Meeting Report on the Symposium “Evolutionary Applications” at the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology

TL;DR

A virtual symposium showcased how evolutionary biology can solve real-world problems in medicine, conservation, and agriculture.

Contribution

The symposium demonstrated practical applications of evolutionary biology across diverse fields and organisms.

Findings

Evolutionary biology can be applied to cheese-making fungi, bird populations, and herbicide resistance.

Gene drive systems and antibiotic resistance evolution were discussed as practical applications.

Virtual symposia can enhance global collaboration in evolutionary biology.

Abstract

The symposium “Evolutionary Applications” took place on June 28, 2024 in the virtual part of the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology. It was contributed to the conference by the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB). The symposium highlighted research on evolutionary biology applied to address questions and contemporary problems in medicine and public health, conservation biology, and food production and agriculture. Each of the six talks covered a different application and a different organism: domestication of cheese‐making fungi, restoration of long‐lived bird populations, evolution of herbicide resistance, coral reef conservation, gene drive systems targeting Malaria vectors, and antibiotic resistance evolution in bacteria. By including speakers who are active in a consortium or work in an NGO, the symposium also showed how to make the step from scientific findings to practical application. The symposium furthermore featured a range of scientific methods, ranging from genomic analyses and mathematical modeling to laboratory evolution and field experiments. Speakers from across 15 time zones highlighted the potential of virtual symposia to foster global collaboration in evolutionary biology.