SYMPOSIA
Host-microbiome interactions
Chairs:
Giovanni Bacci (University of Firenze, Italy)
Camilla Fagorzi (University of Firenze, Italy)
Invited speaker: Mihai Netea (Radboud University Medical Center, The Netherlands)
Microbial communities establish intricate and dynamic relationships with their hosts, influencing physiological functions across tissues while shaping health, development, and adaptation. These interactions arise from long-term co-evolution and are mediated by complex molecular and ecological processes. Understanding them requires integrative, multidisciplinary approaches that often rely on complementary multi-omic strategies. Among these, Metagenomics plays a key role in disentangling the taxonomic and functional components driving host-microbe interplay. This symposium highlights recent advances in the study of host-microbiome systems and welcomes contributions spanning genomics, immunology, ecology, evolution, and computational biology. We encourage studies that combine multiple approaches to uncover the mechanisms, functions, and consequences of microbial associations in diverse hosts. Ultimately, this session aims to provide an updated and comprehensive perspective on host-microbiome research, stimulating discussion on both conceptual challenges and emerging methodologies.
Evolutionary roots of behavioural diversity
Chairs:
Lisa Locatello (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Italy)
Federico Cappa (University of Firenze, Italy)
Alessandro Cini (University of Pisa, Italy)
Invited speaker: Martin Giurfa (Sorbonne University, France)
Understanding why behaviour varies among individuals and species remains a central challenge in evolutionary biology. The symposium will bring together empirical and theoretical perspectives to explore how evolutionary processes generate and sustain behavioural diversity. Contributions will examine how behavioural adaptations are influenced by ecological contexts and interactions, and how selection shapes behavioural repertoires in a rapidly changing environment. The aim is to foster integrative perspectives that will connect behaviour and ecology within a unified evolutionary framework and to highlight how behavioural plasticity influences species’ ecological success and resilience.
Phylogeography and Conservation Genomics: understanding evolutionary history to sustain species resilience
Chairs:
Livia Tolve (University of Firenze, Italy)
Giulia Fabbri (University of Ferrara, Italy)
Invited speaker: Mirte Bosse (VU University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Advances in population genomics provide powerful tools to integrate evolutionary history into biodiversity risk assessments. By combining genomic data with demographic modelling and simulations, we can reconstruct past population dynamics with higher accuracy and forecast future trends under changing environments. This integrative framework enhances our ability to identify vulnerable lineages and develop evolutionarily informed conservation strategies. The session invites contributions showcasing innovative uses of genomic approaches in phylogeography and conservation biology to better understand species’ histories, describe present population structures, and predict their future trajectories.
Human evolution
Chairs:
Silvia Ghirotto (University of Ferrara, Italy)
Stefania Vai (University of Firenze, Italy)
Invited speaker: David Caramelli (University of Firenze, Italy)
The study of human evolution is one of the most dynamic and interdisciplinary fields in evolutionary biology, characterized in recent years by a growing emphasis on integrated approaches. This session aims to bring together researchers exploring the evolutionary history of our species and its close relatives, with contributions that investigate the origins and diversification of hominin lineages, the genetic and cultural adaptations of ancient and modern human populations, and the evolutionary mechanisms that have shaped our biology and behaviour. Special attention will be given to studies that combine multiple lines of evidence—molecular, morphological, environmental—to reconstruct past population dynamics, mobility patterns, and interactions between human groups and ecosystems. We also encourage submissions addressing methodological advances in the study of human evolution and human history inference, the evolution of humans in relation to non-human organisms including co-evolutionary dynamics and diseases that impacted ancient human populations, human adaptation across diverse ecological and cultural contexts and applications of the study of human variability (e.g. in forensic or medical fields).
The evolution of ecological diversification: mechanisms, interactions, and outcomes
Chairs:
Elisabetta Bianchi (University of Firenze, Italy)
Andrea Chiocchio (Tuscia University, Italy)
Ivan Scotti (INRA-Avignon, France)
Invited speaker: Maurizio Mencuccini (ICREA/CREAF, Spain)
This symposium will bring together empirical and theoretical approaches to investigate how ecological contexts drive evolutionary trajectories, and conversely, how evolutionary change influences ecological dynamics. Focusing on the dynamic interplay between ecological and evolutionary processes, we aim to explore how different organisms, from animals to plants, adapt, persist, and diversify in changing environments across different temporal and spatial scales. This symposium invites contributions addressing the evolution of ecological diversification, from the evolution of phenotypic variability and plasticity in response to ecological challenges and its genetic underpinnings, to the role of hybridization as a source of adaptation and the role of coevolution in shaping species interactions. By fostering cross-disciplinary perspectives, this symposium seeks to advance our understanding of the reciprocal feedbacks between ecology and evolution that govern patterns of biodiversity and organismal adaptation.
Participants who wish to present studies on topics that do not fall within the themed symposia are also welcome. Please select the option “Other” in the abstract submission form.
These contributions will be included in the Miscellaneous symposium.