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Biogeography & Macroecology meeting 2024

From 12 to 14 June 2024, the joint annual conference of the Biogeography (Federation of Geographers at German Universities) and Macroecology (Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland – GfÖ) working groups took place at the University of Marburg, organised by the Biodiversity of Plants group.

The theme of this year's meeting was Artificial intelligence in Biogeography and Macroecology. Around 80 participants from Central Europe and beyond took part in the event, which included 30 presentations, 30 poster contributions and a lively exchange on new research results, challenges and methods. The conference dinner among the lush plant background of our university's botanical garden also helped to ensure that newly established contacts and ideas can bear fruit in the long term.

The programme (available as PDF) covered current developments in biogeography and macroecology, with the new possibilities offered by applications of deep learning playing an important role. These topics were also the focus of the invited plenary lectures by Dr. Jana Wäldchen (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena), Prof. Daniele Silvestro (University of Fribourg) and Prof. Florian Hartig (University of Regensburg), whose invitation was made possible through generous support from the GfÖ.

We also organised a 4 h workshop on "Data Management in Biodiversity and Environmental Science" on the first day, with around 25 participants. After an introduction on data management, this workshop delved into data management plants, data formats and repositories for spatial data, and taxonomic integration of biodiversity data. The material for this workshop is freely accessible on Zenodo. We thank the German Federation for Biological Data for funding and co-organising this workshop.