Events supported by GEBI

Sum­mary: Panama is one of the biggest bio­lo­gic­al hot­spots world­wide. Nev­er­the­less, loc­al fauna is not well stud­ied from a molecu­lar evol­u­tion­ary point of view, ham­per­ing the know­ledge of the region­al biota. We developed a one-week prac­tic­al work­shop that took place at the Uni­ver­sity of Panama in which 31 par­ti­cipants from Panama and Colom­bia from sev­en insti­tu­tions, both aca­dem­ic and gov­ern­ment­al, were selec­ted. In hands-on ses­sions, par­ti­cipants learnt mar­ine and ter­restri­al sampling meth­ods and prop­er pro­ced­ures for DNA pre­ser­va­tion, obtain­ing 317 spe­ci­mens. Some of these samples were used for the­or­et­ic­al-prac­tic­al ses­sions of DNA extrac­tion, PCR, elec­tro­phores­is, amp­l­ic­on puri­fic­a­tion and bar­code sequen­cing. Cus­tom data­sets were used to train the par­ti­cipants on sequence cur­a­tion, align­ment, spe­cies delim­it­a­tion, phylo­geny, hap­lo­type net­works, pop­u­la­tion genet­ics stat­ist­ics and graph­ic­al rep­res­ent­a­tion with R. Dis­cus­sions were recur­rently settled to estab­lish the con­cepts and insist on the cor­rect inter­pret­a­tion of the data. Moreover, three key­note speak­ers were invited to make vis­ible the museum’s import­ance, as well as the course applic­a­tion in bio­tech­no­lo­gic­al and research fields. All samples will be ana­lyzed in the Uni­ver­sity of Bar­celona-IRBio to gen­er­ate a com­mon-course pub­lic­a­tion, con­trib­ut­ing to pro­mote Panamani­an research­ers’ CVs. Future bridges are already being explored to trans­form this course into a reg­u­lar event. Fur­ther inform­a­tion is avail­able here: https://panamabioresearch.com/

Sum­mary: Mesoamer­ica is a highly biod­i­verse region, but para­dox­ic­ally, has extremely low aca­dem­ic devel­op­ment and invest­ment in research. The sci­entif­ic com­munity here focuses mostly on urgent con­ser­va­tion and man­age­ment of biod­iversity due to the dire situ­ation that eco­sys­tems face. And fund­ing has always been a lim­it­a­tion for loc­al sci­ent­ists to pur­sue fun­da­ment­al research in eco­logy and evol­u­tion. This led us to assemble a team of stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als and cre­ate the Mesoamer­ic­an Soci­ety for Eco­logy and Evol­u­tion as a plat­form from which we seek to build the aca­dem­ic struc­ture needed to explore these fields and  build a com­munity that could pro­mote col­lab­or­a­tion and the effi­cient use of fund­ing. The ESEB GEBI fund not only allowed us to con­sol­id­ate the pro­ject, but also allowed us to cel­eb­rate the first Mesoamer­ic­an Con­gress of Eco­logy and Evol­u­tion in Guatem­ala City from August 24^th-26^th, 2023. A total of 176 par­ti­cipants from 16 coun­tries (most from 6 coun­tries in the region) atten­ded the meet­ing, which was con­duc­ted in hybrid mode. As part of the con­gress, we also car­ried out the first assembly of the Soci­ety, where we presen­ted its object­ives, core prin­ciples, and vis­ion. Please refer to our web­site for details about the team and pro­gram of the con­gress: https://mesoecoevo.github.io

From Octo­ber 2 to 9, 2023, we hos­ted the “Con­ver­sa­tions with Dar­win” work­shop on Biod­iversity and Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy in Praia, Cabo Verde. This event was held in col­lab­or­a­tion with the Uni­ver­sity of Cabo Verde, Casa da Ciên­cia da Praia, and Jean Pia­get Uni­ver­sity. The pro­gram fea­tured a diverse array of activ­it­ies, includ­ing the­or­et­ic­al sem­inars, field­work in Serra da Malagueta, molecu­lar lab exper­i­ments, a bioin­form­at­ics prac­tic­al class, and a demon­stra­tion day at Casa da Ciência.

The work­shop was a resound­ing suc­cess, with stu­dents show­ing excep­tion­al dynam­ism and pas­sion. They were par­tic­u­larly enthu­si­ast­ic about the bioin­form­at­ics course, as many had nev­er been exposed to such con­cepts before. A pro­duct­ive meet­ing with the deans of the Uni­ver­sity revealed a keen interest in devel­op­ing a bioin­form­at­ics curriculum.

