Keynote Presentations from the 2nd AVEC International Summer School, Peyresq, 18-30 September 2005

Danilo Russo passed his degree in natural sciences at the University of Naples Federico II in 1993 with a Laurea (110/110 with laudam). His research was focussed on social behaviour by captive Asian deer Axis axis and Axis porcinus. In 1993 he received also the international award ‘Sebetia Ter’ for the best natural sciences academic dissertation of the year. In 2002 he passed his PhD at the University of Bristol (UK) on habitat use by bats in Italy determined by acoustic surveys and radio-tracking. At present he is a post-doc researcher at the Laboratorio di Ecologia Applicata, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.

His research includes bat conservation biology, habitat use, social behaviour and echolocation ecology. He is an internationally recognised expert on the ecology of Mediterranean bats and at present mainly focussing on bat roosting and foraging ecology in relation to habitat features and land-use change. He increased considerably the information available on bat distribution in Italy, and carried out much distributional work on the bat fauna of national parks and other protected areas of Italy, as well environmental impact assessments for wind turbines and tourist cave projects.

In the last two years, he also developed an interest in the issue of agricultural abandonment and its consequences for animal conservation. Thus he was involved as one of the organisers of an international workshop (promoted and supported by the EC-funded action “AVEC”) on the island of Capri in October 2004.

He published in many peer-reviewed international journals and served often as a referee for renown journals.