2. The Site Bayreuth is located in Northern Bavaria, in the centre of Germany. From Nuremberg Airport it takes 45 minutes. Train connections to Frankfurt are via rapid ICE trains to Nuremberg, and then within one hour to Bayreuth. From Munich Airport about 150 minutes by train.

3. Humboldt Alexander von Humboldt worked in this region for several years as a director for mining prospection at the end of the 18 th century. After his mother died he quit the position to travel South America. We would like to dedicate a part of the conference to the work of Humboldt Additional funding by the Humboldt Foundation will be applied for. http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/

4. The Campus Venue

5. 4 invited symposia

6. 12 contributed paper sessions

7. Bayreuth is known for its Wagner Festival in August. The Festival Hall was constructed only for the operas of Richard Wagner and is famous for its acoustics. Visits will be arranged. The landscape parks of Bayreuth - Eremitage and Fantaisie - are exquisit examples of baroque romantic gardening and landscape design with artificial ruins and rocks, amphitheatres and chapels. We will offer guided tours. The baroque opera house of Bayreuth Markgräfliches Opernhaus was elected World Heritage in 2012! Excursions

8. The Ecological Botanical Garden follows a special concept and mimics natural ecosystems. The Garden includes high-tech greenhouses that provide several forms of precipitation such as fog. The Ecological Botanical Garden has a unique house for afro-alpine tropical high mountain ecosystems, where a constant diurnal climate (winter every night, summer every day) including high UV radiation is simulated and plants from the afro-alpine zone are flowering. Excursions

9. Franconian Alb

10. Fichtelgebirge Excursions

11. Nuremberg in the south, with its medieval castles and city centre, the town of the artist Albrecht Dürer, where you also find various outstanding museums (45 min by car). Bamberg (45 min by car west of Bayreuth), which centre is certified as world heritage as an ensemble. There you find among other attractions graves of emperors and holy persons and a church (St. Michael) where in 1609 about 700 plants species (!) were painted to the ceiling in an unbelievable realism.