We remain in close con­tact with the Uni­ver­sity and are act­ively explor­ing fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for our long-term pro­ject: Bioin­form­at­ics Without Bor­ders. This non-profit found­a­tion aims to teach data sci­ence and bioin­form­at­ics in coun­tries of the glob­al south, build­ing cap­ab­il­ity in sci­entif­ic research and edu­ca­tion. Addi­tion­ally, we will have a doc­u­ment­ary fea­tur­ing the activ­it­ies held at the work­shop and stu­dent inter­views, which will be used to advert­ise the event and attract more fund­ing to build the non-profit foundation.

Sum­mary: To address the lack of evol­u­tion­ary train­ing among Argen­tini­an edu­cat­ors, we col­lab­or­ated with the Glob­al Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy Ini­ti­at­ive to offer a week-long course titled ‘Tras las Huel­las de la Evolu­ción: con­struy­endo una mirada crít­ica de la evolu­ción en el aula’ from July 17–22, 2023. The course focused on evol­u­tion­ary con­cepts, with a par­tic­u­lar emphas­is on human evol­u­tion, and was designed for bio­logy and his­tory teach­ers. Teach­ers from all over Argen­tina par­ti­cip­ated in the pro­gram, demon­strat­ing its nation­wide impact. Finally, 36 com­mit­ted par­ti­cipants com­pleted the com­pre­hens­ive cur­riculum, which covered top­ics such as the his­tory of evol­u­tion­ary thought, teach­ing strategies, and expand­ing evol­u­tion­ary per­spect­ives. A diverse team of research­ers and edu­cat­ors led the course, fos­ter­ing col­lab­or­a­tion and innov­at­ive les­son design. After the train­ing, the attendees cre­ated classroom-ready plans to show­case their new expert­ise. Course out­comes were presen­ted in a sym­posi­um (Teach­ing Evol­u­tion: Pro­pos­als, Exper­i­ences, and Chal­lenges) at the 5th Argen­tini­an Reunion of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (RABE), organ­ised by the Argen­tine Soci­ety for Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (SABE). Des­pite the socio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges in Argen­tina, we remain hope­ful. Our goal is to empower edu­cat­ors and foster sci­ence-edu­ca­tion part­ner­ships. We appre­ci­ate the sup­port of the Glob­al Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy Ini­ti­at­ive Com­mit­tee and the European Soci­ety for Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy. We worked togeth­er to shape the land­scape of evol­u­tion­ary edu­ca­tion, one classroom at a time. More inform­a­tion about the course is giv­en on the event web­site:  https://cursodocentesevolu.wixsite.com/tras-las-huellas-d‑1.

Sum­mary: The Malawi Uni­ver­sity of Sci­ence and Tech­no­logy (MUST), in part­ner­ship with the Uni­ver­sity of Ant­werp, Bel­gi­um and with the sup­port of the European Soci­ety of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (ESEB) and the JRS Biod­iversity Found­a­tion, organ­ized its 2nd Biod­iversity Con­fer­ence for Malawi 2023 from Septem­ber 5th to 7th. The con­fer­ence, held under the theme “Eco­logy and Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy,” aimed to con­trib­ute to both fun­da­ment­al and applied research for achiev­ing biod­iversity con­ser­va­tion, aligned with ena­bler no. 7 of the Malawi 2063 goals. The con­fer­ence had sev­er­al object­ives: (1) fos­ter­ing an inter­dis­cip­lin­ary under­stand­ing of eco­logy and biod­iversity man­age­ment, (2) facil­it­at­ing net­work­ing and col­lab­or­a­tion among research­ers, pro­fes­sion­als, and post­gradu­ate stu­dents, (3) provid­ing train­ing on for­mu­lat­ing research ideas, pro­pos­al writ­ing, data man­age­ment, and ana­lys­is, and (4) col­lect­ively dis­cuss­ing and com­pil­ing fund­ing options for Afric­an research­ers. Renowned experts in the field served as key­note speak­ers and facil­it­at­ors, rep­res­ent­ing aca­demia and gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions. The con­fer­ence attrac­ted a diverse par­ti­cip­a­tion of at least 70 indi­vidu­als, includ­ing lec­tur­ers, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, research­ers, and both post­gradu­ate and under­gradu­ate stu­dents. This gath­er­ing enabled par­ti­cipants to estab­lish valu­able con­tacts and col­lab­or­a­tions for future research pro­jects. Media cov­er­age of the event was car­ried out by vari­ous out­lets, includ­ing Malawi Broad­cast­ing Cor­por­a­tion (MBC), Times Group, and the Nation­al Pub­lic­a­tions Limited.