Macroecology and Biogeography meeting 2023 in Bayreuth

2023-06-06

After the long pandemic years without AK meetings, the direct scientific exchange and the social evening with a varied, fully vegetarian-vegan buffet and energetic, atmospheric musical accompaniment were particularly enjoyable.

The English-language program also included numerous contributions from international colleagues. Participants at the conference were scientists conducting research in biogeography and macroecology, often located in diverse academic fields such as ecology and geography, but also in evolutionary biology, paleontology, bioinformatics, global change biology, and conservation. The scientific contributions presented and discussed recent developments in biogeography and macroecology, with modeling related to climate change impacts and global biodiversity loss occupying a large portion of the papers. These topics were additionally in focus with the invitation of two exciting plenary talks by Damaris Zurell (University of Potsdam) and Jonathan Lenoir (CNRS, France).

Organized by the Bayreuth Center for Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), the event looked to the future as well as the past. The supporting program included two workshops, which on the one hand taught the application of sophisticated models and on the other hand clarified the analysis of earth-historical developments. Furthermore, guided tours in the impressive Ecological-Botanical Garden of the University of Bayreuth were offered as well as the mentioned social evening in beautiful weather outside, with the lively accompaniment by the "Derabeudische Orkester Oberfrangen". On Saturday, many still took advantage of the offer to participate in two exciting excursions to the Northern Franconian Alps, where both flowing waters and dry grasslands were in focus. The balance of the joint meeting of the two working groups from two different scientific societies, which took place in this form only once before (2016 in Trier), was very positive, so that the organization of future symposia in regular rotation in a joint format is targeted.