LUOVA Spring Symposium (4th-6th March 2024)

And that’s a wrap on the 33rd LUOVA Symposium! A big thank you to:

• The 2023 Spring Symposium Organizing Committee
• Mia Vehkaoja
• Mar Cabeza
• Our amazing keynotes: Andy Gardner, Gerlien Verhaegen, Mark Christie
• Doctoral Programme in Wildlife Biology (LUOVA)
• The Finnish Museum of Natural History (LUOMUS)
• The Viikki Info Centre Korona
• And our sponsors:
  • Akvaarioon: The coffee and tea you enjoyed during the breaks was courtesy of akvaarioon.fi – The one stop shop for starting your aquarium hobby: familiar favorite products and international quality brands for freshwater and saltwater aquariums are reliably and quickly available from their online store. This is the second year in a row that akvaarioon.fi have sponsored the Spring Symposium coffee breaks
  • Loimu: The snacks you enjoyed during coffee breaks at the Symposium are courtesy of Loimu. They sent you all this message: we are thrilled at Loimu to be able to support this event and hope that it was rewarding for all participants. Loimu is the trade union for all experts and students in the field of biology, so if you are not yet a member, you are warmly welcome to join!

Congratulations to our winners:
Olli’s prize: Federica Manca
(2nd: Sarella Arkkila, 3rd: Camila Souza Beraldo)

Best poster: Esmeralda Villon
(runners up: Ariadne Kibbelaar and Adrián Colino Barea)

If you are a LUOVA student and are interested in being on the Spring Symposium Organising committee next year, please approach one of us organizers.

We can hardly believe that Symposium is finally nearly here! We are so looking forward to seeing many of you (in-person and online). If you are coming in person, please bring a name tag (from a previous conference, or get creative and make yourself one!), and your own mug for coffee breaks.

Here is the Programme (the abstract book can be found here):This is a hybrid event, and you can join the Zoom webinar here (you must be logged into a Zoom account):

Join Zoom Meeting
https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/61452134007
Meeting ID: 614 5213 4007

– You will not be able to use your camera or microphone, but will be able to comment and ask questions via the chat/Q&A

Feedback forms
Will be made available as paper forms and online here, giving you the opportunity to mark what presenters do well and could improve, and give (constructive) feedback.
(More information for those completing the learning diary can be found in the course info EEB-312 on Sisu)

Health and safety: attendees are welcome to wear a face mask if they feel safer doing so. We ask that you please do not attend in person if you have any infectious disease symptoms (eg. Fever, cough, sore throat, new loss of taste or smell, nausea/vomiting), and instead make use of our virtual attendance option on zoom. If you are meant to present, please let the organisers know and we can reschedule, cancel, or move your presentation to Zoom.

The Grand Finale and Awards Ceremony: will take place, as is tradition, at the Natural History Museum on Wednesday, March 6, from 19:00 to 22:00. Do not miss the unique opportunity to end the symposium with live music featuring the band Megaherbivore, alongside drinks and light snacks. We will also be announcing the winners of the best talk and poster presentations. Attendance is limited to 100 guests, so do not hesitate and register for the Grand Finale (you should have been emailed and invitation, but if you have not and are interested in joining the fun, send us an email)! There is a 5 € entrance fee and we will share further details about the payment closer to the event.

Despite what the slippery ice and cold winds might tell you, spring is on its way! We would therefore like to kindly remind you that the registration deadline for the 33rd annual LUOVA spring symposium is approaching! The registration will be closed on February 12th at 16:00.
(Note: Registration is only necessary for those presenting a talk, a poster, or writing a learning diary. We strongly encourage supervisors and other researchers to participate and give helpful feedback to our students (there will also be hot beverages and snacks ☕🍭)).

If you are a  doctoral researcher (PhD student) in life sciences or master’s student, we ask you to apply via the link below:

Link for registration

There is also the opportunity to order merchandise with our beautiful logo on it! You will find more info about this in the registration form.

Please remember to add courses to your plan in Sisu as well if you’re applying for credits.

The Spring Symposium is a great opportunity for doctoral researchers and master’s students to get live experience giving conference-style presentations in a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. Doctoral researchers can apply to get one study credit for presenting a talk via course code LUOVA-401 and LUOVA-402. Master’s students can also earn credits by presenting a poster (course codes EEB-311 and EEB-005) or writing a learning diary (EEB-312). Sign up for these on the registration form and in Sisu.

