April 2026: Online Lunch Talks for Early Career Scholars: Expand Your Leadership Toolkit

08. and 23. April 2026: Expanding Your Leadership Toolkit: Four Frames for Effective Leading with Prof. Heather Hofmeister

Join our interactive online Lunch Talks designed specifically for early career researchers within the SSP 1991 community. These sessions aim to enhance your leadership competencies—an essential factor for retaining diverse talent and achieving career success. Prof. Dr. Heather Hofmeister will once again be leading the events. We previously welcomed her as a speaker at three Lunch Talks in 2024. This workshop aims to support early-career researchers who have completed or are nearing completion of their PhDs. Experienced researchers looking to enhance their leadership skills are also very welcome to join us!

 Series Overview:  *Expanding Your Leadership Toolkit: Four Frames for Effective Leading* 

Based on Bolman and Deal’s influential model, this series explores four leadership frames—political, structural, human resource, and symbolic—and how applying them enhances leadership effectiveness, creativity, and flexibility.

 Save the dates for our two upcoming sessions: 

09 April 2026 from 12-1:30 pm: Introduction and first two frames (structural frame, human resource frame)

23 April 2026 from 12-1:30 pm: Two More Frames of Leadership (political frame, symbolic frame)

You will learn: 

• Which frame is already your comfort zone, through which you make decisions and interpret others’ behavior.
• How lunch talk participants’ leadership communication and orientation have been influenced by past experiences.
• How expanding your repertoire of frames offers new insights into problems and give new tools to lead better.
• How the frames can help you lead, inspire, and motivate team members who have diverse personalities, views, needs, and backgrounds.

Join us for an engaging, reflective, and practical exploration of leadership — tailored for early career academics. Experienced researchers are welcome!
For further information and the link for attending the sessions, please contact tina.niemann@uni-hamburg.de.

[ARCHIVE] 18 March 2026 - Zoom Session VII on Reticulate Evolution

Reticulate Evolution in the Woods - Oak Syngamea and Fern Speciation

We are happy to announce the seventh session of our seminar series on Reticulate Evolution.
This session will be moderated by Christoph Oberprieler (University of Regensburg) on the 18 March 2026, 4 - 6 pm (CET).

We are very pleased to announce Andrew Hipp (Morton Arboretum, Chicago) and Dieder Jesse Laurens de Frens (Universität Zürich) and Evelin Krol (Universität Zürich) as speakers of this session.

4-5 pm:

Andrew Hipp: Evolving on Two Fronts: Oak Species and Syngameons

5-6 pm: short communications by

Dieder Jesse Laurens de Frens: "The most formidable biosystematic problem in ferns" - Unravelling the notorious Cystopteris fragilis complex in Europe

Evelin Krol: Tracing the Evolutionary History of Dryopteris: Insights from Sexual and Apomictic Systems

All interested Taxon-Omics and Reticulate Evolution affiliated scientists are welcome to attend.

For questions or the link to the Zoom session, please contact tina.niemann@uni-hamburg.de.

As a reminder, the meeting will take place bimonthly on Wednesdays, 5 - 7 pm (CET) via Zoom. At each of these meeting we will be inviting two speakers with a presentation of 30 min each to talk about various aspects of reticulate evolution.

[ARCHIVE] 14 January 2026 - Zoom Session VI on Reticulate Evolution

Hybridisation in freshwater animals

We are happy to announce the sixth session of our seminar series on Reticulate Evolution.
This session will be moderated by Anna Hundsdörfer (Senckenberg Dresden) on the 14 January 2026, 5 - 7 pm (CET).

We are very pleased to announce Madlen Stange (LIB/Museum König Bonn) and Mathilde Cordellier (Universität Rostock) as speakers of this session.

Madlen Stange: The complex evolution of Eurasian minnows (Phoxinus spp.)

Mathilde Cordellier: Complex introgression trajectories through time in the Daphnia longispina species complex

All interested Taxon-Omics and Reticulate Evolution affiliated scientists are welcome to attend.

For questions or the link to the Zoom session, please contact tina.niemann@uni-hamburg.de.

As a reminder, the meeting will take place bimonthly on Wednesdays, 5 - 7 pm (CET) via Zoom. At each of these meeting we will be inviting two speakers with a presentation of 30 min each to talk about various aspects of reticulate evolution.

[ARCHIVE] 12 November 2025 - Zoom Session V on Reticulate Evolution

Genomics of hybridisation and reticulate evolution in the insect models Heliconus and Drosophila

We are happy to announce the fifth session of our seminar series on Reticulate Evolution.
This session will be moderated by Anna Hundsdörfer (Senckenberg Dresden) on the 12.11.2025, 5 - 7 pm (CET).

