The 9th European Conferenc of Tropical Ecology took place in Passau (Germay) between the 23 and 27 February 2026. The theme of the meeting was “Species-Ecosystems-People” and it brought together around 250 tropical ecology researchers from around the globe to discuss the latest research in the field. The meeting ran very smoothly – credit to Christine Schmitt and her team at the University of Passau – and I enjoyed the conference very much. I followed sessions focused on topics ranging from climate change impacts and change through time, through human-environment interactions, to traits, and recovery and restoration.
It was great to see a good contingent of tropical palaeoecologists present. With Rob Marchant (York University) providing a key note spanning past environmental change through to socio-ecological systems, entitled: “Embedding the past for balanced future tropical mountain social ecological systems”. Palaeoecological talks and posters came from around the world, including Bolivia, Cuba, Brazil, Seychelles, and Democratic Republic of Congo. All provided new insights and suggested high potential for revealing novel information about past ecosystems and the drivers of change.
To find out more about the talks check out the abstract booklet which is available via the conference web site: https://gtoe2026-passau.de/book-of-abstracts.html
Ecology of the past 