Meeting Announcement and Invitation
In March 2021 — 80 years after Caucasian arachnologist Tamara Mcheidze’s first publication — the First Meeting of Arachnologists in the Caucasus will be held under the auspices of Ilia State University (Institute of Ecology) and the CaBOL Project. Due to the special circumstances of the Covid Pandemic, it will be conducted as a Zoom Meeting.
Organizing Committee
Stefan Otto
Yuri Marusik
Date
17. March, 2021
The meeting is intended as a catalyzing get together of all professional and volunteer arachnologists, students and otherwise arachnologically interested persons active in or near the Caucasus Ecoregion. With the advent of the CaBOL Project in Armenia and Georgia since 2020, the participants can exchange their expertise, ideas and research projects in talks and presentations and get to know each other and maybe start fruitful cooperations in the study of spiders and other arachnids. Participants will get the opportunity to be introduced to the possibilities within the scope the CaBOL project for external experts, e. g. to get their own collected material barcoded (COI sequence), assist CaBOL partners in species determination, take part in student exchange and training opportunities in both classical zoological/biodiversity research methods, molecular systematics and computer-assisted analysis and storage of biodiversity data.
We invite all persons, interested in participating in the meeting to get enrolled in the list of participants. We explicitely encourage students and phD students to participate, either with a contribution/presentation, or just as listeners viewing the presentations.
Everybody interested in presenting their recent study, current project, future research plan or their active spider study group, is heartly encouraged to state this when contacting Stefan Otto (link) or Yuri Marusik.
Also, we plan to discuss the possible formation of an “Arachnological Society of the Caucasus” in order to strengthen international cooperation of arachnologists active in the Caucasus and thereforre promote progress in the study of arachnids in the Caucasus Ecoregion.
After the meeting, summaries of all contributions will be published in a PDF document and distributed to all participants.
Schedule
(last updated 29.3.2021, updates in green)
Wednesday, 17. March, 2021
Begin: 13:00 Berlin, CET // 16:00 Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku
Welcome Address by David Tarkhnishvili, Director of the Institute of Ecology (Ilia State University)
Short Round of Introductions
Jochen Martens “Caucasian Journeys” (15 min)
Yuri Marusik “The history of Caucasus Arachnology” [PDF]
Victor Fet “Scorpions of the Caucasus: advances and perspectives” [PDF]
Natalya Snegovaya & Jochen Martens: A rough survey of the Caucasian opilionid fauna. (15 min)
15 min break until 14:30 CET
Vasiliy Kolesnikov “Current Knowledge on Pseudoscorpions of the Caucasus” (15 min)
Stefan Otto “Bioinformatics in Arachnology: The Caucasian Spiders Database as a Multifunctional Toolbox” [PDF]
Nils Hein “CaBOL – Caucasus Barcode of Life” [PDF]
Hans-Joachim Krammer – “Barcoding Spiders in the Caucasus: First Results from the CaBOL Project” [PDF]
Lisa Karalashvili “The Kintrishi Malaise Transect and its Spiders” (10 min)
15 min break until 16:15 CET
Noushig Zarikian – “On the Cheiracanthiidae Wagner, 1887, Eresidae C. L. Koch, 1845,
Gnaphosidae Pocock, 1898 and Pholcidae C. L. Koch, 1850 (Araneae) Fauna in Armenia” [PDF]
Armine Kosyan “Primary data of diversity of spiders in province Lori, Armenia” [PDF]
Evgenia Propistsova “New species of spiders for Armenia” [PDF]
Miguel Arnedo “An Out-of-Caucasus model of the origins of woodlouse-hunter spiders and their relatives?” [PDF]
Begin Social Part: approx. 17:00 CET
End: 17:45 Berlin, CET // 20:45 Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku
– Stefan Otto, Ilia State University/CaBOL Project
– Yuri Marusik, Magadan