This year, the GTOE conference was held in the picturesque city of Passau, the so-called “City of Three Rivers,” where the Ilz, Inn, and Danube meet. Walking through the historic center, one could see water level marks from past floods on many buildings, documenting the city’s long history of dealing with high water. The most recent major flood occurred in February 2024, and during our stay the snowmelt had already led to elevated water levels. Additional rainfall even caused the Danube to briefly overflow its banks. It was interesting to imagine how residents have learned to cope with the constant risk of flooding over the decades.
But enough about the city and its history: we were, of course, there for scientific reasons. For our group, the conference was a great success. We attended with one postdoc (Finn Rehling), three PhD students (Mareike Mittag, Massimo Martini, and Matteo Dadda), and one student (Nora Anderson), and everyone gave an oral presentation. In addition, Massimo and Finn presented posters, bringing our total contribution to seven presentations.
All photos © Ina Voshage
The conference featured many young researchers, which hopefully reflects a promising future for tropical ecology, with so many motivated scientists entering the field. There were numerous engaging talks—not only the keynote presentations but also several contributed talks. For example, Kim Holzmann presented compelling results showing that future temperature increases may lead to heat trauma in many insects (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10155-w).
Food and drinks were well provided throughout the event, and, as always, the time outside the conference sessions was just as enjoyable. We are already looking forward to future events where we will hopefully continue learning more fascinating insights about the tropical world. To top it all off, Massimo was awarded third place in the Merian Award for Best Poster. Congratulations, Massimo!