CUE2

‘Evolving Urban communities’, symposium in Amsterdam on Wednesday January 24th 2024
2024-01-24 11:00 - 17:00 UTC | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
CUE2 & NLSEB co-organise the very first symposium on urban ecology and evolution in the Netherlands, entitled ‘Evolving Urban communities’ , in Amsterdam on Wednesday January 24th 2024.

The symposium marks the official kick-off of our CUE2 network and is jointly organised with the Netherlands society for evolutionary biology (NLSEB). With the symposium we like to highlight the scientific opportunities and challenges associated with urban environments and explore future directions for both applied and fundamental research. This CUE2 day will be held at the auditorium of the O|2 building on the VU-campus at De Boelelaan 1108 in Amsterdam which is within walking distance from NS train station Amsterdam Zuid. Lunch and drinks will be provided for those who register before January 10th using this form.

There are two opportunities to contribute to the symposium. Either by pitching yourself and/or project on a single slide, which we will showcase for 1-minute at the start of the day, with the specific aim to get to know who-is-who working on urban ecology and evolution. In addition, you can also present some of your past or ongoing work in the field during one of the two programmed sessions. You can use the same registration form for signing up for these opportunities.

Program

10:15 coffee/tea
11.00 Welcome and intro
11.10 Chris Thomas: “Evolution begets evolution: levels of adaptation in a human-modified world”
12.10 1 slide – 1 minute Dutch project pitches
12.30 lunch break
13.00 Contributed talks (confirmed)

Andrew Cronin: “Urbanization as a driver of phenotypic changes across multiple life stages”
Katrien De Wolf: “Spider city life: a closer look at the adaptability of the European garden spider to urban stressors.”
Peter Moran: “Genomic footprints of urban life in túngara frogs”
Eva Drukker: “An ecosystems perspective on the development of biodiverse green roofs.”

14.00 Caroline Isaksson: “From macro-to microscale: The impacts of urban greenery, pollution and nutrition on birds’ performance”
15.00 coffee break
15.15 Contributed talks (confirmed)

Emily Burdfield-Steel: “Signalling in the city – the effects of urbanisation on insect anti-predator strategies”
Koen Verhoeven: “Adaptation of common dandelion to the urban heat island effect”
Joschua Beninde -“Evolutionary Potential in the Anthropocene and the Amsterdam Macrogenomics Project”

16.15 Wrap up & future directions
16.30 drinks

Keynote speakers:

Caroline Isaksson (Lund University, Norway) Her main interest lies in how human-induced stress, such as pollution, influences population dynamics of wild vertebrates. She is principal investigator of the strategic research area among Lund University and University of Gothenburg that comprises more than 200 researchers working on a better understanding of the impacts of climate change and land use decisions on terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity.
Chris D. Thomas (University of York, UK)Chris is director of the transdisciplinary Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity. He and his research group are interested in understanding how humans have transformed the biological world, and how humans might protect the world’s remaining biodiversity.

We hope to see you all in January!

Anthropocene (Summer School)
2023-07-03 - 2023-07-08 | Noord-Holland
Should the Anthropocene be recognised as an official subdivision of geological time? The proposition of this term has raised much discussion during the past decade. Is our species’ imprint visible geologically? What was the tipping point towards anthropogenic impact to such a degree that it defines a geological epoch?
The nature of this debate necessitates crossing disciplinary boundaries, and while the term has not been officially accepted by the geological community it is already in use by a broad academic society. To truly understand this debate, one must get to its essence and critically examine the validness of definitions and arguments used.
In this summer school you will learn how to participate in an academic debate, how to formulate your own arguments and present these to an academic audience. Experts in different fields will present their case for the Anthropocene and share relevant insights. By exploring human imprints observed in various relevant research domains, this school will try to elucidate the essence of the debate and discuss how it relates to our current perception of human impact on the environment.

The school will be structured around four themes discussed during the first four days:

Shifts in subsistence and environmental impact (history, archaeology, economy)
Are we friendly neighbours? Interspecies relationships (biology, ecology, paleoecology)
Will Homo sapiens leave a geological mark? (geology, earth system science)
How anthropocentric is the Anthropocene? (philosophy, anthropology)

The fifth day will conclude the school. Students will present their stance on the Anthropocene based on arguments debated during the previous days. We aim to procude an academic output as a group following the school.

Practical Information

Dates
3 – 8 July 2022

Location
Groningen, the Netherlands

Level
PhD, Master, and advanced Bachelor students

Fees
€ 275, including welcome tour and drinks, lunch, coffee and tea, and closing dinner with speakers
€ 200 for University of Groningen students (limited availability, on the basis of first come, first served)

Academic coordinators
Daniella Vos, University of Groningen, Faculty of Spatial Sciences
Kees Klein Goldewijk, University of Utrecht
Martine Maan, University of Groningen, Faculty of Science & Engineering

Contact
anthropoceneschool@rug.nl

Urban Ecology (Course)
2023-06-05 - 2023-06-30 | Noord-Holland
Course Objective
The student will be able to:

relate ecological and environmental theories and concepts of relevance for urban areas and ecosystems;
describe and appreciate the complex and diverse relationships between cities and ecology, and between human and the built environment;
apply principles and concepts of urban ecosystems to analyze our surrounding urban habitats;
place urban areas in the landscape – describe interdependencies between urban and rural biodiversity
compare perspectives on urban green areas and biodiversity from ecology and landscape architecture
explain principles of spatial planning of urban areas for biodiversity and ecosystem services
address urban ecological question, resulting from above approaches, and design (field) experiments to resolve these questions.

Level 300: specialisation
Course Content
With over half of the world’s population now living in cities, cities have assumed a critical role in shaping local, regional, and global ecologies. Urban areas have an inherent ecological nature with cities and the built environment as ecosystems. This course focuses on ecological theories examining urban sites as interaction hot spots between species, humans, the biophysical environment and the surrounding natural ecosystems. We will use our campus and Amsterdam as a “living laboratory” in which students will apply these theories to field observation, case studies, and landscape perspective.

Additional Information Teaching Methods
The first part of the course consists of lectures about the theory underlying Urban Ecology. In the second part of the course the students will perform (field) experiments in and around Amsterdam.

Method of Assessment
Written exam about the theory (50%)
Presentation and/or written report about the experimental work (50%)

Literature
Mandatory reading: The Biology of Urban Environment, Philip James

Additional Information Target Audience
Keuzecursus voor tweedejaars BSc Biologie.

General Information

Course Code
AB_470074

Credits
6.00 EC

Period
P6

Course Level
200

Language of Tuition
Dutch

Faculty
Faculteit der Bètawetenschappen

Course Coordinator
dr. Z.V. Zizzari

Examiner
dr. W.H. Halfwerk

Teaching Staff
dr. W.H. Halfwerk
prof. dr. M.A.P.A. Aerts
dr. Z.V. Zizzari
