Mr Charilaos Pilides is a conservation biologist closely collaborating with the Greek NGO Callisto (http://www.callisto.gr/en/callisto.php) towards the conservation of brown bears in Greece.
The project’s aim is to explore the conservation status of bears in Greece on a genetics level and to evaluate the impact of habitat fragmentation on the species caused by the developing highway infrastructure network on the species.
The project has been running for almost two years as it is under the status of a part-time PhD project at the University of Bristol. So far, over 500 bear samples (hair, stool, tissue and blood) have been collected from throughout the distribution of the species in the country. Laboratory work is ongoing the project will be genotyping 150 samples in facilities at the university of Bristol. The samples will be ran against 9 microsatellite loci.
The partners involved in the project in addition to Hauser Bears are:
- The Mammal Research Unit of the University of Bristol
- Greek NGO Callisto
- The University of Thessaloniki
- The European Heritage Fund EuroNature
The long term goal is to begin a long term monitoring of the population using non-invasive genetic methods that will provide us with the necessary demographic parameters such as population size and trend, that are needed for any concrete conservation and management actions.
Start Date
September 2010
Completion date
September 2011