53rd GfÖ Annual Conference in Freising
Recently, several members of the Global Change Ecology group had the pleasure of attending the 53rd GfÖ Annual Conference in Freising, presenting six talks and chairing three sessions.
This conference of the GfÖ (the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland) – was the second largest in the organisation’s history, gathering world-leading scientists and ecologists across multiple disciplines from a variety of backgrounds and research interests. The schedule was packed with several concurrent sessions from topics ranging from broad subjects such as the responses of wildlife to the Anthropocene to much more specific topics, such as soil food webs, and novel topics such as collaborations between ecology and the arts. The diversity of sessions led to a high diversity of interesting research being shared, facilitating connections and potential future collaborations.
Our talks covered several topics themselves, ranging from discussing future research plans to investigate the impact of land-use on above- and below-ground communities, a call to action to increase integrative research to combat climate change, to presenting completed research projects investigating seasonality and thermal adaptations in butterflies. We were pleased to see our sessions well attended and receive thought-provoking questions.
Next year the GfÖ conference will be hosted by our own university, and we very much look forward to welcoming the attendees in Würzburg next year.
