Confirmed Speakers
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EED 2026 SymposiaThe four invited speakers of each Symposium will be communicated in March 2026. S01- Evo-Devo Principles of Plant Specialized MetabolismOrganizers: Shuqing Xu (University of Mainz, Germany) Emmanuel Gaquerel (University of Strasbourg, France) Description: Plants synthesize an immense diversity of specialized metabolites, yet the principles that determine where, when, and how this chemical diversity arises remain fragmented across ecology, development, and evolution. This symposium proposes an evo-devo framework that links evolutionary mechanisms (such as gene duplication and neo/subfunctionalization, pathway assembly, and metabolic gene clustering) with developmental patterning across cell-type, tissue, and life stages to explain the origin and diversification of plant chemical novelty. We will highlight how specialized metabolites function not only as ecological mediators but also as developmental signals that influence cell fate and organ identity, and how shifts in regulatory networks can rewire flux through emerging pathways. We welcome contributions that integrate single-cell multi-omics, metabolomics, comparative and population genomics, and functional genetics to connect genomic innovations to cell-resolved expression, biochemical activity, and ecological performance. By comparing convergent innovations across lineages (e.g., trichomes, roots, flowers), we aim to distill general design principles of metabolic innovation and identify points for prediction and responsible engineering of new chemistries. We anticipate that this symposium will create a shared research agenda that unites chemical ecology and evo-devo to map selection pressures onto developmental programs, advancing our understanding of how plant specialized metabolism evolves. S02- From Cell Type- to Tissue-Evolution Organizers: Mihaela Pavlicev (University of Vienna, Austria) Günter P. Wagner (Yale University & University of Vienna, US/Austria) Description: Organismal complexity evolves through the origin of novel cell types, the organization of cell types into supracellular units, such as tissues, and tissues into organs, the structure which ultimately represent clade-specific body plans. While this overall scheme is broadly accepted, the mechanisms underlying each of these steps are largely unknown. What is known is that they involve evolution of cooperation between related and unrelated cell types. Recent progress in single cell technology and metabolomics has enabled a deeper look into the molecular mechanisms behind cell type identity, the causes of tissue organization, and organ development. Insights into the evolution of genomic rearrangements, cellular communication and mutual metabolic complementation open new avenues for a refined understanding of the evolutionary origin of higher-order levels of organisation. This symposium aims at a review of current progress, and identification of open questions.
Organizers: Josep Martí-Solans (CNRS, France) Elias Barriga (Dresden University of Technology, Germany) Description: Bioelectricity is a pivotal, yet underappreciated, layer of control in morphogenesis, growth, and differentiation. This fundamental phenomenon is driven by the movement of charged ions across the cell membranes of all cells, not just excitable ones, creating subtle voltage differences essential for large-scale tissue patterning. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in how these bioelectrical cues coordinate complex developmental events and guide the cell movements required for tissue remodeling and repair. We are now at a critical point. Advances in bioelectronics, genetic editing, and high-resolution live imaging allow us to rigorously investigate how these endogenous bioelectric signals regulate core developmental processes like cell fate specification and morphogenesis. Evidence confirms bioelectricity's role as an evolutionarily conserved signal at both tissue and organ levels, found across vast phylogenetic distances, including plants, cnidarians, and vertebrates. This confluence of technological maturity and deep evolutionary significance establishes bioelectricity not merely as a biological curiosity, but as a tractable, high-impact frontier for understanding the construction of biological form. The aim of this session is to create a platform for discussing how bioelectric signals function as an instructive cue that shapes an organism's development. By convening researchers working on different model organisms, we will highlight both the conserved and divergent roles of bioelectric signals in regulating processes such as cell migration, tissue morphogenesis, and organ regeneration.
Organizers: Anaïs Bailles (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany). Bruno Vellutini (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil). Charlotte Manser (Department of Mathematics, King’s College London, United Kingdom). Chiara Sinigaglia (Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls-sur-Mer, CNRS, France). James Hammond (Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom). Description: Morphogenesis is a biophysical process that gives rise to tissues and organs by integrating genetic and environmental cues during embryonic development. While the role of genes has been thoroughly studied over the years, it was only in the last decade that the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying mechanical forces during development began to be uncovered. The field of Mechanobiology revealed that mechanical forces are not only crucial for driving tissue movement but also an essential source of information for embryonic cells during development. Cells can sense physical stimuli during development and respond with changes in behavior and gene regulation, a feedback loop that ultimately determines the tissue patterning and shape. Physical processes are therefore crucial for driving and shaping embryonic development. However, the role mechanical forces play in the evolution of development remains unclear. Do the mechanical properties of tissues constrain or enable evolutionary innovation? How does mechanical information fit into our current genetic-based view of developmental processes? Answering these questions is fundamental to understanding the interplay between development and evolution. Our symposium aims at bringing together pioneering researchers working at the interface of evo-devo and the biophysics-oriented framework of Mechanobiology. We will feature talks from a diversity of approaches and model organisms to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the role of cellular and tissue mechanics in evo-devo. We aim to raise awareness of the emerging field of MechanoEvoDevo and to provide a platform for fostering new ideas and collaborations within the evo-devo community.
