Tuesday 27th November – Thursday 29th November 2018
Clervaux, Luxembourg
Summary of the seminar
During the last week of November 2018 the international seminar “Monitoring and restoration of freshwater (mussel) habitats” took place at the "centre culturel" in the castle of Clervaux. After the welcome reception on Tuesday evening, with greeting words from the Mayor of Clervaux Emil Eicher, the scientific program started on Wednesday morning.
In the first session, which was chaired by Prof. Jouni Taskinen from the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, the audience got an insight about the monitoring of different freshwater mussel species throughout Europe, with contributions from Finland, Switzerland, Poland, Lithuania, Austria and Germany.
After the lunch in the castle the second session, chaired by Dr. Armin Lorenz from the University Duisburg Essen started with an interesting talk about the temporal and catchment effect on the success of restoration measures in streams, also given by Dr. Armin Lorenz. The following talks from France, Sweden Germany and Poland highlighted the restoration work and monitoring programs in their respective countries for Margaritifera margaritifera and Unio crassus. After the last talk the informal poster session started. The rest of the evening was reserved for the social program with networking during the official seminar dinner.
The second day started with an overview of the monitoring work done during the LIFE Resto Unio project in Luxembourg, given by Dr. Sonja Heumann who also chaired the last session. Interesting talks about the monitoring of pesticides and the behavioural and physiological response of Margaritifera margaritifera to stressors followed. After the coffee break, the two last talks about the potential use of pearl mussel shells as recorder for stream water isotopes and the history and actual work of the mussel breeding facility in Hof in Germany finished the scientific programme.
After lunch the fieldtrip started with a bus drive to the border triangle (Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany) located in the river Our valley. During the 4 km hike from the border triangle to the freshwater mussel rearing facility and water experience center at the mill of Kalborn, members from natur & ëmwelt presented the restoration work done in the upper part of the river Our valley. After half the distance, a hot drink warmed the hikers and the walk to the mill of Kalborn continued. Upon arrival at the mill, two groups were formed and one group received information’s about the rearing facility whereas the other group got a presentation about the history of the mill, the activities of the water experience center and watched the LIFE Unio movie. After about one hour, the groups switched so that everyone had the possibility to see everything. As planned, the bus returned to Clervaux at around 16:30 and the seminar ended.
The LIFE Resto Unio Team would like to thank all the participants and presenters, which helped us to make the seminar a success.