Colloquium EES
The EES colloquium takes place every year in the winter semester. External guests are invited to provide insights into current research in the field of evolution, ecology and biodiversity.
Lecture hall
Master Evolution, Ecology and Systematics
WS 2025/26
The colloquium is part of the MEES T1 module (students please register via Friedolin for the module and exam: MEES800 | Prf.Nr.: 335982 T1 - Projektmodul MEES: mündliche Leistungsnachweis Seminarbeitrag). To get the the credits, you need to attend 6 lectures.
The lectures take place fortnightly on Wednesdays from 2:15 p.m. to 3:45 p.m in the lecture hall Am Planetarium 1External link. All lectures will be given in English (unless otherwise noted).
| Date | Lecturer | Title |
| 22.10.2025 | Franziska Merle Willems (Universität Marburg) |
From pressed petals to present fields and forests: How climate and land use shape flowering time |
| 05.11.2025 | Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa (Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Hamburg) | Priapulida - new data from an old phylum |
| 19.11.2025 | Rudolf Meier (Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin) |
Digitally Native Species Discovery: Tackling Insect Diversity with Robots, Megabarcoding, and Artificial Intelligence |
| 03.12.2025 | Julia Bechteler (FSU Jena) | Tough performers - Biodiversity, evolution and ecology of drought and desiccation tolerant land plants |
| 17.12.2025 | Jana Wäldchen (MPI Biogeochemie Jena) | Flora Incognita: Automated plant identification meets citizen science |
| 14.01.2026 | Benoit Nabholz (University of Montpellier) | What Drives Genome Size Evolution in Animals? Transposable Elements, Genetic Drift, and Many Open Questions |
| 28.01.2026 | Marin Husemann (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe) | Evolution of band-winged grasshoppers: world-wide case studies |
WS 2024/25
Past colloquium talks for information.
| Date | Lecturer | Title |
| 23.10.2024 | Susanne Fritz (iDiv/ FSU Jena) | Biodiversity in the Anthropocene: macroecology and macroevolution of mammals and birds |
| 06.11.2024 | Natalie Iwanycki Ahlstrand (Natural History Museum of Denmark) | Collection-based research: Grass flowering times determined using herbarium specimens for modeling grass pollen under a warming climate |
| 20.11.2024 | Casey Dunn (Yale University) | Global genomics of the man-o’-war (Physalia) reveals biodiversity at the ocean surface |
| 04.12.2024 | Luis Wirsching (Natura2000-Station Mittleres Saaletal) | Managing neophytes in Thuringia |
| 18.12.2024 | Lutz Eckstein (Uni Karlstad, Sweden) | Species-rich road verges in Sweden: threats through invasive plants and prospects for biodiversity conservation |
| 15.01.2025 | Helmut Hillebrand (Oldenburg University) |
Biotic interactions, metacommunities and ecosystem functioning at the land-sea interface. Or: How I learned to embrace unexplained variances |
| 29.01.2025 | Viktora Dietrich (Freiburg University) |
Regeneration success of temperate tree species under increased nitrogen deposition levels and drought |
WS 2023/24
Past colloquium talks for information.
| Date | Lecturer | Title |
| 18.10.2023 | No colloquium | |
| 25.10.2023 | Ann Kathrin Huylmans (Mainz University) | Evolution of Sex Determination & Sex-Biased Gene Expression |
| 08.11.2023 | Anika Wohlleben (Clark University, Worcester, USA) | Eco-evolutionary dynamics in a host-parasite system |
| 22.11.2023 | Lennart Winckler (Dresden) | Sex-specific selection in different environments |
| 20.12.2023 | Meike Wittmann (Bielefeld University) | How do individual trait variation and the NC³ mechanisms (niche construction, niche conformance, niche choice) shape population dynamics and species interactions? |
| 10.01.2024 | Stephan Getzin (Uni Göttingen) | Studying the demography of a ring-forming grass in the Namib: a workflow using drone mapping, GIS, and spatial analyses |
| 24.01.2024 | Marti-March Salas (Frankfurt) | Threats and Processes Driving Cliff Ecosystems |
| 07.02.2024 | Thierry Dutoit (University of Avignon) | Restoring ecosystems by the use of nature based solutions: a sustainable answer to global changes? A Mediterranean case study in Southern-France |
WS 2022/23
Past colloquium talks for information.
| Date | Lecturer | Title |
| 02.11.2022 | No colloquium | |
| 16.11.2022 | Patrick Roberts (Jena) | From 'Green Deserts' to 'Forests of Plenty': An Emerging Archaeology of Tropical Forests |
| 30.11.2022 | Omer Nevo (iDiv) | The ecology and evolution of fruit traits |
| 14.12.2022 | Jana Eccard (Potsdam) | The timid invasion - Spatial behavioural sorting in an expanding rodent population |
| 04.01.2023 | Wolfgang Weisser (München) | Urban Ecology |
| 18.01.2023 | Michael Staab (Darmstadt) | Insects and their multi-trophic interactions in natural and experimental forests |
|
01.02.2023 |
Thierry Dutoit (Avignon) |
Restoring ecosystems by the use of nature based solutions: a sustainable answer to global changes? A Mediterranean case study in Southern-France |
|
08.02.2023 |
Harald Pauli (Vienna) |
The alpine life zone: Looking for plant refugia and extinction traps in the progressing Anthropocene |