The third National BioTournament ended on September 27 in Puschino. The staff of the Prioksko-Terrasny Reserve took an active part in the event organization that made the BioTournament even more environment- and ecology-oriented.

This year the BioTournament in Puschino hosted teams from Astrakhan’, Belgorod, Volgograd, Kursk, Novosibirsk, Saint-Petersburg, Syktyvkar and Chelyabinsk. The best of the best from all the nooks and corners of Russia came to fight in the battle of science.

The tournament opening took place in the Institute of Cell Biophysics, after which the teams and the experts divided into sections according to the tasks of the scientific battles. The students tried to solve the problems which appear during the process of coral neuroprosthetics and bleaching, suggested methods of grapes saving and discussed the issues of evolutional biology. And these are only a few questions which the participants had to overcome. It is noteworthy that most tasks of the third National Student BioTournament were suggested by different research institutes and organizations. The Prioksko-Terrasny State Reserve also prepared a task about the viability of human interference in the ungulates population regulation in specially protected natural areas. The students enjoyed the task so much that they voted it the third best in the BioTournament 2016.

For two days the student teams were fighting in the battles of science for the right of getting into the final. The panel of experts selected four teams from Chelyabinsk, Saint-Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Kursk to participate in the final “battle”.

Before the final, all the participants enjoyed a day off, when they could visit the town laboratories and organizations. The Prioksko-Terrasny Reserve also organized a special tour for the BioTournament participants during which the students could see European and American bisons and learn the peculiarities of the Moscow region nature in the Museum of Nature. Just as real biologists-to-be, during the tour the students raised questions on the reserve’s work, animal keeping and flora and fauna species diversity in the Moscow region.

In the final battle the biologists in the making faced really difficult tasks: they had to suggest their own ways of saving the internals for transplantation and evaluation of the biofilm structure and create the schemes of stem cells growing. While summing up the results, the panel marked the high level of the students’ preparation and a high scientific value of the solutions worked out at the competition.

As a real surprise came the victory of the BioTournament newcomers: the team of Novosibirsk State University and Puschino State Science Institute students. In the final this team outran the students from Chelyabinsk, Saint-Petersburg and Kursk who got the second, the third and the fourth places accordingly. All the final participants received commemorative prizes from the Prioksko-Terrasny Reserve. The special prize for the best solution of the task “Hunting Worse than Captivity” was triumphantly presented to Natalya Minnihanova from Syktyvkar State University team.

And even though the results of the tournaments have already been announced, the work of the organizing committee continues. They are planning to publish a collection of the solutions to the competition tasks by the tournament participants in the nearest time. It means that absolutely everyone will be able not just to read the competition tasks, but also find their own unique answers to these important biological questions.