Business trip report, Slovakia, Szydłowska

From July 7^th to 12^th, 2024, the 4^th Central European Symposium for Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Research (CESAMIR) was held in Stará Lesná, Slovakia. The symposium brought together over 100 participants from 20 countries and featured 69 oral presentations, four plenary lectures, and 45 poster presentations across various sessions. These sessions covered topics such as diversity, biogeography, invasive species, and conservation.

During the conference, Natalia Szydłowska presented a poster titled "Macroinvertebrates under pressure: Can a Ponto-Caspian invader affect them more than a native?" Her research focused on the diet and feeding preferences of the invasive round goby Neogobius melanostomus (Pallas, 1814) and the native European bullhead Cottus gobio Linnaeus, 1758 in the Ploučnice River, where both species co-occur. Her work earned her the "Best Student Poster Prize" awarded by the Scientific Committee, which included complimentary participation in a scientific training course organized by Physalia.

The symposium was organized by the Plant Science and Biodiversity Centre, Slovak Academy of Sciences. The book of abstracts is available here.