Institute of Evolution and Ecology (EvE)

EvE Seminar

WHEN?  Wednesdays at 17:15     WHERE?  Lecture hall 3M07 (GUZ)

The EvE Seminar is organised by Oliver Bossdorf and  Madalin Parepa, and the Hilgendorf Lectures by Max Schmid. Get in contact if you want to be added to the mailing list for annoucements.

Winter 2023/2024

Date Host Seminar
15 Nov Evol Biol Invert Thomas Schwaha (Wien) - Animal microborers: evolution and diversity of endolithic bryozoans
22 Nov Plant Ecol Victoria Ferenc (Stuttgart) - The performance of and interactions between multiple co-occurring alien and native plant species
28 Nov Plant Evol Ecol Koen Verhoeven (Wageningen) - Adaptive capacity of asexual plants under environmental change (Special time and place: Tuesdy 13:30, room 36, Auf der Morgenstelle 3)
29 Nov Anim Evol Ecol Kerstin Pierick (Göttingen) - Changes in forest structural complexity and its landscape-level heterogeneity after Enhancement of Structural Beta Complexity (ESBC) interventions
6 Dec Anim Phys Ecol Ulrich Gärtner - Animal body size and performance: An engineer's approach to the allometric function CANCELLED
8 Dec HILGENDORF LECTURE Marc Naguib (Wageningen) - Birds in space and time: the role of communication and movement for understanding animal societies
13 Dec Plant Ecol Sara Tomiolo - Effects of plastic contamination on soil and plants
20 Dec Plant Evol Ecol Madalin Parepa - Evolution of plant defenses during a plant invasion 
  Christmas Break  
10 Jan Anim Evol Ecol Leonie John - Dynamic camouflage strategies in predatory fishes
17 Jan Comp Zool Luisa Pallares (MPI Tübingen) - Exploring how genotype-phenotype maps are shaped by the environment, and why it matters for evolution
24 Jan Evol Biol Invert Christian Rabeling (Hohenheim) - Origin and evolution of social parasitism in ants: insights for speciation research
31 Jan HILGENDORF LECTURE Jens-Christian Svenning (Aarhus) - Trophic rewilding as a key restoration approach – insights from and for macro- and paleoecology
7 Feb Anim Phys Ecol Andreas Schäffer (Aachen) - Pesticides as drivers for biodiversity loss

Guidelines for speakers

  • Please keep your presentation to a maximum of 45 minutes so that there is enough time for discussion.
  • Keep in mind that you have a rather broad audience, with a mix of students and more experienced reseachers, and people from different disciplines. Don't assume too much, explain terms, avoid specialized jargon.

Guidelines for hosts

  • Shortly introduce the speaker at the beginning of the seminar.
  • Encourage everybody to ask questions. Questions by students should be given priority. 
  • Particularly for external speakers: get in touch with them prior to the seminar, organise chats with students and postdocs, and organise a dinner. Ask other EvE groups that may be interested to participate.

Past seminars

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