I co-organized a symposium at the SICB meeting with Ronald Bonett and Molly Womack on The Evolutionary Consequences of Metamorphosis in Metazoans! We ran the event in a hybrid format to ensure participation from speakers facing travel or weather disruptions. We brought together an amazing group of researchers working on metamorphosis across a wide diversity of animals and approaches, creating a truly interdisciplinary discussion around how metamorphosis shapes animal diversity.
I was thrilled to see such a fantastic line-up of speakers sharing their research and ideas: Madison Herrboldt, Bruno Frederich, Carissa N. McGouran, James W. Truman, Peter T. Rühr, Chris Ledón-Retting, Morgane Fournier, Isabelle Toussaint-Lardé, Vivien Louppe, Alycia Lackey, Michelle White, and Mara Heilig. Their presentations sparked fruitful exchanges that continued during an engaging workshop afterward. Together, we explored the consequences of metamorphosis across insects, frogs, salamanders, and fishes, while connecting approaches ranging from endocrinology and histology to biomechanics, genomics, physiology, modeling, and evolutionary theory.
One of the highlights for me was seeing how the symposium connected researchers from very different biological disciplines around shared questions and concepts linked to metamorphosis. We also organized an asynchronous art raffle on the theme of “metamorphosis,” where many early-career researchers contributed creative pieces inspired by their scientific work, adding another layer of interaction and community building to the event.
A special issue gathering contributions from the symposium is currently being edited for Integrative and Comparative Biology.
Many thanks to Ron and Molly for organising the onsite symposium and to the COB for financially supporting this symposium!
