Conference Program
Evolution in the Gong (Joint AES x SASB Conference) 2026 will be held at the University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2–4 December 2026 hosted by Damien Esquerre (AES) and Nik Johnson (SASB).
Conference times: The conference runs for three full days, starting early on Wednesday morning, 2 December. Sessions conclude by 5:00pm on Friday 4 December, followed by the conference dinner from 6:00pm. The full program will be released after registrations close on 8 November.
We are delighted to announce our AES plenary speakers along with our two Best Paper Awardees.
Pre-Conference Workshop
A free half-day workshop, Introduction to Phylogenomics, will be held on Tuesday 1 December 2026, 13:00–17:00 at the University of Wollongong, led by Simon Ho and Manuela Cascini (University of Sydney). Places are limited to 30 (first come, first served, with priority to conference attendees). Please register by Sunday 8 November. See the workshop page for details.
Plenaries
Best Paper Award - ECR
Paper: Nesting behaviour predicts heat tolerance evolution and climate vulnerability in bees (da Silva et al. 2026 Nature Communications)
Best Paper Award - PhD
Paper: Evolution across the adaptive landscape in a hyperdiverse beetle radiation (Li et al. 2024. Current Biology)
References:
da Silva, C. R. B., Beaman, J. E., Dorey, J. B., Bradford, T., Smith, T. J., Gloag, R., & Kellermann, V. (2026). Nesting behaviour predicts heat tolerance evolution and climate vulnerability in bees. Nature Communications, 17(1), 4961. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73689-7
Li, Y., Moritz, C., Brennan, I. G., Zwick, A., Nicholls, J., Grealy, A., & Slipinski, A. (2024). Evolution across the adaptive landscape in a hyperdiverse beetle radiation. Current Biology, 34(16), 3685-3697.e6. doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.06.080
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