Organizers: Thomas C.G. Bosch (University of Kiel, Germany) Tyler Carrier (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, United States of America) Description: Understanding how animals reproduce and develop has remained a central tenet of biology for nearly two centuries. Early studies focused on how eggs divide, cells differentiate, and tissues form three-dimensional structures. These morphological investigations shifted a half-century ago to determine the genomic basis of embryonic and adult body plans, how regulatory networks change over evolutionary time, and how the environment shapes the phenotype. Conceptually integrating embryology, evolution, and ecology has allowed development to be studied in a more natural setting. The last three decades has featured the rise of another discipline within the life sciences: host-microbe symbiosis. The principles of host-microbe symbiosis, however, have been slow to be integrated into the framework of embryology, despite that it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between the developmental processes that are exclusively performed by the host and those that are performed in concert with a specific microbial symbiont or diverse microbiome. This symposium will feature the diverse ways that microbes are integrated into the reproductive and developmental programs of plants and animals. It will also feature model and non-model systems from across the tree of-life that are derived from both the developmental and symbiosis worlds.
Organizers: Madeleine E. Aase-Remedios (Copenhagen University, Denmark) Meghan Yap-Chiongco (Copenhagen University, Denmark) Ludwik Gąsiorowski (University of Warsaw, Poland) Nikolaos Papadopoulos (University of Vienna, Austria) Description: The decrease in organismal complexity over evolutionary time (i.e., simplification) through morphological reduction or loss, is an important driver of diversification in eukaryotes. Simplification can occur via several mechanisms (e.g., genome reduction/compaction, gene gain/loss, and changes to gene regulation) and is often associated with major evolutionary transitions. The proposed symposium will cover varied examples of simplification in life history, ecology, habitat, and environment. Our invited speakers have diverse backgrounds, with both evo-devo and comparative genomics perspectives representing both animals and plants. They will discuss the signatures of miniaturization and their phenotypic and developmental consequences for adaptation to life in the marine meiofauna; the comparative genomics of flatworms, particularly in the context of the evolution of sexual traits; the successive losses of nuclear genes and plastids characterising the adaptation to parasitism in plants; or the genomic signatures of miniaturization in vertebrate evolution.
Organizers: Lucas Leclère (Banyuls-sur-Mer, CNRS/Sorbonne Université, France) Stefano Tiozzo (Villefranche-sur-Mer, CNRS/Sorbonne Université, France) Chiara Sinigaglia (Banyuls-sur-Mer, CNRS/Sorbonne Université, France) Description: The majority of the studies in evolution, ecology, and development focus on unitary organisms that undergo sexual reproduction and embryonic development. However, organisms with complex life cycles, including asexually reproducing phases and potentiality for extensive repair, are fundamental components of global biodiversity, occurring in plants, fungi, and metazoans. Nearly all existing phyla contain multicellular species that can reproduce clonally by agametic propagation and thus can develop a fully functional body without forming a zygote. Some of these species produce populations of separate clonal “individuals”, while many others form colonies of interconnected individuals or develop clusters of genetically identical modules, with either similar or phenotypically distinct body types. Often, this plasticity is accompanied by extensive repair capacities - with some organisms capable of regenerating their entire body in response to injury - and/or the potential for indefinite growth. The links between development, agametic reproduction, repair and growth remain unclear, but represents an active area of multidisciplinary research. The life histories of organisms have direct consequences on their distribution and potential for evolution. This symposium seeks to bring together scholars studying different model species, investigating a range of experimentally or theoretically distinct aspects of agametic development, whole-body regeneration, clonality, coloniality and their evolution.
Organizers: Hiroki Higashiyama (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies SOKENDAI, Japan) Robert Cerny (Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic) Description: How did complex forms such as our own bodies come to be? This is one of the most fundamental questions in evolutionary developmental biology. Yet, the long-standing challenge of understanding how diverse cell populations coordinate to construct complex anatomical structures—and how these developmental processes themselves have evolved—still stands before us as a major frontier. In this symposium, we focus on one of the most complex regions among vertebrates—the rostral end of the head, the craniofacial region—and present the latest advances in its morphological evolution from various perspectives, ranging from palaeontology to developmental genetics. The program includes topics such as the evolutionary transformation of facial morphogenetic patterns that gave rise to mammals, the unexpected contribution of the endoderm to the craniofacial region that overturns traditional views, new palaeontological insights into the skulls of early vertebrates, and the genomic/transcriptomic/cellular mechanisms driving macroevolutionary transitions in the brain and skull. We hope this symposium will foster new synergy in understanding complex morphology through the integrated perspectives of evolution and development.
Organizers: Eudald Pascual-Carreras, Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CISC - Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Barcelona, Spain / EMBL Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. Kathrin Garschall, University of Bergen, Michael Sars Centre, Bergen, Norway. Description: Metabolism provides energy and biomaterials for growth, repair, and shapes how organisms interact with their environment. Increasingly, metabolic signals, that reflect the energy and nutritional state of cells and organisms, are recognized as key regulators of cell cycle progression, quiescence and differentiation. Despite the far-reaching implications for developmental processes, most of our current understanding comes from cell culture systems, which fail to reflect the metabolic complexity of whole organisms and the evolutionary context. This symposium brings together researchers who study how metabolism shapes aspects of organismal development across diverse branches of the tree of life, to explore metabolic diversity and its evolution. Topics include the role of metabolism during planarian regeneration and organismal growth in the cnidarian Nematostella, transgenerational metabolic reprogramming in Drosophila, and a mammalian “stem cell zoo” perspective on the metabolic regulation of developmental rates. Together, these talks offer a comparative and integrative perspective on metabolism as a driver of developmental evolution. We aim to foster dialogue across disciplines and inspire new approaches in evo-devo research.
Organizers: Dr Carlos Rivera Rivera, University of Manchester, UK Dr Joseph Keating, University of Bristol, UK Description: The ectoderm is a dynamic germ layer that uniquely interfaces with the external environment. In vertebrates, it gives rise to a remarkable diversity of evolutionarily significant appendages, including teeth, denticles, feathers, and hair. Across invertebrate phyla, ectodermal sensory structures such as cuticular papillae and setae further illustrate ectodermal innovation. Cutting-edge advances in developmental genetics, computed tomography, and comparative phylogenetics are transforming our understanding of how these structures originate and diversify. This symposium brings together researchers harnessing these methods from across disciplines to foster integrative discussions on ectodermal appendage evolution. Speakers will include developmental biologists, palaeontologists, and comparative morphologists working across vertebrate and invertebrate systems. By synthesizing these perspectives, we will explore how developmental innovations have fueled the evolution of ectodermal appendages across animals and what this reveals about the interplay between development, form, and function.
Organizers: Emília Santos (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom) Hannah Weller (University of Helsinki, Finland) Description: Colour and pattern are among the most visible outcomes of evolution, enabling researchers to link molecular mechanisms to ecological and behavioural function. Colour pattern evolution is an exceptionally well-poised system for connecting the genetic origins of variation to their evolutionary consequences. In addition to more classical genetic and behavioral experiments, the field has approaches for modeling both pattern development and receiver psychology. These modeling tools enable researchers to extend experimental insights from a few species to test hypotheses over wider taxonomic and evolutionary scales than would be feasible experimentally. This symposium will explore the evolution and development of biological colour through an eco–evo–devo lens – integrating genetic, developmental, ecological, and perceptual processes across biological scales, from genes to fitness. We will highlight studies combining genomics, developmental biology, quantitative modelling, and visual ecology to understand how colour patterns originate, evolve, and are perceived. By bridging molecular mechanisms and ecological consequences, this symposium aims to connect disciplines that traditionally work in isolation.
Organizers: Nico Posnien (Developmental Biology, University Goettingen, Germany) Natascha Turetzek (Evolutionary Ecology, LMU Munich, Germany) Description: Evo-Devo grew from the synthesis of comparative anatomy and embryology and gained increasing attention with the advent of molecular genetics, providing tools to mechanistically link genotype to phenotype across evolutionary timescales. The omics revolution driven by technological advances in short- and long-read sequencing applicable for many species has the potential to lift Evo-Devo research on yet another level of mechanistic understanding. Comparative genomics and transcriptomics are currently extensively employed to identify candidate genes, networks and processes underlying the evolution of developmental programs. We argue, however, that omics approaches must be placed in a robust phylogenetic context to deduce meaningful patterns of genome evolution, such as conservation, divergence, duplication, and rearrangement of genes and regulatory regions. Moreover, we advocate for a thorough integration of comparative omics data with underlying differences in cellular and developmental processes. To this end, we must accelerate the development and adoption of novel functional tools for gain- and loss-of-gene-function and imaging approaches. Eventually, the use of omics data to reconstruct gene regulatory networks and to train predictive mathematical models hold the potential of propelling Evo-Devo research beyond the state-of-the-art. With our symposium, we want to highlight the power of omics data analysis for Evo-Devo research, and we want to outline its potential and challenges for a meaningful integration with multi-modal data on organismic development and evolution.
Organizers: Kevin Parsons (University of Glasgow, UK) Mariana Benítez (UNAM, Mexico) Description: Evo-devo has contributed fundamental insights into the evolutionary process. However, given the maturity of the field it is curious that it has not been widely applied to tackle the problems of a changing world. For example, evolutionary and population genetics is regularly applied to conservation or agricultural issues as a way to manage biological diversity on the basis of allelic diversity, and allele frequency change. While commonplace, this approach does not recognize that changing environments also change development and in turn the genetic (and non-genetic) mechanisms that underlie phenotypic variation. This provides an opportunity for evo-devo to provide a vital role in understanding the evolutionary potential of populations, and how biodiversity and agrobiodiversity can persist in the future. In short, if we can understand how variation arises, a central focus of evo-devo research, we can provide improved approaches to agroecological and conservation strategies in different environmental and sociocultural contexts. This symposium will bring together researchers who are focused on gaining an understanding of how developmental processes are impacted and impact by biodiversity and agrobiodiversity conservation, in relation to ongoing and future challenges.
Organizers: Daniel Phillips (University of Oxford, UK), Atsuko Sato (Ochanomizu University, Japan) Description: Evolution relies on phenotypic variability, which is at least partially heritable. The stability of DNA combined with its capacity to accumulate spontaneous mutations that modulate phenotypes satisfied these requirements and endowed DNA as the material basis of heredity and proper locus of evolutionary change. However, in the last decade it has been shown that other mechanisms of inheritance exist, including microbiome transfer as well as somatic RNAs that can directly transmit environmentally-induced adaptations across generations, but if and how such soma-germline communication might influence evolution has not yet been addressed. To address this gap, our speakers will present how somatic RNA modify epigenetic information in sperm; introduce the concept of a sperm "RNA code" and emerging tools used to understand how it mediates epigenetic inheritance; describe the role of environmental stress-induced phenotypes and how they are communicated to the gametes and offspring via somatic RNA; and argue why these ideas revive Darwin’s theory of “Pangenesis” and how they reveal new directions for evolutionary biology.
Organizers: Carmen Andrikou, Department of Biology, University of Patras, Greece Rossella Annunziata, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli, Italy Maria Lorenza Rusciano Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli, Italy Description: The emergence of extracellular digestion and organised digestive systems is a fundamental innovation in animal evolution. Whether the ancestral digestive tract consisted of one end (blind gut) or two ends (through gut) is still debated. A through gut, possessing both a foregut and a hindgut, is only found in members of bilaterians, among which, great variations are witnessed. Despite morphological diversity, however, gut development is governed by conserved gene regulatory and morphogenetic programs, as confirmed by single-cell omics, which point to a common origin of gut cell types. Recent findings also highlight the gut as a central communication hub, linked to the brain and hosting complex microbiomes that influence host physiology and dietary adaptation. This symposium explores the origin and evolution of gut development and function across the animal tree, from non-bilaterians to chordates.
Organizers: Roland Zimm (Dublin City University, Ireland) Frietson Galis (Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Netherlands) Description: The purpose of this symposium is to promote dialogue among researchers on the three core concepts of evo-devo: modularity, robustness and evolvability. Our aim is to explore various approaches to clarify the relationships between these concepts. Understanding these relationships should connect Evo with Devo. To this end, we have selected speakers who can shed light on various aspects of these relationships, in the hope that this will lead to a more comprehensive synthesis. For example, they will discuss the relationship between sex determination, robustness and evolvability, and providing a perspective on robusness research in plants more generally; they will present their research on tooth modularity and evolvability; they will discuss the integration of Evo-Devo and population genetics, because modularity and robustness (canalization) were the first organismal Evo-Devo concepts that were studied using using population genetical approach; finally they will provide a morphometric and computational evo-devo perspective.
