to give a talk entitled Vanishing keystones? How poaching of large mammals influences tropical biodiversity. In his talk he highlighted the importance of elephants and other large herbivores in shaping other communities, including plants and animals. He included recent results from our case study on Cameroonian forest elephants and their influence on Lepidopteran communities. These results were further highlighted in a poster presented by Vincent. Additionally, Lucka presented her thesis research on the influence of military disturbances on arthropod communities in the Brdy Mts. It has been a fruitful conservation conference with not only scientific contributions, but also practical experiences from conservationists.
Robert giving his talk on the importance of large herbivores for biodiversity.