In this session, Early Career Researchers will redesign the tropical and subtropical science of the future through collective speculative thinking.

We invite you to help us in this task by answering our survey. It can take as short as three minutes, or as long as you feel like! You can answer the survey in English, French, Portuguese or Spanish in this link: https://graciellehigino.github.io/future.ecology/

ATBC and OTS student awards have a great impact on fostering the research of new generations of tropical ecologists and conservationists. This symposium will highlight some of the projects that have been recently awarded by ATBC and OTS.

A platform for doctoral students advancing the science of restoration, presenting their restoration visions for a transformative, adaptive, and resilient future in tropical ecosystems and engaging the larger community of young restoration scientists via an interactive mind mapping tool.

Beyond simple plant-animal interactions, we will discuss how defaunation triggers deep changes in the multi-trophic above-belowground tropical forest system and drives structure and function in these systems, to define the critical central role of large vertebrates for tropical forest conservation.

We will discuss, how large vertebrates, as a sort of “wild alchemists”, redistribute and mobilize nutrients across and beyond the boundaries of ecosystems, turning dung into gold & engineering landscapes in ways well beyond we can possibly imagine.