NEOBIOTA conference

The 4th European Conference on Biological Invasions (NEOBIOTA: From Ecology to Conservation, www.umweltbundesamt.at/neobiota) held in Vienna, Austria (Sept. 27th to 29th), kicked off with an ardent talk by Daniel Simberloff. The gist of his speech definitely pointed out, that - yes, there are success stories on how to cope with biotic invaders. But he also mentioned that there are still way too many problems globally, and unfortunately in taking action concerning a tough legal frameset Europe is lagging behind.

The seriousness of the neobiota topic is reflected in the enormous increase in participants: 350 people from 45 countries - some even travelling from New Zealand, Australia and the USA - scientists as well as representatives from Austrian, German and European government and federal agencies, came to learn about biological invasions. This series of meetings intends not to focus on a special aspect of invasive alien species, but rather to bring together botanists, zoologists, basic and applied scientists, authorities and stake-holders across Europe. Therefore, the talks and posters dealt with management tactics tackling the problems: botany, gross ecology as well as problematic animal invaders equally. In our opinion, problems concerning invasion events in marine environments have been slightly underrepresented. Also the participation of under-graduates at the congress should be fostered in the future. Nevertheless, the overall impression of this congress is definitely excellent as especially the quality of talks and posters was high and the organization was very accurate. The next meeting will be held 2008 in Prague (Czech Republic). Please refer to the homepage of the Austrian Federal Environment Agency (www.umweltbundesamt.at/neobiota) and the working group NEOBIOTA (www.tu-berlin.de/~neobiota) for further details.

Sincerely, Natascha Miljkovic� and Petra Muerth

University of Vienna, Faculty of Life Sciences Department of Theoretical Biology, Section Anatomy & Morphology, Althanstr. 14, A-1090 Vienna (Austria)

Correspondence to: [email protected]