Symposium at the NHM Vienna on 23rd/24th of March 2026
The rapidly evolving field of museomics is opening new ways to study biodiversity, evolution, taxonomy and conservation, taking
advantage of museum collections. This symposium aims to bring together specialists from molecular genetics, bioinformatics,
and museum research to address pending methodological and conceptual questions. The program will focus on three major themes:
- „Challenges and Innovations: Methods in Museomics“, focusing on novel technical advances,
- „Unlocking the Past: Historical DNA, New Insights“, to showcase examples of museomics research to address biological questions,
- „Museums as Biodiversity Archives: Applications in Conservation and Policy“ to discuss the societal relevance of museomics and museum collections.
We are very grateful for the numerous registrations! All available slots are booked now and thus the registration is closed.
- Venue:
Natural History Museum Vienna, Main Entrace (Maria-Theresienplatz 1, 1010 Wien)
- Conference Program:
23. March 2026
17:00 Public lecture about Museomics
18:30 Registration & Icebreaker
24. March 2026
08:00 Registration
24. March 2026
08:00 Registration
09:00 Welcome note by Katrin Vohland, Director General of the NHMW
Session 1:
Session 1:
09:15 - 09:45 Invited talk: Carola Greve et al.: Natural collections as an untapped source of biodiversity genomics: potential, challenges, and the need for interdisciplinarity
in long-read sequencing
09:45 - 10:45 Contributing talks:
09:45 - 10:45 Contributing talks:
- Bernhard Bein et al.: Benchmarking polymerase amplification for reference genome assembly with ultra-low input HiFi-sequencing
- Katerina Douka et al.: Minimally-invasive biomolecular methods for museum collections
- Sarah Saadain et al.: Rapid and automated pipeline for quality assessment and processing of historical DNA
- Daria Shipilina et al.: Museomics for conservation genetics: lessons from a butterfly locally extinct in Sweden
10:45 - 11:30 Coffee Break
Session 3:
15:00 - 16:00 Keynote lecture: Bernhard Misof: Closing the Knowledge-Action Gap in Conservation – The Power of Natural History Collections
16:00 - 16:45 Panel discussion: Challenges and opportunities of Museomics
Session 2:
11:30 - 12:00 Invited talk: Alice Petzold et al.: Unlocking Wet Collections: Museomics for Resolving Anuran Biodiversity
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch break and Poster Session
13:30 - 14:30 Contributing talks:
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch break and Poster Session
13:30 - 14:30 Contributing talks:
- Yves Bawin et al.: How coffee conquered the world: tracing the historical spread of Arabica coffee trees using herbarium genomics
- Pedro Frade et al.: 19th century Symbiodiniaceae baselines retrieved from museum collections indicate an increased prevalence of thermotolerant symbionts in present day Red Sea corals
- Zachary Nolen et al.: Species-specific loss of genetic diversity and inbreeding following agricultural intensification
- Ricardo Pereira et al.: The Extended Specimen Approach to Speciation Research: Integrating Genomic, Morphological, and Distributional Data to Reveal the action of Sexual Selection in a Bird Hybrid Zone
Session 3:
15:00 - 16:00 Keynote lecture: Bernhard Misof: Closing the Knowledge-Action Gap in Conservation – The Power of Natural History Collections
16:00 - 16:45 Panel discussion: Challenges and opportunities of Museomics
- Fee
The attendence is free of charge
- Organizers
Martin Kapun, Luise Kruckenhauser, Andreas Kroh, Elisabeth Haring
- Contact:
Abstract book
