Last week we hosted the ‘Road Castle Group’ meeting in our lab. This is a small group of international researchers from Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands who publish on the ecological effects of roads and especially on how we can improve research on road ecology and road mitigation. We are called the ‘Road Castle Group’ because we have a habit of meeting in castles – in Germany, the Netherlands, and Québec. This time we had to settle for the GLEL lab, which is not exactly a castle, but the meeting was no less productive for it. Friday Discussion participants provided a critique of the Road Castle Group’s current mansucript, 
and then the Group spent 4 days hammering out current and future research projects.
The Road Castle Group is currently working on two meta-analyses, one led by Trina Rytwinski on the effectiveness of road mitigations (e.g. fencing, overpasses) for reducing road kill, and the other led by Kylie Soanes on effectiveness of road mitigations for increasing animal movements across roads.
Some time was also found for relaxation.
Previous Road Castle Group papers include:
Rytwinski, T., van der Ree, R., Cunnington, G.M., Fahrig, L., Findlay, C.S., Houlahan, J., Jaeger, J.A.G., Soanes, K. & van der Grift, E.A. In press (accepted 30 January 2015). Experimental Study Designs to Improve the Evaluation of Road Mitigation Measures for Wildlife. Journal of Environmental Management.
van der Grift, E.A., R. Van Der Ree, L. Fahrig, C. S. Findlay, J. E. Houlahan, J. A. G. Jaeger, N. Klar, L.F. Madriñan and L. Olson. 2013. Evaluating the effectiveness of road mitigation measures. Biodiversity and Conservation 22: 425-448.
Roedenbeck, I.A., L. Fahrig, C.S. Findlay, J.E. Houlahan, J.A.G. Jaeger, N. Klar, S. Kramer-Schadt and E.A. van der Grift. 2007. The Rauischholzhausen-agenda for road ecology. Ecology and Society 12(1): art. 11.