| Time | Monday | |||
| 09:00 | ||||
| 09:15 | ||||
| 09:30 | ||||
| 09:45 | ||||
| 10:00 | ||||
| 10:15 | ||||
| 10:30 | ||||
| 10:45 | ||||
| 11:00 | LWL Museum tour Highlight tour of the exhibition "Surviving Among Dinosaurs and Scale Trees" | |||
| 11:15 | ||||
| 11:30 | ||||
| 11:45 | ||||
| 12:00 | ||||
| 12:15 | ||||
| 12:30 | Section Speaker Meeting (F 42) | DZG Board Meeting (F41) | ||
| 12:45 | ||||
| 13:00 | ||||
| 13:15 | ||||
| 13:30 | DZG Board + Section Meeting (F42) | Registration (luggage deposit F 43) | Coffee Bar | |
| 13:45 | ||||
| 14:00 | ||||
| 14:15 | ||||
| 14:30 | ||||
| 14:45 | ||||
| 15:00 | ||||
| 15:15 | ||||
| 15:30 | Welcome Address (F1) | |||
| 15:45 | ||||
| 16:00 | ||||
| 16:15 | Plenary Talk 1 Daniel Kronauer (F1) Ant Societies: From Behavior to Neural Circuits | |||
| 16:30 | ||||
| 16:45 | ||||
| 17:00 | ||||
| 17:15 | ||||
| 17:30 | Keynote Evo Ulrich Knief (F1) How culture leaves a genomic signature: learned song and the evolution of reproductive isolation | Keynote Neuro Maike Kittelmann (F2) Evolution of sensory information integration – lessons from comb jellies | ||
| 17:45 | ||||
| 18:00 | Keynote Evo Maria Moiron (F1) Evolution in Real Time: Understanding Adaptation in the Wild | Keynote Neuro Hanna Zwaka (F2) Sleep deprivation enhances decision making in larval zebrafish | ||
| 18:15 | ||||
| 18:30 | Poster Session (1st/2nd floor) | |||
| 18:45 | ||||
| 19:00 | ||||
| 19:15 | ||||
| 19:30 | ||||
| 19:45 | ||||
| 20:00 | ||||
| 20:15 | ||||
| 20:30 | ||||
| 20:45 | ||||
| 21:00 | ||||
| 21:15 | ||||
| 21:30 | ||||
| Time | Tuesday, 08.09.2026 | |||
| 09:00 | Plenary Talk 2 Charissa de Bekker (F1) Unraveling the hijacking strategies of zombie-making parasites: A tale of ants and fungi | |||
| 09:15 | ||||
| 09:30 | ||||
| 09:45 | ||||
| 10:00 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 10:15 | EVO1 Prüser "The evolution of circadian rhythm strength in locomotor activity of Tribolium castaneum" | ECO1 Beaulieu "Wild Animal Welfare Science: The emerging field at the intersection between animal welfare and ecology" | BEHAV1 Gorshkova "Colonisation on novel diets: Behavioural and physiological responses of wild house mice during early colonisation stages in new environments with different diets." | PHYS1 Dereuder "Strobilurins fungicides inhibit the mitochondrial metabolism of mussels" |
| 10:30 | EVO2 Fluch "Too hot to handle: The influence of heat stress on the parental care of burying beetles" | ECO2 Oliver "Comeback of the Red Kite in East Westphalia" | BEHAV2 Rimbach "Heatwave treatment reduces behavioural predictability but preserves individual differences in woodlice" | PHYS2 Steinmetz "Mitochondrial redox buffering as a conceptual paradigm enabling animal-algal photosymbiosis" |
| 10:45 | EVO3 Thünken "From traits to processes: An integrative perspective on inbreeding using a cichlid fish model" | ECO3 Pedraza "Local ant fauna recovery following control of Linepithema humile, but no additional benefit of behavior-manipulation approaches" | BEHAV3 Maune "Cities are changing the social lives of animals" | PHYS3 Roeder "Environmental Stress Accelerates Airway Aging Through Persistent Innate Immune Activation" |
| 11:00 | coffee break | |||
| 11:15 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 11:30 | EVO4 Grubmüller "Prenatal maternal effects buffer offspring against reduced post-hatching care in a burying beetle" | ECO4 Müller, H. "Invasive clam Corbicula sp. as a bioindicator for microplastic concentrations in the final effluents of wastewater treatment plants" | BEHAV4 Varga "The heat of the moment: validating thermal markers of reactivity along coping styles in small mammals" | SYS1 Li "The structural diversity of mollusk shells during Cambrian radiation" |
