The Department of Animal Ecology conducts teaching, scientific research, professional, and applied activities in the field of animal ecology, with a special emphasis on terrestrial invertebrate fauna. The head of the department is Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Cvetkovska-Gjorgjievska.
The teaching process is carried out through the courses Animal Ecology, General Ecology, Fundamentals of Ecology, Human Ecology, Ecology of Anthropogenic Ecosystems, Zoogeography, Population Ecology, Biomes, and Mathematical Modeling in Ecology. These courses provide a deeper understanding of ecological processes, the organization of living organisms and their interaction with environmental factors.
The department’s scientific research activity is primarily based on faunal, zoocenological, and ecological analyses of various groups of terrestrial invertebrates.
These activities focus on studying the diversity, ecology, and conservation of terrestrial invertebrates, with particular attention to Coleoptera, including saproxylic species, which are recognized as sensitive indicators of the condition of forest ecosystems. Research conducted within the department includes studies of species composition, analyses of species phenology and spatial distribution, population analyses, study of the structural and functional characteristics of biocenoses, community similarity analyses, analyses of the functional traits of species, as well as their role in ecosystem metabolic processes. Part of the research is dedicated to changes in the structure and functional characteristics of communities under the influence of habitat fragmentation, urbanization, and climate variation along altitudinal gradients in mountain ecosystems. At the same time, the department’s activities also include analyses of heavy metal concentrations in soils and their transfer through food chains in agroecosystems. The department’s applied activities include the identification of landscapes with high natural value, and support of their protection and management. Within this framework, studies on the revaluation of protected areas are conducted, as well as environmental impact assessment studies.
Cooperation with domestic and international institutions represents a significant segment of the department’s work, including participation in initiatives related to biodiversity monitoring and the development of modern approaches to its study. This also includes the application of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, in monitoring terrestrial invertebrate fauna.
In addition to scientific and professional work, attention is given to the development of young researchers through mentoring student research and involving them in projects focused on the diversity, distribution, ecology, and behavior of invertebrate fauna.
Within the Departments of Animal Ecology and Systematics and Phylogeny of Invertebrates, there is an extensive collection of various groups of aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates, registered as the Macedonian National Collection of Invertebrates (MNCI).