Inside the JEB Symposium at Biologists @ 100 Free

Almut Kelber, JEB Editor, opening the JEB Symposium at the Biologists @ 100 conference.

In 1977, John Treherne, then Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Experimental Biology (JEB), had an idea. He imagined an annual workshop hosted by the journal that would ‘review knowledge and stimulate further research in an expanding topic of experimental biology’ (Crompton, 1979), aiming to broaden the journal's impact. Two years later, in 1979, his vision was realised with a symposium dedicated to the mechanisms behind biological oscillators hosted by himself, M. J. Berridge and P. E. Rapp in Titisee, Germany, resulting later that year in a special issue on cellular oscillators. Since then, Treherne's dream has continued to thrive, with only a three-year break during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in March 2025 the journal hosted the most recent JEB Symposium. In this article, we revisit the symposium, from the team of JEB Editors that assembled the programme to the experiences and impressions of the invited speakers and the lessons they took from the event.

The theme of each JEB Symposium is set at the journal Editors’ meeting 2–3 years earlier, when they pitch ideas that could form the basis of an intriguing discussion meeting. But the brief for the 2025 Symposium was subtly different. Preparing for its 100th anniversary, JEB's not-for-profit publisher, The Company of Biologists, decided to host an all-encompassing Biologists @ 100 conference, integrating the JEB Symposium with sessions reflecting the scope of all five of the Company's journals, including Development, Journal of Cell Science, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open. ‘We wanted an idea that would fit the conference theme’, says JEB Editor Kathleen Gilmour, who had been discussing ideas for a suitable topic with Pat Wright (Deputy Editor-in-Chief), Craig Franklin (Editor-in-Chief) and Almut Kelber (JEB Editor). Together, they came up with a concept focused on sensory perception in a changing world. ‘Traditionally, JEB symposia are aimed at bringing new people to the journal, but our focus here was to exhibit the remarkable animals that JEB authors work with, to introduce JEB research to the broader biological community’, explains Gilmour.

Picking up the theme, Gilmour, Kelber and Sanjay Sane (JEB Editor) identified colleagues with backgrounds in sensory physiology, assembling a stellar list of international speakers ranging from senior principal investigators to up-and-coming early-career researchers. ‘We were looking for people who were working with sensory perception, the neurobiology leading to behaviour in as many different senses as we could, and bringing in some people who would also think about the impact of human changes – light pollution, acoustic noise, plastic pollution, climate change – on how animals interact with and perceive the world’, says Kelber.

In reaction to the Symposium invitation, bird neuroethologist Fernanda Duque, Illinois State University, USA, recalls that she was flattered, that it was, ‘an amazing opportunity to share my research’, and that contributing to JEB has been a lifetime ambition for her. Ajinkya Dahake, Princeton University, USA, admits that he was surprised by the invitation, ‘that somebody who is so early in their career like me, just a postdoc really, was invited to something like this among other very distinguished professors in the field’, he says. And Daniel Robert, University of Bristol, UK, even passed up the chance to go to another meeting to join the JEB Symposium, ‘but I thought, “I'm a biologist, I'm going to go to the biologists meeting”’, he chuckles.

With the stage set, researchers from across the globe converged on the Arena and Convention Centre (ACC) Liverpool, UK, on 24 March 2025 for a thrilling three days of talks and discussion, and this year the JEB Symposium broke even further from tradition. Usually, it is limited to invited speakers and journal Editors, creating an intimate atmosphere for discussion and collaboration. But this year, anyone attending the Biologists @ 100 conference was welcomed to join the Symposium, allowing early-career researchers and members of the community to join and soak up the sessions. ‘The atmosphere was exciting and inspiring, from the first talk to the final discussion’, says Kelber, adding, ‘the speakers and audience were always engaged, which showed in the many questions asked after each talk’.

Delegates and attendees at the JEB Symposium (clockwise from top left): Nathan Putnam, Michael Berenbrink, Hema Somanathan, Daniel Robert, Robyn Grant.

JEB Editors (left to right: Monica Daley, Katie Gilmour and Sheila Patek) at an informal lunch break at the Biologists @ 100 conference.