| 11:45 | EVO5 Onsal "The early social environment influences fitness in a colonial-breeding seabird" | ECO5 Gabel "Impacts of Tire Wear Particles and leached heavy metals on Gammarus pulex" | SYS2 van der Sprong "A Host–Symbiont Association as a Synapomorphy Within the Taxonomic Conundrum of the Haplosclerida (Phylum Porifera)" | |
| 12:00 | EVO6 Müller, L. "Challenging Upbringing – Quality of Parental Care influences early Offspring Devel-opment in a Facultatively Caring Beetle" | ECO6 Krings "Elemental reshaping of gastropod radular teeth during functional use" | BEHAV6 Prettyman "Effects of early-life rearing conditions and supplementary UV-A lighting on laying-hen behaviour" | SYS3 Linde "Tiny but Mighty – An Integrative Taxonomic Revision of Huttoniidae (Araneae), an Endemic New Zealand Spider Family" |
| 12:15 | lunch | |||
| 12:30 | ||||
| 12:45 | ||||
| 13:00 | ||||
| 13:15 | ||||
| 13:30 | Plenary Talk 3 Florian Leese (F1) From a simple idea to global biodiversity observation: the (e)DNA revolution and its unfinished business | |||
| 13:45 | ||||
| 14:00 | ||||
| 14:15 | ||||
| 14:30 | ||||
| 14:45 | Keynote Dev Can Aztekin (F1) Signaling centers of appendage regeneration: from frogs to mammals | Keynote Eco Maja Ilić (F2) Traits in a Warming World: Understanding Heat Tolerance in Zooplankton | ||
| 15:00 | ||||
| 15:15 | Keynote Vera Tereblanche Hunnekuhl (F1) Losing the Essential: Evolution of Neuropeptide Processing Genes | Keynote Eco Maximilian Körner (F2) Beetle Minds and Microbial Management: Behavioral and Immune Adaptations in the evolution of (bi)parental care | ||
| 15:30 | ||||
| 15:45 | coffee break | |||
| 16:00 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 16:15 | EVO7 Silvania Cavalcanti "The Scent of Growing Up: Dynamic Larval Profiles During Family Life in Burying Beetles" | ECO7 Berger "Automatized size measurement of fire salamanders using computer vision: comparison with established methods and application in a large-scale case study" | BEHAV7 Drerup "Cuttlefish adapt their camouflage strategies under naturally occuring dynamic lighting" | SYS4 Schöneberg "An accessible molecular approach to tackle the taxonomic urgency" |
| 16:30 | EVO8 Ricemeyer "Gene conversion empowers natural selection in a clonal fish species" | ECO8 Schulenberg "Water flow analysis reveals hydrodynamic differences between ecological morphs of Daphnia" | BEHAV8 Jani "Eight legs, eight glands, endless possibilities: rethinking spider silk use" | SYS5 Struck "Promises and challenges of macrosynteny as a phylogenetic marker considering robusticity" |
| 16:45 | EVO9 Rinke, S. "Different paths to sociality: genomic footprints in weevils" | ECO9 Horstmann "Interplay of body size, behaviour and predation strategy in Daphnia inducible defences" | BEHAV9 Engelhardt "Does self-interest limit prosocial behaviour in the prosocial choice test and giving assistance task?" | SYS6 Mack "An interdisciplinary approach for monitoring ground beetle community health in salt marshes" |
| 17:00 | coffee break | SYS7 Pfeifer "Phylogenomics and morphometrics reveal new species and signals of an adaptive radiation in Vanuatuan Strumigenys trap-jaw ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)" | ||
