Rainer Buchwald

Rainer Buchwald is a German biologist and professor of vegetation science and nature conservation at the University of Oldenburg .

career

The son of landscape ecologist Konrad Buchwald studied biology and chemistry at the University of Freiburg for a higher teaching post. After the state examination, he wrote a biocenological dissertation on the subject of " The importance of vegetation for the habitat binding of some dragonfly species in spring moors and rivers " with which he received his doctorate in 1986. Afterwards he was a research assistant and university assistant at the chair for geobotany at Otti Wilmanns . In 1996 he completed his habilitation in the field of geobotany. In 1997 he was offered a professorship at the Institute for Nature Conservation and Environmental Education at Vechta University .

In 2006 he moved to the Institute for Biology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Oldenburg, where he is still working today.

As a recognized dragonfly connoisseur, Buchwald was head of the EU's LIFE project from 1996 to 2000, " Species protection program for endangered dragonfly species in SW Germany ". He was also visiting professor at the Universities of Camerino and Perugia .

Research priorities

Buchwalds researches vegetation ecology, animal-plant relationships, restitution ecology and applied nature conservation in particular. Topics include the endozoochoric spread of plants by livestock, research into bat populations in near-natural forests and in still waters, or the occurrence of amphibian and dragonfly species in compensation waters .

Among other things, he also supervised a project in which possibilities for increasing the quality and efficiency of decentralized mobile devices and central GIS applications for the identification of species in the field were investigated. An essential aspect was to optimize these devices and their use for volunteer employees and thus to make them more attractive.

With the ARDINI project , Buchwald and his partners have developed a recording system that enables the wireless transmission of reporting data directly from the site using cell phone technology.

Web links

• Literature by and about Rainer Buchwald in the catalog of the German National Library
• Press service UNI Oldenburg
• Website of the Institute for Vegetation Science at the University of Oldenburg