iDiv Annual Conference 2026

Scientific Programme

Biodiversity and Human Well-Being

Human activities shape biodiversity both on land and in the ocean. Thus, the interaction with the behavior of people is of major importance to understand biodiversity change. In turn, human well-being depends on nature. We need to know how these benefits are achieved and how stewardship for nature can be fostered. This is needed, in order to reach the goals to prosper with nature, while fairly sharing the benefits and investments of protecting and restoring biodiversity and of sustainably using biodiversity.

Functions

The long-term vision of this research is to advance a mechanistic, scale-explicit, and operational understanding of biodiversity-based ecosystem functioning, explicitly integrating multitrophic interactions, trait-based mechanisms, automated high-frequency observations of functional behaviour, and spatial scaling. This allows moving beyond correlative patterns toward causal inference, disentangling species-identity effects from diversity-driven processes, and identifying the conditions under which biodiversity provides resistance, recovery, and insurance against disturbances.

Complexity

Biodiversity is undergoing systematic change across habitats, ecosystem types, and spatial and temporal scales. The long-term vision of this research topic is to develop a mechanistic and predictive understanding of biodiversity dynamics. Key unknowns include which combinations of processes dominate biodiversity change under different environmental contexts, and under which conditions interacting drivers produce thresholds, regime shifts, or unexpected biodiversity responses.

Transdisciplinarity for biodiversity science and governance

Transdisciplinary research for biodiversity science and governance involves the co-generation of knowledge with multiple actors and stakeholders in order to improve observations of biodiversity. Such observations can inform the understanding of biodiversity dynamics, its functions and its contribution to human well-being, including the development of biodiversity theory and models. Models of biodiversity and social-ecological systems can then be used to develop and compare scenarios and imaginaries of how biodiversity can evolve under different policy and practice trajectories, ultimately informing the actions and management interventions by actors and stakeholders. As we move from observations to actions and interventions, there are increasing uncertainties and increasing stakes of the process, often encompassing increasing scales of decision-making. Therefore it is important to address epistemological issues related to the limits of scientific knowledge in this process.

Approaches of integrative biodiversity research

As a cross-cutting theme, the elements of 'Integrative Approaches' (theory, methods, and synthesis development) can be found in all other research topics. To make “Integrative Approaches” functional and bring together people focussing on the many different aspects of theory, methods, and synthesis, our guiding questions are threefold:
- How can we advance the theoretical basis of integrative biodiversity research?
- How can we ensure the development of tools, methods and workflows for data collation, harmonisation, and data and code management following the FAIR principles? How can we develop new ways of data analysis and new modelling approaches that utilise recently emerging advances such as AI?
- How can we make progress toward synthesis in integrative biodiversity research?

Open Session

Please submit to the “Open Session” if your contribution does not fit into any other track. Additional sessions may be established on demand.

Workshop

Workshops are planned for Wednesday, 9 September at 9 AM at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. Kindly submit your workshop proposal here. Note: No online/Hybrid options possible!

Project Meeting

Project meetings are planned for Wednesday, 9 September,between 9-11 am, in parallel with the workshops at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. This track provides a space for participants to present and discuss ongoing projects, exchange ideas, and explore potential collaborations. Kindly submit a short description of your project and the purpose of the meeting when submitting your abstract.

Note: Sessions must be open to all participants—closed-group or invitation-only formats are not permitted.