| 17:15 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 17:30 | EVO10 van den Bos "Weismannian insulation of the superorganismal germline" | ECO10 Mutingwende "Profile of chemical alarm cues in freshwater gastropods: Integrating GC-MS, behavioural responses, and morphological adaptations." | BEHAV10 Beleyur "Multi-disciplinary insights into active sensing collectives" | NEURO1 Coculla Temporal niche in Drosophila melanogaster: the importance of living a temporally organised life and the role of Hsp83 in temporal niche expansion. |
| 17:45 | EVO11 Rinke, J. "Transposable element islands at the interface of 3D genome architecture and karyotype evolution" | ECO11 Sommerfeld "Functional ecology of Steninae (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) in Northeast India" | BEHAV11 Huber "Better Together – How Offspring Cooperation Shapes Benefits across Family Contexts" | |
| 18:00 | EVO12 Schulz "Bidirectional interactions between circadian rhythms and immunity in Tribolium castaneum" | ECO12 Kukla "Temporal niche partitioning in a global lizard radiation" | NEURO2 Montanari Neuronal contributions to thermal adaptation across timescales in a cnidarian nerve net | |
| 18:15 | ||||
| Time | Wednesday 09.09.2026 | |||
| 09:00 | Plenary Talk 4 Elena Gracheva (F1) Neurophysiological adaptations of hibernation: solutions to environmental challenges | |||
| 09:15 | ||||
| 09:30 | ||||
| 09:45 | ||||
| 10:00 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 10:15 | EVO13 Kurtz "Cellular signatures of immune manipulation in a classic model of host–parasite coevolution at single-cell resolution" | ECO13 Schäfer "From Sabre-teeth to self-medication: How a single ecological factor drives outstanding evolutionary innovations in a frog." | BEHAV12 Scheumann "Impact of conspecifics, prey and predators on the evolution of the hearing range of the smallest terrestrial mammal, the Etruscan shrew" | MORPH1 Heykes "Genital damage as a means of avoiding sperm competition: the case of orb-weaving spiders" |
| 10:30 | EVO14 Kowalko "Identifying the genetic underpinnings of repeated behavioral evolution" | ECO14 Saji "Spatial ecology and sex-specific space use in the West African Saber-toothed frog (Odontobatrachus arndti)" | BEHAV13 Moger "Modelling active sensing collectives- Can bats tracking consistency avoid jamming cost in groups?" | MORPH2 Hilgendorf "How variable is the morphology of the crustacean olfactory lobe? A comparison of isogenic and genetically diverse Procambarus crayfish" |
| 10:45 | EVO15 Santacruz "Mechanisms of Intestinal Starvation Resilience in the Mexican Cavefish" | ECO15 Uhl "Metabolic costs of winter warming in a spider." | MORPH3 Wehner "A conserved syncytial nerve net across major ctenophore lineages" | |
| 11:00 | coffee break | |||
| 11:15 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 11:30 | EVO16 Ewers "Six millennia of population genomics and pathogen prevalence from oyster shells" | ECO16 Cuxart i Erruz "Early-life heat shock tolerance in insects. A case study on select Drosophila species" | BEHAV15 Becker "Costly vibes? Male energetic investment in vibratory courtship in response to female feeding condition in the spider Pisaura mirabilis" | MORPH4 van der Poll "Identifying the function of the enigmatic body in cuttlefish and squid suckers" |
