The 4th Latin America Symposium was held on Dec.9th/10th 2011 in Bonn at the Zoologische Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig (ZFMK). The Latin-America Symposium “Monitoring and Securing Biodiversity”, organized by ZFMK and the ILZ, Bonn, Participants were from all over the world. The AmiBio consortium was well represented by Dr. Olaf Jahn and Prof.Dr. Karl-L. Schuchmann (ZFMK), Dr. Todor Ganchev (UOP), Ms. Vassiliki Dimitriou, Ms. Evangelia Antoniou, Mr. Florent Celhay, Mr. Dimitris Kyrgiopoulos (SPAY). All presentations contributed to a better understanding for monitoring and securing biodiversity.
Johannes Ferdinand contributed with a Power-Point presentation titled ” Bio-Research in the greater Pantanalregion”.
To ensure research in a modestly studied area the owner of the farm “San Sebastián” – a cattle ranch – Dr. Lutz Werding contacted the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung in Frankfurt/ Germany and the Museo Noel Kempff Mercado in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia to set-up a field station to accomodate scientist for research in a so-called Reserva Privada de Patrimonio Natural (the RPPN), a 1.800 ha area, in order to protect the endemic Chiquitano Dry Forest, which was established earlier.
The region is locally known as the „Chiquitano“; the geographic key data are: S 16°21´732´´; W 62°00´135´´; 500 m NN; 24 km south of Concepción, Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia. For transsect projects e.g. in the pantanal it might be of interest, that the location is more or less on the same latidude of Pocone south of Cuiaba. The distance to Pocone is approx. 540 km as the bird flies. Zoogeographically, the region lies between the Amazon rainforest, the Cerrado and the Gran Chaco. According to Ibisch et al. (2003), the region is composed of the ecoregion Chiquitano Dry Forest and the sub-ecoregion Cerrado of the Chiquitano region.
Here are some pictures of the field station:
More pictuers about south america avian biodiversity you find here: