New edition of the ΣPhD Ecological Symposium

09/09/2026

Image of the Ecological Symposium, by Oriol Miró

The Centre for Advanced Studies of Blanes (CEAB-CSIC) will once again bring together PhD students from across all areas of ecological research for the 4th edition of the ΣPhD Ecological Symposium, which will take place on 1–2 October at the centre’s facilities in Blanes (Girona, Spain).

The symposium —an initiative of the CEAB held every two years— aims to establish itself as a regular meeting point for PhD candidates working across the broad field of ecology. It is open to PhD candidates from any university or research centre. Offers an excellent opportunity to share research and receive valuable feedback both on scientific content and on scientific communication skills. The event also provides an ideal setting for networking and interaction with fellow students and researchers.

This fourth edition will feature three distinguished ecologists —Marta Coll (Institut de Ciències del Mar-CSIC), Volker Grimm (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Germany) and Graciela Gil-Romera (Instituto Pirenaico de Ecologia, IPE-CSIC)— who will evaluate the oral presentations and deliver plenary lectures in a relaxed and constructive environment.

Important dates

1 April: Opening of abstract submission and registration
15 June: Deadline for abstracts and registration
30 June: Notification of selected presentations
1–2 October: Symposium dates

Symposium details

-Registration

Registration is free and includes coffee breaks and lunch on the first day. To register, please send an email to theephd@ceab.csic.es including your name, position (student or researcher) and affiliation, as well as your intention to give an oral presentation (PhD students only). Please also confirm whether you will attend on the first day, when lunch will be provided. Registration deadline: 15 June. If you are unable to attend after registering, please let us know in advance. Both students and researchers are required to register to attend the event, whether they wish to present their work or attend as participants.

-Abstract submission

Eligible participants are students who have not yet submitted their PhD thesis or who have done so recently. Abstracts should be sent to theephd@ceab.csic.es (preferably in PDF format) and must include: title, name and affiliation, abstract (maximum 300 words), current year of PhD. The deadline is 15 June. The scientific committee will select 12 abstracts for oral presentation. The symposium (presentations, discussions and plenary talks) will be held in English.

-Oral presentations

Presentations will last 15 minutes + 10 minutes for questions and feedback from the evaluators. Participants are asked to adhere strictly to the time limits, as timing will be part of the evaluation criteria. Other criteria include: structure and objectives of the presentation, scientific content (conceptual framework and conclusions), voice and body language, visual aids (clarity, readability and balance between text and images)

-Location

The symposium will take place in Blanes. Information on how to reach CEAB is available at: http://www.ceab.csic.es/en/

-Accommodation

Blanes offers a wide range of accommodation options at different price levels. In addition, to support lower-budget participants and encourage interaction among students, CEAB offers free accommodation in the homes of researchers and students. For further information, please contact theephd@ceab.csic.es.

-Scientific Committee

Daniel Oro, Meritxell Genovart and Frederic Bartumeus

-Organising Committee

Daniel Oro

-Organisational Support

CEAB-CSIC Research Promotion Area

Plenary Talks

Volker Grimm – Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Reseach – UFZ, Leipzig (Germany)

The integrative honey bee colony model BEEHAVE: lessons learned and to be learned

The mortality rate of honeybee colonies has increased over the last two decades due to the cumulative impact of various stressors, including diseases, pesticides, changes in land use, and beekeeping practices. It is virtually impossible to empirically explore the relative importance of these stressors, as honeybee colonies exhibit trait variation that is orders of magnitude higher than that of most other animal species. Hence, the BEEHAVE model was developed. It represents a single colony and includes a detailed depiction of foraging in agricultural landscapes. Since its release in 2014, BEEHAVE has been used in over 30 studies. In this presentation, I will explain the rationale behind the model, demonstrate how it is used, and summarise what we have learnt from it so far, including its limitations and future developments. Overall, this is an example of ecological modelling for decision support, not via predictions, which are impossible, but via a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

Marta Coll- Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC)

Who Eats Whom—and Why It Matters: Food-Web Models for Understanding Marine Ecosystem Dynamics

Ecosystems are connected by feeding interactions that move energy and matter among species, habitats and regions. These trophic connections influence how ecological communities function and respond to pressures such as fishing, climate change, species invasions and other disturbances. They also underpin ecosystem services and nature’s contributions to people, including food provision, climate regulation, nutrient cycling and cultural benefits. Yet ecosystems are often studied one species, one habitat or one pressure at a time, potentially overlooking indirect effects, feedbacks and ecological surprises.

In this lecture, I will explore how food-web models help us move from observations of individual trophic links to an integrated and dynamic understanding of marine ecosystems. I will introduce complementary approaches for characterizing food webs, from empirical trophic data and qualitative ecological networks to quantitative and spatially explicit marine ecosystem models. I will then show how combining food-web dynamics with species distributions, environmental conditions and human pressures allows us to investigate how change propagates across species, habitats and trophic levels—and how these ecological changes may affect the benefits that people derive from marine ecosystems.

Using scenarios that combine fishing and climate-change pressures with alternative spatial-management options, I will illustrate how these models can reveal ecological interdependencies and trade-offs that remain hidden when species are considered in isolation. They can also support more realistic projections, since trophic interactions may amplify, redistribute or buffer the effects of global change. By linking changes in food-web structure and functioning to ecosystem services and nature’s contributions to people, these approaches can help evaluate the wider ecological and societal consequences of management decisions.

Rather than viewing food webs as static diagrams of “who eats whom,” I will argue that they should be understood as dynamic maps of ecological dependence. I will conclude by discussing what food-web models can and cannot tell us, the importance of data and uncertainty, and the interdisciplinary collaborations needed to better understand, anticipate and manage future marine ecosystems.

Graciela Gil-Romera- Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC)

Time Continuum: unifying palaeo and neoecology

Global Change is arguably the most transformative process shaping our planet — driven by a single species and potentially irreversible. Estimating its true extent and working towards mitigation demands a broad spatio-temporal perspective, one that only long-term ecological records can provide. My research sits at this intersection: understanding how ecosystems have responded to environmental change over the Quaternary allows us to define baseline conditions and thresholds of resilience against which present and future disturbance can be measured. This is inherently interdisciplinary work, bridging palaeoecology, evolutionary biology, biodiversity science, and modern quantitative ecology.

In this talk, I argue that fully realising this potential requires actively integrating palaeoecological and neoecological approaches, rather than treating them as separate traditions. I illustrate this with our recent work reconstructing 14,000 years of plant community assembly in the Pyrenees and the Bale Mountains (Ethiopia), where we apply Granger causality — a method rooted in modern time-series ecology — to fossil pollen and charcoal records, revealing how fire reorganises predictive relationships among taxa across millennia.

This integrative approach also reflects my commitment to open, collaborative science, embodied in my roles within the European Pollen Database and Neotoma, and in building baselines that can genuinely inform conservation and forecasting in a rapidly changing world.