| 11:45 | EVO17 Sampalla "Subpopulation dynamics in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis (Walker 1836) are independent of ecology and Wolbachia-infection" | ECO17 Kramer "HotSecretions: Effects of heat stress on antimicrobial secretions and fitness in an insect with biparental care" | BEHAV16 Mühlenhaupt "Sex smells: Early-life consequences and sexual differences in the chemical phenotype of fire salamanders explored in a mate choice context" | MORPH5 Riedel "The caput-pronotum joint of the acorn weevil Curculio glandium - a self-cleaning ball-and-socket joint" |
| 12:00 | EVO18 Preuß "Of Bees and BOOMs – The evolution of a nutritional mutualism between Wolbachia and solitary bees" | ECO18 Maraci "Same City, Same Microbes? Repeatability of the urbanisation-driven microbiome alterations" | MORPH6 Klunk "Are trap-jaw mandibles morphologically adapted to mechanical resistance? The case of Strumigenys ants" | |
| 12:15 | lunch | |||
| 12:30 | ||||
| 12:45 | ||||
| 13:00 | ||||
| 13:15 | ||||
| 13:30 | Plenary Talk 5 Eva Ringler (F1) What amphibians can teach us about the evolution of parental care | |||
| 13:45 | ||||
| 14:00 | ||||
| 14:15 | ||||
| 14:30 | ||||
| 14:45 | Keynote Phys Annika Herwig (F1) The puzzle of torpor regulation in the Djungarian hamster. | Keynote Sys Daniela Mera-Rodríguez (F2) Evolution of social parasitism and biodiversity of Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants | ||
| 15:00 | ||||
| 15:15 | Keynote Phys Christian Pansch-Hattich (F1) Scales of change: Eco-physiological responses of marine benthic invertebrates to environmental variability in a changing Baltic Sea | Keynote Sys Sven Rossel (F2) Can Proteins Identify Species? Ten Years of MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry in Marine Biodiversity Research | ||
| 15:30 | ||||
| 15:45 | coffee break | |||
| 16:00 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 16:15 | EVO19 Borgers "Living in the shadows of fungi – the bacterial symbionts of bark beetles" | PHYS4 Bauhus "Parasite diversity affects individual host immunity and immune plasticity in cavefish" | MORPH7 Göpel "Cleared tissue light sheet microscopy reveals cardiac morphology in millimeter-scale crustaceans" | |
| 16:30 | EVO20 Kupfer "Evolutionary genital morphology of caecilian amphibians updated" | PHYS5 Beck "A fatty acid-binding protein links lipid handling to chitin synthase-dependent cuticle formation and nanoscale organization in Tribolium castaneum" | MORPH8 Koehnsen "The functional morphology of cuttlefish tentacles and implications for controlling strikes" | |
| 16:45 | EVO21 Lichilin "Evolutionary Dynamics of Sex Biased Gene Expression in Sexually Dimorphic Fireflies" | PHYS6 Pohl "Long-term impacts of a single uptake of imidacloprid on brood care and reproduction in ant founding queens" | MORPH9 Gorshkova "When environment gets to your bones: Morphological responses of wild house mice during early colonisation stages in new environments with different diets." | |
| 17:00 | coffee break | |||
| 17:15 | ||||
| 17:30 | Public Talk Norbert Sachser (F1) Die Grenzen der Anpassung - Über das Schicksal der Tiere im Zeitalter des Menschen | |||
| 18:30 | ||||
| 18:45 | ||||
| 19:00 | conference dinner | |||
| 19:15 | ||||
| 19:30 | ||||
| 19:45 | ||||
| 20:00 | ||||
| 20:15 | ||||
| 20:30 | ||||
| 20:45 | ||||
| 21:00 | ||||
| 21:15 | ||||
| 21:30 | ||||
| Time | Thursday 10.09.2026 | |||
| 09:00 | Plenary Talk 6 Christian Klämbt(F1) Drosophila glia: from development to behavior | |||
| 09:15 | ||||
| 09:30 | ||||
| 09:45 | ||||