We are very pleased to announce James Mallet (Harvard University) and Yuttapong Thawornwattana (University College London) and Amir Yassin (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS) as speakers of this session.

James Mallet/Yuttapong Thawornwattana: Hybridization, Introgression and Speciation in Heliconius

Amir Yassin: Reticulate evolution in Drosophila: experimental assays and phylogenomic signals of introgression

All interested Taxon-OMICS and Reticulate Evolution affiliated scientists are welcome to attend.

For questions or the link to the Zoom session, please contact tina.niemann@uni-hamburg.de.

As a reminder, the meeting will take place bimonthly on Wednesdays, 5 - 7 pm (CET) via Zoom. At each of these meeting we will be inviting two speakers with a presentation of 30 min each to talk about various aspects of reticulate evolution.

[ARCHIVE] 25 September 2025 Taxon-Omics Annual Meeting

2025 Annual Meeting of Taxon-Omics from 2-4pm via Zoom

Dear Taxon-Omics members,

Save the date for the Taxon-Omics Annual Meeting! It will take place on 25 September 2025 from 2-4pm via Zoom.

We would be delighted if not only members of ongoing projects, but also all members of funding phase II who have already completed their projects would attend this meeting.

Further information and registration will follow soon.

[ARCHIVE] 09 July 2025 - Zoom Session IV on Reticulate Evolution

Reticulate Evolution - Generalisations and Theoretical Foundations

We are happy to announce the fourth session of our seminar series on Reticulate Evolution.
This session will be hosted by Christoph Oberprieler (University of Regensburg) on the 09.07.2025, 5 - 7 pm (CEST).

We are very pleased to announce Daniel S. Brooks (University of Wuppertal) and Andrej Spiridonov (Vilnius University) as speakers of this session.

Daniel S. Brooks: The Persistence of Levels of Organization in Biological Thought

Andrej Spiridonov: The scaling picture of symbiosis and co-evolution: Bretskyan hierarchy of holobionts and geobiomes

All interested Taxon-OMICS and Reticulate Evolution affiliated scientists are welcome to attend.

For questions or the link to the Zoom session, please contact tina.niemann@uni-hamburg.de.

As a reminder, the meeting will take place bimonthly on Wednesdays, 5 - 7 pm (CET) via Zoom. At each of these meeting we will be inviting two speakers with a presentation of 30 min each to talk about various aspects of reticulate evolution.

[ARCHIVE] 14 May 2025 - Zoom Session III on Reticulate Evolution

Reticulate evolution in microbial eukaryotes: HGT and its contribution to (endo)symbiosis

We are happy to announce the third session of our seminar series on Reticulate Evolution.
This session will be hosted by Kenneth Dumack (University of Koblenz) on the 14.05.2025,
5 - 7 pm (CET).

We are very pleased to announce Elisabeth Hehenberger (Biology Centre CAS) and Julia Van Etten (Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution) as speakers of this session.

Elisabeth Hehenberger: The extent, role, and timing of (endosymbiotic) gene transfer in plastids 

Julia Van Etten: Horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotes and across microbial communities

All interested Taxon-OMICS and Reticulate Evolution affiliated scientists are welcome to attend.

For questions or the link to the Zoom session, please contact tina.niemann@uni-hamburg.de.

As a reminder, the meeting will take place bimonthly on Wednesdays, 5 - 7 pm (CET) via Zoom. At each of these meeting we will be inviting two speakers with a presentation of 30 min each to talk about various aspects of reticulate evolution.

[ARCHIVE] 15. Oct 2023 - Taxon-omics Seed Money Grants still available (Project Members Only)

Taxon-omics Seed Money Post-doc Grants are still available, contact tina.niemann@uni-hamburg.de for more information. Current project members only.

[ARCHIVE] 7. - 8. Dec 2023 - Scientific Writing Workshop

Join us at The University of Hamburg for a Scientific Writing Workshop by Dr. Kerstin Minnich. More information coming soon. The workshop will take place in person, with follow-up sessions over Zoom.

Contact tina.niemann@uni-hamburg.de with questions.

[ARCHIVE] 30. Jul - 11. Aug 2023 - Taxon-Omics Summer School

Summer School Taxon-Omics 2023

When? - 30. July 2023 — 11. August 2023

Where? - Prinzessin Therese von Bayern Lehrstuhl für Systematik, Biodiversität & Evolution der Pflanzen; Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München https://www.en.sysbot.bio.lmu.de/index.html, 

Botanischer Garten München-Nymphenburg -- Botanische Staatssammlung München https://www.botmuc.de/; http://www.botanischestaatssammlung.de/

16 Taxon-Omics project members will be selected from the pool of applicants. Please see private linked webpage from newsletter announcements for more information.

For questions, contact A.Zerdoner@lmu.de