Claudia Pogoreutz

The meeting of the Society for Tropical Ecology (Gesellschaft für Tropenökologie e.V. – GTÖ) is held annually. In 2015, this prestigious and highly diverse conference was hosted in an equally prestigious location: the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. The meeting featured a broad range of topics in terrestrial tropical ecology, particularly tropical forest ecology and applied conservation, but also hosted two exciting marine sessions this year: Coral Reef and Mangrove Conservation. With more than 300 attendants from 30 countries, this conference truly lived up to my expectations of the largest European meeting in tropical ecology! The bulk of participants was comprised by a refreshingly well-balanced mix of experienced scientists as well as early stage researchers (like myself), who were keen on getting their first conference experience with a poster or oral presentation. At this point, I would like to highlight the poster slam, during which MSc and PhD students had the opportunity to advertise their posters to all conference attendants in only 60 seconds!

As I prepared the original proposal for a Coral Reef Session for the GTÖ conference 2015, this conference was not only a chance for me to present my PhD project, but also a great first opportunity to get involved in the organization of a large scientific meeting. I particularly enjoyed reviewing the submissions of my peers, interacting with my fellow session chairs Ulisse Cardini and Christian R Voolstra, as well as the members of the general organization team, and the lively discussions during and after the Coral Reef Session.

One of the most exciting and rewarding experiences during this conference was to attend the excellent key-note lectures by well-established scientists in the field, which covered the most important aspects and general concepts of ecological resilience and future challenges for conservationists and resilience theorists. During various sessions, I gained interesting insight in new approaches or new applications for well-established techniques. Particularly interesting for me were the sessions on genomics and conservation genetics, food web and network ecology, as well as the mangrove session. I was also thrilled to learn that one particular method commonly used in the coastal marine environment, including coral reefs – cage-exclusion techniques to investigate the effects of certain functional groups, for example herbivorous fish – was recently used to address the effects of bird and bat exclusion on pest control and crop yield in cacao plantations in Sulawesi, Indonesia, with quite astonishing results. Finally, this conference was also a great opportunity for catching up with my peers, and of course presenting my own research on the long-term effects of dissolved organic carbon on the coral holobiont.

All in all, this conference trip was a great experience, from which I benefitted enormously both professionally and personally. I would like to thank my co-chairs Ulisse and Chris for their support and constructive comments during the organization of the Coral Reef Session, and the speakers for their excellent contributions. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to GLOMAR for financial support to attend this conference.