| 10:00 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 10:15 | EVO22 Combosch "Nautilus sex determination is unique among cephalopods" | ECO19 Grond "52 weeks later: assessing the status of a European fire salamander population one year after the outbreak of Bsal" | NEURO3 Malkemper "Absence of the Earth’s magnetic field induces stress in a mammal" | DEV1 Doveton "The embryotheca of Hydra is a semi-permeable interface allowing embryo communication with the environment and microbiome" |
| 10:30 | EVO23 Chen "Molecular methods for understanding lekking behaviour" | ECO20 Drakula "An experimental test on how parasites and individual variation influence predator functional response" | NEURO4 Alev "Functional Identification of Predator-Sensing Ionotropic Receptors in Daphnia" | DEV2 Barf "Unlocking the genomic architecture of Gordionus violaceus: new perspectives on Nematomorpha evolution and development" |
| 10:45 | EVO24 Reinisch "Eleven new hymenopteran genomes - A basis for exploring the genomic background of secondary phytophagy" | ECO21 Anaya-Rojas "Can manipulative parasites modify host-mediated trophic effects? Experimental evidence from Schistocephalus solidus and three-spined sticklebacks" | NEURO5 Jaske "Temperature-independent motion processing in the central brain of bumblebees" | |
| 11:00 | coffee break | |||
| 11:15 | ||||
| Room | F1 | F2 | F4 | F5 |
| 11:30 | EVO25 Dovydaitis "Building a macrogenetics database for arthropods" | MORPH10 Cao "Partial Ecological Substitution Over Geological Time Between Praying Mantises and Raptorial Lacewings Uncovered Through Quantifying Prey-Catching Appendage Morphology." | NEURO6 Maric "Unraveling lateral line contributions to escape decisions" | |
| 11:45 | EVO26 Kunde "Scalable Genome Annotation Using Novel Neural Network Architectures" | MORPH11 Wolff "Evolutionary biomechanics of maximum running speed in spiders (Araneae)" | NEURO7 Drerup Motion aftereffects induced by dynamic illumination | |
| 12:00 | EVO27 Mayer Machine Learning Methods for Biological Inference and Discovery | MORPH12 Wehmann "In vivo investigation of vibrations inside the locust ear" | ||
| 12:15 | EVO28 Schrader Transposable Elements in Ant Macroevolution | MORPH13 Hein "Evolution of Beetle Leg Joints Revealed by Synchrotron X-ray Microtomography" | ||
| 12:30 | Section Group Meetings: Neuro, Evol, Dev, Sys/Biogeo/Div; | |||
| 12:45 | ||||
| 13:00 | Section Group Meetings: Eco, Phys, Behav, Morph | |||
| 13:15 | ||||
| 13:30 | lunch | |||
| 13:45 | ||||
| 14:00 | Keynote Morph Guillermo Amador (F1) How cuttlefish stick to their prey in milliseconds | Keynote BEHAV Isabel Damas Moreira (F2) Enduring together: The role of social behaviour in lizards’ resilience to novel environments | ||
| 14:15 | ||||
| 14:30 | Keynote Morph Daniela E. Winkler (F1) Big Teeth, Microscopic Traces: Reconstructing Dinosaur Ecology through Dental Microwear Texture Analysi | Keynote BEHAV Sam England (F2) The ecology of electrostatics: pollination, parasitism, and predator-prey interactions | ||
| 14:45 | ||||
| 15:00 | coffee break | |||
| 15:15 | ||||
| 15:30 | General Assembly | |||
| 15:45 | ||||
| 16:00 | ||||
| 16:15 | ||||
| 16:30 | coffee break | |||
| 16:45 | Awards ceremony | |||
| 17:00 | ||||
| 17:15 | ||||
| 17:30 | ||||
| 17:45 | ||||
| 18:00 | ||||
| 18:15 | ||||
| 18:30 | ||||
| 18:45 | ||||
| 19:00 | ||||
| 19:15 | ||||
| 19:30 | ||||
| 19:45 | ||||
| 20:00 | ||||
| 20:15 | ||||
| 20:30 | Farewell Party | |||
| 20:45 | ||||
| 21:00 | ||||
| 21:15 | ||||
| 21:30 | ||||
| F1 - Lecture Hall 1.OG |
| F2 - Lecture Hall 1.OG |
| F4 = Lecture Hall 2.OG |
| F5 = Lecture Hall 2.OG |
| F41-F42 = Seminarrooms (UG) |
