Join us for the 62ⁿᵈ Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), taking place in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China, from June 28ᵗʰ - July 3ʳᵈ, 2026! Guided by the theme “Achieving a Shared Ecological Civilization for Long-Term Resilience”, ATBC2026 will bring together scientists, students, conservation professionals, policymakers, and local communities from across the globe. Together, we will explore advances in tropical biology and conservation, exchange innovative ideas, and highlight the essential role of the tropics in shaping our collective future. Be part of this inspiring gathering in Xishuangbanna — where rich biodiversity, cultural heritage, and international collaboration meet!

Keynote Speakers

Biodiversity loss continues to accelerate despite growing scientific knowledge and the surge of multilateral initiatives such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This paradox reveals the widening gap between research and on-the-ground conservation. Here, I trace a personal scientific journey from question-driven ecology toward problem-driven conservation, using tropical dry forests (TDF) in Colombia as a case study in one of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. Despite harboring exceptional biodiversity and supporting millions of people, these ecosystems are characterized by high levels of poverty, food insecurity and desertification. Consequently, tailoring restoration actions that also address food sovereignty is both urgent and critical.First, I reflect on the key challenges we have encountered in translating ecological knowledge into restoration practice in TDFs. While researchers have made substantial progress in understanding successional dynamics, critical bottlenecks along the restoration pipeline remain unresolved. Among the most persistent ones, we need to expand beyond the narrow set of commonly used plants by identifying and propagating suitable species for the drylands. However, no matter how well we resolve the ecological bottlenecks, nursery practitioners remain a forgotten link in the restoration chain. Restoration will only succeed and scale-up when researchers, practitioners, and local communities jointly shape the process from the start.Such collective action becomes even more urgent when we consider that food systems embedded in TDF landscapes are under mounting pressure from agrobiodiversity loss. I then discuss how transformative change— that is, fundamental, system-wide shifts in how we think, organize, and act —requires going beyond ecological knowledge to genuinely engage people. Drawing on work in Montes de María, a subregion of the Colombian Caribbean marked by violence and armed conflict, I present the concept of “culinary ecosystems” an integrative framework connecting agrobiodiversity, food practices, biocultural heritage, and local livelihoods. I show that higher biodiversity associated with cassava cultivation in local farms is tightly linked to richer diets, and reflects communities actively maintaining and adapting their food systems through memory, biodiversity management, and collective practices. Overall, these bottom-up initiatives illustrate that transformative change for biodiversity conservation cannot be purely academic. Transdisciplinary work is critical, as the most durable solutions emerge when people see themselves as protagonists of the socioecological restoration of their own territories.

Revolutionary methods are clearly necessary if we are to safeguard Nature’s adaptive capacity as we descend into a global biodiversity bottleneck. Until we emerge from this bottleneck, we must navigate an unprecedented, unpredictable world where core ecological evolutionary processes no longer function and novel environmental conditions are emerging locally and globally. The situation demands conservation research and applications that are not reliant on a dramatic improvement in behavior. Applied approaches must leverage available resources and capacity, given the reality of local circumstances, to bring together a community of actors who each play a role in enabling biodiversity’s natural coping mechanisms.Fortunately, astonishing breakthroughs and synergies are enabling revolutionary, impactful techniques and uncovering surprising natural resilience. These advances are not all robots, drones, and genomics but the rejuvenation of ancient practices including horticulture, agroforestry, and empowered tenured local stewardship. Grounded in proven management tools and case studies, I discuss strategies to integrate these methods into conservation action that helps prepare for the biodiversity bottleneck and sustain Nature's adaptive capacity. This requires clear-eyed collaboration across academic domains, government agencies, corporations, local communities, and tech sectors. I conclude with a call for the ATBC community to embrace revolutionary, inclusive, collaborative approaches, ensuring tropical conservation is adaptive, equitable, and resilient in the Anthropocene.

Long-standing geographic and taxonomic biases in ecology have significantly impaired our understanding of global biodiversity patterns. Seed ecology research remains heavily skewed toward the Global North, leaving the hyper-diverse tropical regions underrepresented. This imbalance is not merely a data gap; it is a fundamental bias that distorts our knowledge of ecological processes and evolutionary strategies.I will first examine these biases through the lens of biotic interactions, specifically seed predation and defence. The classic hypothesis suggests that both predation pressure and plant defences intensify at lower latitudes. However, I will present evidence from multiple large-scale experiments, spanning the Australian east coast and extensive forest networks across China, that challenge these assumptions. Our findings, encompassing both interspecific comparisons and intraspecific studies of Chinese cork oak populations, demonstrate that physical investment in seed protection does not consistently increase towards the tropics. In many instances, seed predation is actually higher at high latitudes, and tropical seeds are not necessarily better defended than their temperate counterparts. These results are further supported by our recent global-scale empirical research and data syntheses on seed physical defences, suggesting that current paradigms may oversimplify the complex drivers of plant-animal interactions.Beyond biotic interactions, I will discuss the broader implications of these biases for seed functional traits. To move toward a more inclusive global seed ecology, we have developed initiatives such as the Chinese Seed Trait Database, Tropical Seed Trait Database and the TEA-Traits database for Tropical East Africa. By integrating regional datasets, herbarium records, and AI-enhanced trait extraction, we can bridge the tropical gaps in functional trait research. Ultimately, I argue that synthesising cross-continental empirical data with comprehensive trait databases is essential for establishing a representative seed ecology that reflects the diversity and evolutionary history of the world's flora.