Pavel Saska – Crop Research Institute, Entomology

Carabids and I – I have been collecting carabid beetles since I was 13. Later on during my studies at the Charles University, I worked on larvae of Amara under supervision of Prof. Karel Hůrka, the guru of carabid larval systematics. During my Ph.D. I studied ecology and biology of carabid beetles with emphasis on seed feeding by adults and larvae, temperature relationships, and parasitism by Brachinus under supervision of Alois Honěk. I am following the same track after completion my Ph.D., focusing on ecology of carabid beetles in arable land.

Duties – head of the Organization Committee; Scientific Program; Webpages

Alois Honěk – Crop Research Institute, Entomology

Carabids and I – My first contact with carabids was when collecting beetles as a young boy in 1950s. After long pause I have returned to this wonderful family, when studying carabid flight and wing dimorphism (1980s), microclimatic effects on insect assemblages in agroecosystems (1990s) and post-dispersal seed predation by invertebrates (2000s).

Duties – Scientific Program

Zdenka Martinková – Crop Research Institute, Plant Ecology and Herbology

Carabids and I – although I am agronomist/herbologist by training, carabid beetles form a considerable part of my present research activities in the field of weed seed predation.

Duties – Social Program; Accommodation

Michal Knapp – Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Ecology

Carabids and I – I started to be interested in carabids during my undergraduate studies resulting in diploma thesis focused on methodological aspects of pitfall trapping. In 2011, I defended doctoral thesis concerning ecology of carabids in agricultural landscape. Carabids remain the model group in my present research on insect conservation and evolutionary and ecological consequences of intraspecific variation in body size of insects.

Duties – Abstracts administration; Rearward support

Pavel Moravec – Administration of the České Středohoří Protected Landscape Area

Carabids and I – I have been a carabid maniac since I was 12. In my present work, I am interested in faunistics, distribution and bionomy of Carabidae in the Czech Republic and in Balkan, and in taxonomy of Palaearctic Trechini. My second major group of interest are subterranean Staphylinidae.

Duties - Field excursion