Ecology and Environmental Protection

The rapid development of environmental science requires interdisciplinary research programmes encompassing ecology in the primary sense of this word, including environmental protection and physiological processes. The Council of Europe’s Directives relating to the preservation of ecosystems outside protected areas constitute an important point of departure for this programme. A lack of fundamental ecological and physiological research in Slovenia is the reason for trailing behind in the applicative connection of ecological knowledge to issues of environmental protection. The programme ensures an interdisciplinary approach since it comprises basic research of the biodiversity of plant and animal species in Slovenia, including their presence and relation to the environment, biochemical cycles of nutritive substances in natural ecosystems and their changing in anthropogenically altered ecosystems. We shall conduct detailed research of the biocenosis and intensive biological production in inland waters as well as the basic biological processes in wastewater treatment plants which are of importance for the protection of aquatic ecosystems. The programme includes a classification of polluted waters and research of indicatory biocenosis in waters as indicators of environmental pollution levels. We shall study the ecology of soil fauna and large mammals in individual specific terrestrial ecosystems. An important part of the research programme covers mechanisms of interaction between plants and microorganisms, including changes to the basic metabolism and hormonal equilibrium. Special emphasis is placed on the study of compounds synthesised as a plant’s response to microorganisms. This knowledge will help in the understanding of molecular mechanisms of interaction between plants and microorganisms, and potentially they could be used as new biomolecules with insecticidal or fungicidal effect. A part of the research also includes the propagation of certain endangered indigenous plant species. As part of the anthropological research we shall study human populations in prehistoric and historic periods, thus contributing to the knowledge of ethnogenic processes on the Slovenian territory and an assessment of the living conditions at the time, the effect of which considerably defines today''s natural and socio-cultural environment.