British Ecological Society Annual Meeting
From December 15th to 18th, a portion of our group attended the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. BES2025 brought together approximately 1500 ecologists from different countries, with the largest number from the United Kingdom. Over the course of several days, we had the opportunity to attend numerous lectures on various areas of ecology, including community ecology, conservation science, ecosystem ecology, evolutionary ecology, behavioural ecology, population ecology, and many others. In addition to the lectures, we had the opportunity to participate in various workshops that encourage reflection on topics strictly related to ecology, but also those of wider application; communication in conservation, cooperation between scientists and governments, networking at conferences, and the use of artificial intelligence in field research are just some of the interesting questions we touched on.
We were especially impressed by the final talk held by the BES President and Principal Scientist, Bridget Emmett, who gave an overview of her life’s work on improving integration across different disciplines and sectors, regarding soil health, ecosystem services, agri-environment schemes and natural capital.
Marko gave a lecture titled “Drone mapping illuminates how thermal landscapes shape harvester ant foraging”, in which he presented part of the methodology of our project, i.e. how we use a drone with a thermal camera to record the thermal heterogeneity of the ant colonies’ environment. Also, Marko was the chair of one section for behavioural ecology, in which we attended lectures on various topics, some of which also touched on research in our area – insects and the influence of temperature on them.
Antonia and Lina presented their results through posters. Antonia presented part of the research she is currently working on under the title “Safe or in danger? Consequences of environmental stress on the social behaviour and fitness of insects”, while Lina presented the preliminary results of the field research from May under the title “Microclimate as a driver of activity and thermal tolerance in harvester ants”.
Throughout the conference, we had the opportunity to meet colleagues who work on ants, thermal ecology or behavioural ecology, and to exchange knowledge and ideas that will be useful to both them and us in further research. In addition to the conference, we also explored the charming Edinburgh and experienced the magical atmosphere of the pre-Christmas period in this beautiful city.
