Keynote speakers
Stefan Eggenberg
InfoFlora, Bern (CH)
Botanical Alliance in the Alps: Opportunities and Challenges
Botanical Alliance in the Alps: Opportunities and Challenges
With its diversity, its fascinating adaptations to an extremely varied landscape and its many endemics, the flora of the Alps has always aroused the enthusiasm of botanists in all parts of the Alps. However, the Alps as a whole have rarely been a research unit and so far there is no central data and information centre. The data and knowledge about the Alpine flora is split and based in regional botanical institutions. The high mountains and deep valleys have set limits rather than promoted cooperation. FLORAlliance is a project launched by the AtlasFloraAlpina, a consortium of regional botanical experts founded in 2023. The aim of the project is to bring all the expertise on the Alpine flora together and to show the potential use of this aggregated knowledge. In this talk, we will explain the expected challenges but also the opportunities that arise from such an alliance of the leading flora competence centers across the Alps. If we bring together our taxonomic expertise and our experiences in biogeography, flora dynamics and conservation, we may have a powerful platform based on “sharing & pooling”. Not only the regional data centers themselves will benefit from such a platform, but also the scientific community, educational institutions, policy makers and the general public.
Alessia Guggisberg
ETH Zurich, Zurich (CH)
Herbariomics: When tradition meets innovation
Herbariomics: When tradition meets innovation
Herbaria are essential repositories of plant biodiversity, providing invaluable insights into species distributions across time and space. While their foundational role in systematics remains crucial, herbaria have recently gained prominence in a wide range of scientific disciplines. Advances in molecular biology now enable the extraction of DNA from centuries-old specimens, allowing for population genetic monitoring, studies of plant adaptation, and detection of associated pathogens and mutualists. Furthermore, these collections offer irreplaceable time-series data to track morphological and physiological changes in response to global warming. Chemical and isotopic analyses of herbarium specimens further inform on the presence of pollutants, such as heavy metals, in the plant tissues. More importantly in the context of the ongoing biodiversity crisis and the increasing rate of biological invasions, herbaria have proven invaluable resources for conservation planning. The value of these collections even extends to the humanities, providing historians of science a glimpse into the socio-cultural contexts of botanical exploration. In sum, herbaria are no longer merely archives of dead plant material—they are living laboratories uniquely positioned to answer fundamental questions about the past and future of the Earth’s ecosystems. This talk will explore the expanding role of these collections across various scientific disciplines and highlight how their digitalisation foster modern research in innovative and unexpected ways.
Gianalberto Losapio
Università degli Studi di Milano Statale, Milano (IT)
Biotic interactions in post-glacial ecosystems
Herbariomics: When tradition meets innovation
Mountains serve as critical biodiversity observatories, offering unique insights into the ecological impacts of climate change. Among the most striking transformations in these environments is the retreat of glaciers, which is reshaping species distributions, forcing new biotic interactions, and restructuring ecological networks. However, how these emerging networks assemble, develop, and respond following glacier retreat remains poorly understood. In this presentation, I will synthesize recent studies conducted in the Biodiversity Change research group examining how glacier retreat directly and indirectly alters biodiversity, plant interactions, and ecological networks. We observed sharp shifts in plant, animal, and soil microorganism communities, plant–pollinator and plant–soil microbe networks with glacier retreat. Plant facilitation and symbiotic interactions enhance biodiversity in recently deglaciated terrains, while plant competition driven by shrub encroachment and soil acidification in later successional stages reduced species persistence. Our findings reveal an initial increase in interaction diversity following glacier retreat, followed by an ultimate decline with glacier extinction. Cascading effects of biodiversity change undermine key ecosystem functions and services, including regulating and material contribution from pioneer, threatened plant species. These results highlight the value of ecological network approaches in biodiversity assessment and underscore the need for integrated, long-term monitoring strategies that enhance biodiversity maintenance, sustain plants’ contributions to people, and support human welfare in mountain regions.
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