Organizers: Robin Pranter, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Germany Lisandro Milocco, Department of Zoology and SciLifeLab, Stockholm University, Sweden Description: Understanding evolution requires understanding the variation on which selection acts. Classical evo-devo has shown how developmental rules shape differences between species but has rarely addressed how developmental processes generate subtle phenotypic variation within populations. This emerging “micro-evo-devo” perspective is key to integrating developmental biology with population-level evolution and to advancing evo-devo toward a predictive science relevant to rapid environmental change. Recent advances in high-resolution imaging, single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, computational modeling and theory now make it possible to connect developmental mechanisms directly to population-level variation. This symposium highlights new approaches that bridge development, phenotypic diversity, and evolutionary dynamics. Proposed speakers will discuss the following: quantitative morphometrics and 3D imaging of developmental stability and variation in craniofacial morphology; regulatory and developmental bases of craniofacial diversity in avian morphology; genetic and developmental sources of phenotypic variability in C. elegans; integrating developmental transcriptomics and population genetics in invertebrate systems. Together, these talks outline an interdisciplinary roadmap for connecting developmental processes to evolutionary change within populations.
Organizers: Pierre Galipot (MNHN, France) Edwige Moyroud (Sainsbury laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK) Description: Objects of interest to humans due to their visual immediacy, plant forms and patterns participate in numerous biological functions at all scales. Despite the many constraints shaping their potential morphogenetic landscape, an immense diversity of shapes is displayed by plants, particularly on leaves and flowers, but also in terms of spatial arrangement of organs. The study of their formation -morphogenesis- and its evolution are historical disciplines, but the highly integrative nature of its objects means that many gray and unexplored areas remain. Thus, paradigms regularly need to be overcome, and new ways of approaching them seem necessary. To this end, this session will explore the diversity of current research in evo-devo of plant forms and patterns through a variety of biological models, approaches and scales.
Organizers: Maria Rosselló Universitat de Barcelona, Spain Alba Almazán Universitat de Barcelona, Spain David A. Salamanca-Díaz University of Exeter, UK Description: Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) arise from interactions and regulatory relationships among gene products. These networks coordinate biological processes across all levels of organization. In developmental evolutionary biology, GRNs are central to understanding how cells, tissues, and organs acquire their identity, shape, size, and function. Traditionally, the causal effects governing the global behavior of these networks were attributed to a few key gene products. However, recent advances in next-generation sequencing, and comparative evolutionary genomics have revealed that phenotypic traits often emerge from the collective dynamics of many interacting factors, rather than from the control of one or few factors. Deciphering and integrating these complex regulation interactions is essential to understand how evolution shapes development and how ecological contexts influence gene network architecture. By uncovering how network structure, modularity, and connectivity evolve, we can begin to explain the origins of developmental robustness, phenotypic plasticity, and biological diversity. Ultimately, GRN research provides a crucial framework to bridge molecular mechanisms, evolutionary processes, and ecological outcomes, offering new insights into how biological complexity is wired through evolutionary time.
Organizers: Mauricio González-Forero (Konrad Lorenz Institute Vienna, Austria) Tom Van Dooren (iEES Paris Sorbonne University, France and Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden, Netherlands) Description: Evo-devo has contributed concepts, theories and mathematical modelling approaches to biology. These contributions have involved a broad range of deductive and inductive approaches, including information theory, dynamical systems and their control, quantitative genetics, explainable AI, network analysis, spatially explicit simulations and philosophy. This symposium will present a state of the art of current mathematical modelling and other theoretical research in evo-devo.
Organizers: Philip Donoghue (University of Bristol, UK) Davide Pisani (University of Bristol, UK) Description: In 1986 Bruce Runnegar published an influential paper in the Journal Palaeontology where he set out a research agenda for the field of “Molecular Palaeontology”. A core pillar of this approach was the integration of palaeontology and molecular biology, something that has blossomed since the original publication and now encompasses the areas of both “Molecular Palaeobiology” and “Paleo-Evo-Devo”. These areas seek to leverage the ease of genome sequencing and comparative genomics, new techniques for interrogating fossils and new evolutionary model species for testing functional predictions across the tree of life. The aim of this symposium is to showcase the current state of the field of “Molecular Palaeontology” 40 years after Runnegar’s initial paper and to identify research questions that should be focal points for the future. We plan for the symposium to feature talks spanning animals, plants and fungi and major transitions and debates across the tree of life, integrating “classical” and “molecular” paleontology. S22- Open Symposium The Open Symposium will be organized by the Scientific Committee and will consist of contributed talks with a diversity of subject areas. If your abstract does not seem to fit within any of the Symposia above, please do not hesitate to submit to the Open Symposium.
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