Institut für Evolution und Ökologie

Meeting StEvE

The meeting of Students in Evolution and Ecology (Meeting StEvE) provides a yearly opportunity for postgraduate students from within Tübingen to present their research projects, exchange ideas, and receive feedback from senior scientists and fellow students in a pleasant and multidisciplinary atmosphere.

The Meeting StEvE 2023 is organised by the PhD students in the Animal Evolutionary Ecology group and will take place on Friday, 08 December 2023, in the Alte Aula. All further detail about the meeting will be announced in spring 2023.

Previous StEvE-meetings

Meeting StEvE 2022

The 2023 edition of “Meeting StEvE” hosted > 90 participants from across all EVEREST research groups, including many current BSc and MSc students who may enter the graduate program in the near future. Eleven oral and thirteen poster presentations covered the entire spectrum from ancient alligatoroid taxonomy and human prehistory to short-term dynamics of species interaction networks.  
Our Hilgendorf speaker, Prof. Marc Naguib from the University of Wageningen, provided highly engaging insights into the secrets of vocal communcation in brids, spanning from German great tits over Swiss nightingales to Australian zebrafinches, in a talk entitled “Birds in space and time: the role of communication and movement for understanding animal societies”.
Presentation quality of this year’s meeting StEvE was just stunningly high, imposing a difficult task on voters for presentation awards. The prize for the best oral presentation was awarded to Bram van der Schoot (“Enhanced predator detection by means of red fluorescence in a small fish species”), for the best poster presentation Frank Reis (“Drivers of natural microbiome variation in Lotus corniculatus”). Congratulations!

 

Meeting StEvE 2022

Different from previous editions, Meeting StEvE 2022 returned in a hybrid style allowing participants to join in presence and online. Organized by the Biogeology working group, the event counted more than 100 participants (64 in presence) including bachelor, masters and PhD students, as well as post-docs and professors from the University of Tübingen and collaborating institutes. A total of nine talks were presented along the three sessions of the event, followed by a dedicated session for the 11 posters that were displayed during the meeting.  

The Meeting StEvE 2022 also hosted a Hilgendorf Lecture with keynote speaker Prof. Eline Lorenzen of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Prof. Lorenzen gave an inspiring and exciting talk entitled “Arctic marine mammals in a post-Arctic world” about the dynamics of past and present populations of mammal species, in both marine and terrestrial environments, using ancient bimolecular analysis (including palaeogenomics and stable isotope analysis).

Finalizing the event, the prizes for the best presentation based on votes from the audience were awarded to Kim-Louise Krettek (best talk for “Genetic insights into the history of northern South America”) and Arianna Weingarten (best poster for “Ancient DNA retrieval from the Middle Pleistocene open-air site of Schöningen”). An after-meeting dinner at the Ratskeller to celebrate the successful event concluded the Meeting StEvE 2022.

Meeting StEvE 2021

In 2021, Meeting StEvE was organized by the Plant Ecology group. Similar to the year before, the meeting was a completely online event.

More than 70 people participated, including bachelors, masters and PhD students as well as faculty from the University of Tübingen and collaborating institutes. The program comprised 3 sessions with talks from EVEREST students with topics covering a wide variety of fields within evolution and ecology. As has become a tradition for Meeting StEvE, the audience was allowed to vote for the best presentation. Awards went to Vistorina Amputu (Remote sensing to assess rangeland condition), Leonie John (Body coloration of scorpionfish), and Dario Galanti (Natural epigenetic variation in plant defense).

The meeting was concluded by an inspiring keynote talk by Prof. Vigdis Vandvik from the University of Bergen who talked about combining altitudinal gradients and experiments to study global change impacts on plants. The meeting was concluded by a virtual meet-the-speaker event with Prof. Vandvik.

Meeting StEvE 2020

In 2020, Meeting StEvE was held as an entirely web-based remote conference for the first time on Fri 13 Nov.

More than 100 students and faculty from Tübingen and beyond joined an exciting opening lecture by Mark Moore. He illustrated how inferences from stone-flaking experiments on the cognitive abilities of early humans may suffer from biased assumptions. Participants then engaged in lively discussions with 15 EVEREST students, who gave stimulating oral or poster presentations about their current PhD projects. Prizes for the best poster went to Frank Reis (microbiome ecology), and for the best talks to Julia Geue (surrogacy in conservation prioritization), Franziska Koch (stability rules for species networks), and Sophie Habinger (paleoecology of pongin primates).


The PhD students in Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology have made this a highly professional event! Thanks to William Snyder, Eleonora Gargani, Li Li, Diana Marcazzan, Alba Motes Rodrigo, and Jordy Orellana Figueroa.

Meeting StEvE 2019

In 2019, approximately 90 students & scientists attended Meeting StEvE on Fri 06 Dec.

Again, a highly diverse program of oral and poster presentations spanned the fully range of evolutionary research in Tübingen, including a remarkable Hilgendorf lecture by Mike Bruford on attempts to conserve genomic diversity of wild populations, and an excellent networking evening event in Mensa Prinz Carl.

Prizes for the best oral presentations went to Alba Motes Rodrigo and Anna Kirschbaum, for the best poster presentations to Franziska Willems and Heiko Hinneberg. Congratulations!

EVEREST appreciates the efforts of the Comparative Zoology group to organize this meeting!

Meeting StEvE 2018

In 2018, approximately 90 students & scientists attended Meeting StEvE on Fri 23 Nov.

Organised by Alexandros Karakostis and Karin Kiessling and their supportive team from the Paleoanthroplogy group, the meeting hosted 13 oral and 9 poster presentations from PhD and advanced MSc students. Their contributions spanned the range of research interests among the EVEREST-associated groups in Tübingen (Biology + Geosciences dep. at Uni + local Max Planck Institutes).

The winners of the best talk and best poster awards were elected by the members of the EVEREST steering committee and this year's External Advisory Board. We congratulate all winners!

Talks: (1) Franziska Willems (Plant Evolutionary Ecology)
(2) Babette Abanda (Parasitology)
(3) Paula Rotter (Comparative Zoology)

Posters: (1) Judith Beier (Paleoanthropology)
(2) Heiko Hinneberg (Plant Ecology)
(3) Hannah Gelaudie (Plant Ecology)

In her Hilgendorf lecture, Prof. Tracy Kivell showcased the discovery and detailed investigation of a very enigmatic early hominoid, Homo naledi. It's all about hands!

Meeting StEvE 2017

More than 80 students & scientists attended the annual “Meeting of Students in Evolution and Ecology” on Fri 10 Nov 2017 in the Alte Aula, Tübingen.

The Plant Evolutionary Ecology group hosted 12 oral and 12 poster presentations from PhD and advanced MSc-students from the various EVEREST member groups (see program booklet).

Based on voting by all meeting participants, we congratulate Jessica Starke (Geology and Geodynamics) and
Nicola Lechner (Plant Ecology) for receiving the Best Talk and Best Poster awards, respectively.

Prof. Virpi Lummaa closed the meeting with a Hilgendorf lecture that provided exceptionally enlighting insights into ongoing natural and sexual selection in contemporary human populations.