The Symposium began with a quickfire session, in which each delegate and JEB Editors introduced themselves informally with two slides; one outlining their research and a second with an interesting fact about themselves. ‘It is a great personal and scientific icebreaker’, says Gilmour. Sane then opened the first scientific session, discussing navigation in a noisy world: lessons from insects. ‘I wanted to understand how anthropogenic noise – where “noise” refers to any unwanted signal that interferes with natural cues and alters typical behaviour – causes deviations from expected patterns’, says Sane, discussing how vinegar flies search for food using scent and vision and how oleander hawkmoths search for mates. Over the next three days, other invited speakers spoke about topics ranging from visual navigation by fish and the recognition of flowers by pollinators – including bats and insects – the impact of pollution on sleep, ectothermic temperature regulation as climates warm, how pit vipers use their ability to sense infrared radiation to locate prey and the ability of foraging honeybees to sense weak electric fields in the environment. Other talks discussed how insects communicate through vibrations transmitted through plants, how mammals explore their surroundings through whiskers on their faces, the senses employed by Bogong moths during their long-distance migrations, magnetic sensation by migratory animals and the sense of smell of yellow fever mosquitoes.

Each day, the entire Biologists @ 100 conference came together for plenary sessions at the beginning, with the first presented by Hans-Otto Pörtner (Alfred Wegener Institut, Germany) and Jane Francis (British Antarctic Survey, UK), focusing on biodiversity and climate change. The second day's plenary sessions featured lectures on health and disease with Sadaf Farooqi (University of Cambridge, UK) and Charles Swinton (The Francis Crick Institute, UK) and the final day was launched by Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz (HHMI Janelia Research Campus, USA) and Manu Prakash (Stanford University, USA) talking about emerging technologies. ‘We really wanted the topics featured to pique people's curiosity to learn something new in a talk they might not normally have chosen – and we wanted the plenary sessions to tie together this curiosity-driven approach and build excitement by setting our conference themes within a broader context’, says Claire Moulton, CEO of The Company of Biologists.

A key component of every JEB Symposium is the opportunity for researchers to meet informally during meals and coffee breaks to exchange ideas. ‘There was plenty of time for discussion in a relaxed way, which I loved’, said Hema Somanathan, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram, India, recalling catching up with old friends and mentors as well as making new contacts. For Eric Warrant, Lund University, Sweden, the scale of the meeting was a bonus, ‘it was a full-on international, high-quality conference experience, but in a very intimate group of people that all shared the same interests’, he says. And although John Lesku, La Trobe University, Australia, knew no one when he arrived in Liverpool, he says, ‘I think the connections were the main thing for me’, and he hopes to collaborate with some of the new colleagues that he met in Liverpool.

Reflecting on the meeting's impact, Duque says that it made her appreciate better how the changing world is affecting animals and Dahake echoes that sentiment, adding ‘Now is the time to think about an angle that will explore questions where I can track the effect of anthropogenic or natural change on the physiology and behaviour of the animal’. The meeting also changed how Robyn Grant, University of Manchester, UK, thinks about her research. Several themes emerged, including the ability of animals to successfully navigate their environments thanks to multiple senses, even when some fail; the impact of the strength of a sensory phenomenon relative to background distraction on animal decision making; and the effects of development on sensory systems if there is a change in the animals’ surroundings. The Symposium delegates were also struck by the interdisciplinary nature of the presentations, with many of the researchers collaborating with and building on the experience of chemists, physicists and engineers. ‘The breadth of physiological/sensory systems and diversity of animals covered – from moths to marine mammals – together with delegates who were passionate and generous with their ideas, captured the heart and soul of JEB’, says Franklin.

Kelber is delighted by the meeting's success. ‘I think bringing together people who already work on the effects of climate change and other human influences on animals with those who study the basics of sensory physiology and behaviour created this inspiring atmosphere’, she says, as she looks to the future and the special issue of review articles, dedicated to Sensory Perception in a Changing World, based on the Symposium, that will be published in JEB early in 2026.