Congratulations! Margarete Dytkowicz (2nd from r.) successfully defended her PhD-thesis which she did under the supervision of Prof. Dr. William Megill (m.) from HSRW and Prof. Dr. Tillmann Buttschard (r.) from the University of Münster.
Margarete Dytkowicz's doctoral thesis is entitled "Evaluation of beaver (Castor fiber) reintroduction projects", and focusses on the population and feeding ecology of Eurasian beavers which have spread back into their former natural habitat in the District of Cleves. She examined over 8500 trees throughout the district to map the beavers' use of habitat, invented a novel camera trapping technology for photographing the beavers' tails, proved for the first time that individual beavers can be identified and reidentified by the patterns on their tails, and developed an AI-based computer system to automate their identification. Her work was in part funded by the US/UK NGO Earthwatch.
