EvE Seminar

Summer 2026

16 Apr - Catalina Pimiento (Zurich) - Extinction dynamics in the ocean: past, present, and future

23 Apr - Lea von Berg - Development and evaluation of insect- and spider-friendly mowing techniques as a contribution to a sustainable form of agricultural grassland use

30 Apr - Benoît Pichon (SMNS Stuttgart) - Resilience and desertification risk in drylands

21 May - Anna Bucharova (Marburg) - Seeding the future: an evolutionary perspective on seed-based ecosystem restoration

11 June - Thies Büscher (Kiel) - Multiscale perspectives on insect attachment systems

18 June - Lena Veit (Neurobiology) - Syllable sequencing in birdsong

25 June - Tessa Camenzind (Hohenheim) - From fungal traits to soil community functions - mechanistic insights to soil carbon and nitrogen cycling

2 July - Istifanus Aiki (Gashua, Nigeria) - Keeping cool and warm: how termites regulate temperature in two savannahs

9 July - Charles Mullon (Lausanne) - When environments are inherited: consequences for evolutionary dynamics

16 July - Ingo Grass (Hohenheim) - Diversification for biodiversity-friendly agriculture

23 July - Nico Michiels - Signals from reef fish species diversity under rapid environmental change in the coral triangle

Winter 2025/2026

16 Oct - Emma Sayer (Ulm) - Plant-soil microbial co-adaptation to climate change and the potential consequences for ecosystem function

23 Oct - Bojana Stojanova (Rennes) - URBANPOLL - parallel adaptation of plants to urban pollinators

6 Nov - Kyle Gray (Hohenheim) - Integrative taxonomy reveals Vanuatu as an ant biodiversity hotspot in the South Pacific

20 Nov - Matthias Rupp (Rottenburg) - Beißen und Treten erwünscht. Die moderne Waldweide als Instrument im Naturschutz

27 Nov - Madalin Parepa - Adaptation of weeds to urban environments

4 Dec - Elizabeth Trevenen (Perth/Tübingen) - Ecological and social drivers of success in restoration ecology

11 Dec - Julia SIgwart (Frankfurt) - Adventures in molluscs: species, trees, and the undiscovered frontier (Hilgendorf Lecture)

11 Dec - Hinrich Schulenburg (Kiel) - Evolution of C. elegans-microbe interactions (Hilgendorf Lecture)

12 Dec - Wencke Krings (Hamburg/Leipzig) - Convergent functions, divergent forms: radular adaptations in ecological contexts (Hilgendorf Lecture)

8 Jan - Jonas Wolff (Greifswald) - Tough threads, ballistic webs and bungee-jumps: evolutionary biomechanics of spider extended phenotypes

15 Jan - Stephen Brusatte (Edinburgh) - The rise and fall of the dinosaurs (Hilgendorf Lecture)

22 Jan - Patience Chatukuta (MPI Tübingen) - Tackling a thorny issue: phenotypic and genomic diversity in horned melon

29 Jan - Vistorina Amputu - Leveraging drone technology to optimise monitoring in drylands - a case study from Namibia's semi-arid rangelands

5 Feb - Catherine Sheppard (Lisbon) - Building minds: How complexity shapes cognition and behaviour on coral reefs

Summer 2025

24 Apr - Nils Anthes - Farmland bird nesting ecology under current land use: conflicts and their mitigation

15 May - Franziska Koch - The paradox of the bryozoans: Unravelling the relation between structure and stability in benthic competition networks

5 Jun - Love Dalen (Stockholm) - Deep-time palaeogenomics 

26 Jun - Christoph Randler (Didactics of Biology,Tübingen) - Human dimensions of biodiversity - from the public to birders

3 Jul - Oliver Betz - Ecomorphological disparity in Steninae rove beetles (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae)

17 Jul - Ulrich Knief (Freiburg) - Hybrid zones as natural laboratories for studying speciation

24 Jul - Johannes Steidle (Hohenheim) -  Insect decline in Central Europe: Consequences, causes & countermeasures

Winter 2024/2025

24 Oct - Chris Baumann (Biogeology Tübingen) - Trophic ecology: using stable isotopes to study feeding behaviour in past and present

22 Nov - Denise Kühnert (MPI Jena) - Tracking the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease agents over months, years and millennia

