Linear Landscape Elements, such as hedgerows, road verges and dikes, gain scientific and public attention as habitats to promote and conserve biodiversity. This session will highlight studies on their value for different species groups. Topics include studies on the biodiversity in existing elements, environmental factors that affect this diversity and management associated with species conservation in existing and future landscape elements. Moreover, this session will connect researchers and stakeholders involved in landscape elements.

Agricultural systems critically depend on ecological functions provided by farmland biota, such as weed seed predation, natural pest suppression and crop pollination. Agroecological approaches can increase functional plant and insect diversity, but can also result in increased pest and weed pressure. Agroecosystems therefore need to be carefully managed to achieve desired outcomes and mitigate negative trade-offs. In this session we will give a state-of-the art of agroecological approaches for sustainable crop production. 

Biogeochemical cycles and ecological stoichiometry are the fabric that underpin the dynamics and feedbacks of natural ecosystems such as population structure, community composition, food web dynamics, and ecosystem metabolism. We welcome recent research on the factors influencing ecological stoichiometry, like fauna, N deposition and climate change, as well as studies on how stoichiometry affects biodiversity and ecosystem function. We aim to bring together ecologists working in marine, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and use a variety of approaches, including microscale, modelling, and manipulative studies.

Among species interactions, both parasitism and mutualism are ubiquitous among taxa and have an important role in ecosystem structure. This session focuses on the diversity of mutualism-parasitism relationships from an ecological perspective, with an emphasis on the mechanisms driving their origin, maintenance, and evolution. The session will highlight the impact of this relationship continuum on species and ecosystems from behavioural to evolutional processes, as well as its implications in the context of climate change.

Conservation scientists face challenges in translating research into real-world impact. This workshop will explore key hurdles like policy conflicts, public opinion, species conflicts, and balancing diverse stakeholder interests. Through case studies, participants will be encouraged to share insights and collaborate on solutions in a question-driven discussion. How can we break down these barriers to achieve lasting, meaningful change in conservation efforts? Join us to explore strategies for overcoming these challenges together.

Movement is a characteristic trait of animals that is acting at different scales, from local foraging trips to long-distance migrations, and plays a crucial role in a wide range of ecological and evolutionary processes. Current developments in (tracking) technology allow researchers to track animals and their movement at the individual and population level in unprecedented detail. In this session, we welcome submissions ranging from foraging behavior to long-distance population migration.

Humans have been modifying global environments for millennia, driving ecological and evolutionary change. To persist within human-modified environments, populations must respond to diverse anthropogenic selective pressures arising from various factors such as changes in land use, habitat fragmentation, and modified resource availability. This session will highlight the ways human activities influence the evolutionary trajectories of non-human species, considering both rapid adaptation in contemporary human-modified environments and evolutionary responses to longer-term anthropogenic change.

Water connects terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems, thereby playing a crucial role in the exchange of elements, energy and organisms. The importance of water for connectivity becomes especially clear when flows are deviated or obstructed, or if new pathways arise for (non-native) species. In this session, we aim to highlight the role of water for the connectivity along a range of ecosystem types, focusing both on used techniques and efforts to restore these connections.

This session will highlight research advancements in bridging the gap in our ability to predict and manage ecosystem properties at the landscape level, especially when multiple ecosystem functions need to be maintained. Topics include innovative approaches to scaling ecological data, developing predictive models for local and landscape dynamics, and case studies of successful management practices. The goal is to provide insights and strategies for effective policy and conservation, ensuring ecosystem stability amid global changes.

Extreme environments, such as polar regions and deserts, restrict organism physiology, growth and population sizes, and are frequently studied through the lens of abiotic limitations. However in the context of climate change, they also face a new suite of extreme events. While these ecosystems have been  ideal for testing ecological theories as the abiotic-limitations limit confounding species-interactions. Now they can provide an early understanding on the effect of unusual events.

Urban ecology is a growing research field focused on understanding the present and future of cities and their ecology and sustainability. Urbanisation presents opportunities and threats for species and their interaction with society. Urban species can adapt and thrive in urban environments, showing that cities are novel ecosystems and drive evolutionary changes. A resilient urban ecosystem provides services, essential for sustainable cities. This session highlights the breadth of Dutch research on urban ecology and evolution.

We are curious about how ecologists are combining spatial datasets to understand diverse ecosystems (terrestrial, marine or freshwater). The session will bring together technologically savvy ecologists that demonstrate different ways for combining and integrating diverse spatial datasets. Talks could answer ecologically challenging questions about the state of biodiversity, effects of different drivers like climatic stressors, invasive species, eutrophication, sea level rise or anthropogenic activities, or changes in ecosystem functions, structure or land use.

Camera-traps, video and sound recorders, e-DNA analysis, and remote sensing technology are revolutionising biodiversity monitoring, but generate large volumes of material. To scale up the deployment of these high-throughput techniques and to generate usable data needed to answer ecological questions the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for species identification is critical. In this session, we will highlight the latest developments in the domain of high-throughput biodiversity monitoring and AI through several ecological cases.

This session invites innovative strategies for ecosystem management in both terrestrial and aquatic environments aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We encourage diverse perspectives on climate-smart landscape management, including carbon capture, shoreline preservation, and restoration efforts across varying spatiotemporal scales. Our focus includes enhancing ecosystem resilience, biodiversity, nutrient dynamics, and hydrology while considering trade-offs and broader ecological impacts. By integrating climate adaptation with ecological preservation, we seek to foster cross-disciplinary insights for more effective GHG mitigation.

Spatial feedback processes form a crucial component of the resilience and adaptive capacity of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. This session brings together theoretical and empirical researchers to deepen our understanding of how population-landscape interactions shape ecosystems, and determines their responses to environmental changes, spanning from terrestrial to coastal ecosystems. In this session, we will explore the resilience and adaptive capacity of ecosystems on the frontlines of climate change in an era of rapid global transformation.

In this session we invite presentations that use a theoretical approach to ecological questions. Theoretical approaches in ecology include conceptual, mathematical, simulation and hybrid models that foster mechanistic hypotheses of ecosystems. These models could be both idealized and simplified toy-models for proof of principle, or highly tailored and parameterized with direct observations. We encourage presenters to make a clear link between their theoretical findings and the real world. 

Studying species traits, i.e. the morphological, chemical, physiological and/or behavioral characteristics that differ between species, has been proposed as a powerful approach to reach understanding of both the causes and consequences of biodiversity change. But are species traits delivering on that promise? We highlight recent empirical and theoretical research on using traits to understand how plant, animal, and microbial diversity respond to external factors and how traits drive ecosystem processes and functions.