Dear member, 

Please find attached the third circular of the AIL2026 conference, where you will find important information regarding the conference that will take place in Bilbao on June 22, including instructions for presenters and the full programme.We would also like to remind you that registration remains open. Kind regards, AIL2026 Organizing Committee 

P.S.: Apologies for any duplicate emails.

We are pleased to announce the opening of the call for special session proposals for the 23rd Congress of the Iberian Association of Limnology (AIL 2026), to be held in Bilbao from June 22 to 26, 2026. We encourage you to submit proposals by following the simple tips outlined in the attached document. You will also find the relevant information included in the First Circular attached. We look forward to your contribution! 

LINK

Dear fellow ecologists,

We are pleased to report the resolution of the combined call for research projects for researchers in the early stages of their scientific career (ECR) in 2025 from the Iberian Society of Ecology (SIBECOL), the Spanish Society of Terrestrial Ecology (AEET) and the Iberian Association of Limnology (AIL).

This multiple call, published on March 15, 2025, was open to research projects on any topic and ecosystem within Ecology (theoretical, terrestrial, freshwater or marine). This call was open to any regular member or student of SIBECOL, AEET, AIL, SPECO or SEEEE and the objective was to try to support both researchers in their initial stages of their scientific career and those in somewhat more advanced stages, thus increasing the possibilities of financing their scientific projects.

The resolution of each of the calls is presented below:

Research projects SIBECOL:

The following projects have been selected as beneficiaries for each of the categories:

• STARTING ECR MODALITY:

 Project entitled: “Ecological and Evolutionary Drivers of Sexual Size and Colour Dimorphism in Island Birds”. IP: Ana Margarida Vitorino Leitão, BIOPOLIS / CIBIO Universidade do Porto, Campus de Vairão (SPECO member)

• ADVANCED ECR MODALITY:

Project entitled: “Microbial Impact on the Chemical Fluxes Associated with Coastal Groundwater. (MicroFlux)”. IP: Nestor Arandia Gorostidi, Institut de Ciències del Mar - CSIC (SIBECOL member)

Research projects AEET:

Please be advised that, in order to guarantee the total impartiality of the evaluations and to avoid any bias, the reviews of the project reports have been carried out in a double-blind system in this call for proposals. In other words, the projects have been sent to the reviewers in an anonymized format, so that the reviewers have no knowledge of the identity of the applicant or the research group to which they belong. The applicant's CV has been evaluated solely to confirm compliance with the requirements of each category. It has been reviewed initially by the Secretariat of the AEET.

Thus, the following projects have been selected as beneficiaries for each category:

1.-Modality "TAKING THE INITIATIVE"

Beneficiary Projects:

• Project entitled: “On the evolutionary relatedness of fluorescence and its role on spore dispersion: product or byproduct of evolution?”. IP:  Eladio Rodríguez Penedo, CREAF, (SIBECOL member).

• Project entitled: “Más allá de los vertebrados: insectos necrófagos como motores del servicio de eliminación de carroñas en paisajes de montaña” IP: Rocio Ruiz Daza, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, (AEET member).

2.-Modality "WINNING INDEPENDENCE"

Beneficiary Projects:

• Project entitled: “Competición y ensamblaje de comunidades bacterianas de rizosfera”. IP: Miguel de Celis Rodríguez, Instituto de Ciencias Agrarias (ICA-CSIC) (AEET member).

• Project entitled: “Disentangling bird-mediated indirect interactions between parasitic plants and their hosts: is there a bright side to parasitism?”. IP: Jorge Isla Escudero, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, (AEET member).

• Grant “Carlos Herrera”

• Project entitled: “Testando mecanismos de ensamblaje de comunidades de plantas leñosas en olivares abandonados”. IP: Mariona Pajares-Murgó, Universidad de Jaén, (AEET member).

3.-Modality "CONSOLIDATED RESEARCH"

Beneficiary Project:

• Proyecto titulado: “Dealing with pesticides: Impacts of triazole fungicide-treated seed consumption on wild bird's microbiome.”. IP: Jéssica Jiménez-Peñuela, Universidad de Granada, (SEEEE member)
• Project entitled: “Fearless bears? A physiological indicator of strong habituation in brown bears (PHYSBEAR)”. IP: Ana Sanz Perez, Instituto Mixto de Investigación en Biodiversidad, (AEET member).

• Grant “Carlos Herrera”

• Proyecto titulado: “HISTORICAZ: reconstrucción histórica de los paisajes y ecosistemas de las sierras de Cazorla, Segura y las Villas.”. IP: Eneko Arrondo Floristan , Estación Biológica de Doñana, (AEET member)

Research projects AIL:

The research project “Jovenomics: Young Science Driving the Future of Biomonitoring through eDNA and Barcoding“ presented by Nieves López Rodríguez (Universidade de Barcelona) and Alba María Losa Calleja (Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental de la Universidad de Cantabria, ambas socias de AIL.

All the necessary information and documents to apply for any of the two calls can be found in the following links:

SIBECOL resolution: http://sibecol.org/en/sibecol_ecr2025

AIL resolution: LINK call resolution AIL

AEET resolution: https://www.aeet.org/es/convocatorias/proyectosinvestigacion/convocatoria2025.html

Congratulations to all the participants for the high level of the proposals and in particular to the winners!