28 Nov - Marina Semchenko (Tartu) - Plant-soil feedback as an ecological and evolutionary force

9 Jan - Torben Göpel (Göttingen) - Understanding arthropod hearts: form, function and evolution of an underestimated organ

16 Jan - Rachel Gunn - Marine cleaning mutualisms in a changing world

23 Jan - Katja Tielbörger - Benefits and risks of New Genomic Techniques - the EU Commission's deregulation proposal from the perspective of the ecological sciences

30 Jan - Ben Wielstra (Leiden) - Hybrid zone movement and a balanced lethal system in Triturus newts

6 Feb - Brendon Boudinot (Senckenberg Frankfurt) - History, novelty, and function: the case of the pincer wasps

Summer 2024

17 Apr - Madalin Parepa - Evolutionary ecology of global knotweed invasion

24 Apr - Thomas Potthast (IZEW Tübingen) - Rights of nature and ecology - [old and new] perspectives from biophilosophy

9 May - Sonja Bejarano (ZMT Bremen) - Researching coral reef functioning in a rapidly changing world

15 May - Katja Tielbörger - Fireworks of biodiversity - plant and animal stories from South-Western Australia

29 May - Yohay Carmel (Haifa) - Myth in ecology

5 Jun - Ingmar Werneburg (SHEP Tübingen) - Turtles and the diversity of land vertebrate skulls: modern perspectives from evolutionary morphology

12 Jun - Thomas Martin (Bonn) - Mammals from the age of dinosaurs – new insights and perspectives (Hilgendorf Lecture)

26 Jun - Terence Capellini (Harvard) - Evolutionary developmental genetics of the human pelvis (Hilgendorf Lecture)

4 Jul - Eva Knop (Zürich) - Plant-pollinator interactions in an increasingly illuminated world

10 Jul - Frank Schurr (Hohenheim) - Macrodemography - how large-scale biodiversity dynamics arise from the reproduction, mortality and dispersal of individuals

17 Jul - Nico Michiels - The need, challenge and reward of assessing marine fish species diversity in an extreme biodiversity hotspot

24 Jul - Olga Speck (Freiburg) - Self-repair of damage - a challenge that is solved by various plant species

Winter 2023/2024

15 Nov - Thomas Schwaha (Wien) - Animal microborers: evolution and diversity of endolithic bryozoans

22 Nov - Victoria Ferenc (Stuttgart) - The performance of and interactions between multiple co-occurring alien and native plant species

28 Nov - Koen Verhoeven (Wageningen) - Adaptive capacity of asexual plants under environmental change

8 Dec - Marc Naguib (Wageningen) - Birds in space and time: the role of communication and movement for understanding animal societies (Hilgendorf Lecture)

13 Dec - Sara Tomiolo - Effects of plastic contamination on soil and plants

10 Jan - Leonie John - Dynamic camouflage strategies in predatory fishes

17 Jan - Luisa Pallares (MPI Tübingen) - Exploring how genotype-phenotype maps are shaped by the environment, and why it matters for evolution

24 Jan - Christian Rabeling (Hohenheim) - Origin and evolution of social parasitism in ants: insights for speciation research

31 Jan - Jens-Christian Svenning (Aarhus) - Trophic rewilding as a key restoration approach – insights from and for macro- and paleoecology (Hilgendorf Lecture)

7 Feb - Andreas Schäffer (Aachen) - Pesticides as drivers for biodiversity loss

Summer 2023

3 May - Claudio Tennie (Archeology Tübingen) - Learning from the past: the cultural leap that made us human

10 May - Wayne Dawson (Durham) - Predicting invasions and their impacts in the Anthropocene

24 May - Dario Galanti - Genome-epigenome interactions shape natural variation in Thlaspi arvense

14 Jun - Daniel Wegmann (Fribourg) - Modern tools for ancient data: quantifying evolution using paleogenomics

21 Jun - Paweł Jałoszyński (Wroclaw) - Drillers, killers, can openers: Unique feeding habits of ant-like stone beetles (Scydmaeninae)

28 Jun - Lotte Korell (Leipzig) - Integrating experiments and synthesis to understand plant responses to climate change

5 Jul - Liesa Schnee - Effects of agri-environmental measures in intensively managed farmland on the soil seed bank, butterflies and carabid beetles in Germany

