The Cladocera 2024 conference continued in the tradition of the Symposia on Cladocera, which used to be held triannually until the covid-19 pandemic disrupted our lives. After a seven-year long gap, we met once more in the hotel Il Chiostro in Verbania, Italy, at the 12th Symposium on Cladocera.
The conference was attended by some 110 participants, who presented 63 contributed talks and 40 posters. These covered a wide range of topics related to the biology of cladocerans (with contributions frequently focused, as usual, on the model genus Daphnia), covering their ecology, evolutionary biology, diversity, systematics, genomics, microbiomes, interaction with microplastics, parasites, cyanobacteria and environmental stressors, etc. Two exciting keynote talks were given by Justyna Wolinska and Jana Isanta-Navarro.
What happened?
Keeping with the tradition of Symposia on Cladocera, the conference did not have parallel sessions to ensure that experts from different fields were exposed to each other’s views and knowledge. To facilitate this mixing even more, the order of presentations was more or less randomised, so we did not have large blocks dedicated to single topics. Want to learn more? This poem by Anna Bednarska sums it all.
Sufficient time and space was allocated to 40 posters, which were presented throughout the whole meeting in the cloisters of Il Chiostro, and presented in two poster sessions on Tuesday and Thursday, preceded by flash talks by presenters advertising their posters.
The scientific programme run from Monday to Friday, with a Wednesday afternoon break to relax and explore Verbania or its surroundings, or visit the Institute of Water Research CNR in Pallanza (a hiking trip led by Diego Fontaneto). The first participants arrived on Sunday and almost everyone stayed until Friday evening, when the conference was concluded by a dinner and dancing at Isola dei Pescatori, a pictureque island in the Borromean Gulf of Lago Maggiore. On Friday afternoon, a special session dedicated to Piet Spaak, full of humour, friendship but also references to his exciting research, was organised by Nelson Hairston and Justyna Wolinska. We also announced the oustanding student talks and posters, and awarded their authors.
