Newsletter March 2025
Left is a photo of a Gentian in the Swiss Alps.
Results from our expert survey on response diversity
In September 2023, we conducted an expert survey of response diversity researchers. Version 2 of our manuscript is now available as a bioRxiv preprint here. We found that experts didn’t always agree on the definition of response diversity or on the dimension(s) of ecological stability to which response diversity might relate. Experts identified multiple environmental stressors, including species interactions in response diversity studies, and inconsistent definitions and methods, as major challenges facing the field. Yet, there was broad agreement that coordinating research through syntheses, workshops, and distributed experiments would be beneficial, providing an agenda for the Response Diversity Network in the coming years. Thank you to all of you who responded to the survey and contributed to this work.
BES Thematic Session on response diversity
For those attending the annual meeting of the British Ecological Society in Edinburgh this December, Charlotte Kunze and Francesco Polazzo will host a Thematic Session on “Insurance in ecosystems: exploring the role of response diversity across scales”. They have some excellent speakers lined up and Thematic Sessions are key events during the meeting, so we expect lively discussion. Please do join us for what promises to be a great session, and why not also join us for dinner, drinks, or activities throughout the week. Most of the Steering Committee will attend, as will various other members of the Network. We’re looking forward to seeing you there 15-18 December and will update the group on a network social meeting.
RDN Members Seminar series
Thank you to all who have attended the RDN Members Seminar series LIVE, watched back on the RDN YouTube channel, and especially to those who have given talks. Recent talks include Francesco de Bello, Adam Clark, and Charlotte Kunze, bringing our total up to 17 talks available to view on YouTube. Please do check them out. Next month, Meghna Krishnadas will present (details TBD).
How to get involved: please let us know if you’d be interested in being one of the first speakers (30-45 minute talks, as suits you!).
How to host a seminar: It is great when members volunteer to host a seminar. If you’re interested, please reach out to Sam or Owen. We can help you with the technical side of things, and we can also help you with the promotion of the seminar. Guidelines here on how to host.
Expanding our Steering Committee
We are looking for more diverse global representation on our steering committee and will follow up with an invitation for interested applicants. Our expert survey revealed that research and researchers from the Global South are especially underrepresented in the field of response diversity, and we are eager to help change this through the Network’s activities.
New members
We’ve hit 120 members! This feels like a fantastic achievement, thank you all for spreading the word and a warm welcome to all our new network members. Our most recent members include Misha Tseitlin (University of Cambridge, UK), Amit Samadder and Sagar Karmakar (Indian Statistical Institute, India), and Dominique Gravel and Alexandre Fuster Calvo (Université de Sherbrooke, Canada). We look forward to meeting you at online seminars or in-person events, and welcome any suggestions for network activities you’d like to propose.
We made a new map of our members! You can view it here and see if there are other members of the Network near you. Suggestions for how to improve the map are also welcome. If you’re not on the map or your location or affiliation is incorrect/outdated, please let us know your location so we can add/update your details.
How to get involved: If you have the opportunity, please publicise the network. You could grab a relevant slide from slides Sam made available. Get various versions of the logo from here.
That’s all for now. We hope to see you sometime in the coming months.
Sam, Owen, Ceres, Laura, Mike, Takehiro, and Hannah
Social media presence (and communications officer)
We are also considering appointing a communications officer to launch a social media account. In the meantime though, feel free to use the hashtag #RespDivNet on your social media posts related to response diversity. Please keep an eye out for these opportunities in the coming months and be confident in putting yourselves forward!