12 Jul - Ludovic Orlando (Toulouse) - The genomic history of the domestic horse

19 Jul - Till Luckenbach (Leipzig) - Hidden threats: how river pollution can affect seemingly resilient species

26 Jul - Hans Pohl (Jena) - The reproductive and mating strategies of the twisted-winged parasites (Insecta: Strepsiptera)

Winter 2022/2023

11 Oct - Alexandra Weyrich (Leipzig) - Epigenetic responses to environmental changes: in search of cross-species patterns

28 Oct - Eline Lorenzen (Copenhagen) - Arctic marine mammals in a post-Arctic world (Hilgendorf lecture)

2 Nov - Anja Buttstedt - Honey bees' major royals

9 Nov - Michel Milinkovitch (Geneva) - The unreasonable effectiveness of reaction-diffusion in vertebrate skin colour patterning (Hilgendorf lecture)

16 Nov - Hassan Salem (MPI Tübingen) - Beetle-microbe symbioses: Endless forms most functional

23 Nov - Max Schmid - Eco-evolutionary responses to a heterogenous environment

30 Nov - Matthias Liess (UFZ Leipzig) - Predicting combined stress effects in the freshwater macrofauna

7 Dec - Rachel Gunn - Drivers and consequences of behavioural variation in coral reef fish under environmental change

14 Dec - Honour McCann (MPI Tübingen) - The emergence and evolution of bacterial pathogens

11 Jan - Thomas Hickler (SBiK-F Frankfurt) - Interactions between biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and climate - past, present and future (Hilgendorf lecture)

18 Jan - James Nebelsick (Geosciences Tübingen) - Death, decay and destruction:  reconstructing the past by using the fossil record

25 Jan - Lars Krogmann (SMNS Stuttgart) - Why dark taxa matter - Examples from parasitoid wasps

1 Feb - Ralf Sommer (MPI Tübingen) - What is wrong with evolutionary theory? The perspective of a plastic and environmentally responsive organism.

Summer 2022

Apr 26 - Katja Tielbörger  - Are plants intelligent? Learning and decision-making without a brain

May 17 - Jan Benda (Neurobiologie) - Secretly talking electric fish

May 24 - Manuela Sann (Hohenheim) - Evolutionary history and feeding ecology in Apoidea (apoid wasps and bees)

May 31 - Victoria Drechsel - Cadmium-induced molecular stress response in earthworms

Jun 14 - Uta Grünert - Digitization and current research in the Tübingen Herbarium

Jun 21 - Philip Schlüter (Hohenheim) - Pollination, genes and speciation: insights from deceptive orchids

Jun 28 - Guo Yaolin - Geographic variation in biotic interactions between invasive and native plants

Jul 5 - Anita Roth-Nebelsick (SMNS Stuttgart) - Function, functional morphology and biomimetics - How relevant is biology for bio-inspired technics?

Jul 12 - Matteo Santon & Nils Anthes - Demonstrating a versatile R-routine to guide linear modelling

Jul 26 - Thomas Knigge (Le Havre) - A crab is not a fish: Differences in endocrine systems and consequences for endocrine disruption by environmental chemicals in crustaceans

Winter 2021/22

Oct 19 - Vit Latzel (Prague) - How memory affects plant behavior

Nov 2 - Oliver Bossdorf - Plants gone wild

Nov 9 - Andreas Schweiger (Hohenheim) - Macrophysiology: Is it worth following Schimper‘s trail?

Nov 16 - Nico Michiels - Natural reward - a deterministic evolutionary force that drives macroevolution beyond natural selection?

Nov 23 - Klaus Harter (Tübingen) - The cyanobacterial herbicide 7dSh - from the molecular mechanism of action to prospects for application

Nov 30 - Yoko Matsumura (Greifswald) - The penetration mechanics of intromittent organs in insects

Dec 7 - Katharina Peschke - Gammarids as monitoring organisms for wastewater impact on streams and rivers

Dec 14 - Rolf Beutel (Jena) - The evolution of insect systematics - from Hennig to transcriptomes

Dec 21 - Franziska Bucher (Jena) - Plant adaptations to climate chage - how and why to shift phenology

Jan 11 - Dario Galanti - Genetic and environmental determinants of large-scale epigenetic variation in Thlaspi arvense

Jan 18 - Leonida Fusani (Wien) - The art of crossing seas and deserts: A Passerine perspective

Jan 25 - Anne Kempel (WSL Davos) - Plant-enemy interactions in a changing world

Feb 1 - Jinlong Wang - An evolutionary perspective on the shifting defense hypothesis in invasive plants

Feb 8 - Johannes Kamp (Göttingen) - Farmland birds in Germany 1990-2018: population trends, landscape context and drivers of change

Summer 2021

Apr 27 - Zhijie Zhang (Konstanz) - Coexistence of alien and native plants

May 4 - Christoph Ratzke (CMFI Tübingen) - Ecological systems biology - Ecological theory meets microbial model systems

May 11 - Margarita Yavorskaya - Evolution of head structures in beetles with special emphasis on the feeding apparatus and miniaturized forms

May 18 - Nadja Simons (Darmstadt) - Drivers of insect decline in grasslands - Mechanisms and solutions

Jun 1 - Marzieh Safari - Plant-associated microbes and their impact on crop-environment interactions

Jun 8 - Heinz Köhler - Solar radiation stress in terrestrial snails - from thermodynamics to microevolution

Jun 15 - Alexey Polilov (Moscow) - The current state and future of the study of insect miniaturization

Jun 29 - Rafaella Canessa Mesías - Plant-soil interactions along the Chilean coastal range

Jul 6 - Bernd Pelster (Innsbruck) - Living in an acidic and often hypoxic environment - physiological adaptations of Amazonian fishes

Jul 13 - Robert Rauschkolb - Back to the Future - Seed banks as a tool to investigate recent adaptation to global change

Jul 20 - Wolfgang Fiedler (MPI Radolfzell) - Movements of southwest German Red Kites: tracking a "politically relevant" raptor

Jul 27 - Andreas Nieder (Neurobiologie Tübingen) - Number crunching in animals – from adaptive value to neuronal mechanisms

Winter 2020/21

Nov 3 - Uta Grünert - Multi-strain responses of calcifying algae to lake carbon dynamics

Nov 10 - Oliver Betz - Linking insect functional morphology to ecology, evolution and biomimetics

Nov 17 - Holger Schielzeth (Jena) - Evolutionary ecology of a widespread green-brown polymorphism in grasshoppers

Nov 24 - Isolde van Riemsdijk - Searching for moving hybrid zones in amphibian species with big genomes

Dec 1 - Göran Bengtsson (Lund) - "So soll es sein, so wird es sein" - on the scientific support for the odd interaction between Sweden and the Corona virus

Dec 22 - Ramona Irimia - Plant performance traits and invasion - a global field survey of Japanese knotweed

Jan 19 - Anke Stepphuhn (Hohenheim) - The many layers of defence against herbivores in solanaceous plants

Jan 26 - Robert Junker (Marburg ) - The emergence and functionality of multidiversity in alpine succession

Feb 2 - Jake Soscha (Virgina Tech) - Organismal biomechanics & bioinspired engineering

Feb 9 - Mona Schweizer - Why pH is crucial - Toxicity assessment and modelling approahc of ionisable substances using the Fish Embryo Test (FET)

Feb 16 - Leonie Fischer (Stuttgart) - Urban nature: where people and biodiversity meet

Feb 23 - Christian Voolstra (Konstanz) - The metaorganism frontier - we are not alone

Summer 2020

Apr 14 - Sara Tomiolo - Fight, flight or encroach: how do abiotic stress and biotic interactions affect plant growth and behaviour?

May 12 - Philip Steinhof (Greifswald) - Lifestyle matters: Functional role and plasticity of brain areas in spiders

May 19 - Sara Heshmati - Effect of white clover and perennial ryegrass population on the productivity and yield stability of grass-clover and grass-clover-forb mixtures

Jun 23 - Gesche Blume-Werry (Greifswald) - Invasive earthworms unlock plant nitrogen limitation in arctic tundra

Jun 30 - Nils Anthes - Evidence-based conservation approaches for farmland birds

Jul 7 - Catherine Peichel (Bern) - Genetics of adaptation in sticklebacks

Jul 14 - Oliver Bossdorf - Understanding the secret microbes in plants: effects of a common endophytic fungus on invasive knotweed and its native competitors

Jul 21 - Joscha Beninde (UCLA) - Connectivity and gene flow in urban areas