NOTE: In response to some confusion, we confirm that you do not need to submit an abstract if you are applying for a poster.

Regarding the practical organization of the symposium:

1. The symposium will be organized as an on-site event, but there is a possibility to set up tools for live streaming and remote attendance for those who need it (please let us know when registering or ASAP!)

2. The posters will be shown on screens in the auditorium on the first and second day of the symposium (4th-5th March). We will ask the students to make a poster in the landscape format.

3. Info about the Grande finale event (Wednesday, the 6th of March) will be made available soon!

The time has come! The registration for the 33rd Spring Symposium of the LUOVA Doctoral programme (March 4th – 6th, Viikki campus) is now open. It closes on Monday, February 12th at 16:00. Registration is only necessary for those presenting a talk, a poster, or writing a diary. If you’d like to attend to only enjoy presentations and partake in interesting discussions over coffee, you are of course welcome to do so without needing to register. Providing feedback and showing support for each other is a vital part of the LUOVA community. We therefore also warmly encourage supervisors and other researchers to participate in the symposium and provide feedback on the talks and posters.

With that, we’d like to invite all doctoral researchers (PhD students) related to life sciences to give a talk at the symposium and all master’s students to present their study as a poster (see details below).

Link for registration

Please remember to register in Sisu as well if you’re applying for credits.

The Spring Symposium is a great opportunity for doctoral researchers and master’s students to get live experience giving conference-style presentations in a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. Doctoral researchers can apply to get one study credit for presenting a talk via course code LUOVA-401 and LUOVA-402. Master’s students can also earn credits by presenting a poster (course code EEB-311) or writing a learning diary (EEB-312). Sign up for these on the registration form and in Sisu.

Regarding the practical organization of the symposium:

1. The symposium will be organized as an on-site event, but there is a possibility to set up tools for live streaming and remote attendance for those who need it.

2. The posters will be shown on screens in the auditorium on the first and second day of the symposium (March 4th-5th). We will ask the students to make a poster in the landscape format.

3. Info about the Grande finale event (Wednesday, March 6th) will be made available soon!

@springsymposium on Twitter (X) and Instagram

The dark and gloomy winter season of Finland may be upon us, but we have news that may brighten up your day. We are very pleased to announce that the winner of the 33rd LUOVA spring symposium logo competition is Michelle García Arroyo! Congratulations!

We had 21 absolutely lovely submissions this year and it was a tough decision to narrow it down to just 1. We would sincerely like to thank all the applicants for their creative work!

And with that, we in the organizing committee shall now take our leave and retreat to the shadows to plan a fantastic event to welcome you all back into the warm spring of 2024. You can stay up to date here on our website and follow our social media: @springsymposium on Twitter (X) and Instagram 

Registrations for talks and posters will open in January, so stay tuned for that!

Until then, happy holidays from us all!

We are looking for help with designing a logo for next year’s Spring Symposium! For the 33rd LUOVA Spring Symposium Logo Competition, you can submit your suggestion for a logo design for the symposium event and compete for much fame and honor as well as a little prize at the end of the symposium.

So unleash your creativity and share your design!

You are free to design the logo however you want, but there are three mandatory rules to follow: The logo must

1. Contain a visual reference to a (male or female) moose (Alces alces, the symbol animal of the Spring Symposium).
2. Display the symposium title “Spring Symposium” and the number “33rd”.
3. Submitted as a .png and be a minimum of 4000×4000 pixels. Use a transparent background if that’s appropriate. The logo can alternatively be submitted in vector format as a .svg or .pdf

Submit your logo using this form (requires a Google account) by the 12th of November.

Feel free to draw some inspiration from the great designs of previous years here

In order, by: Bohao Fang, Christina Elgert, Zowi Oudendijk

We are looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Thanks to everyone who joined the 32nd spring symposium! Also we are grateful to our sponsors (Oikos, Keru, Akvaarioon) that support us during the symposium!

We’re super-happy with how this turned out in the end, and we’re very much looking forward to next year!

This year’s prize winners were:

Olli’s price (Best presentation): Patrick Heidbreder, with “Towards speciation genes and the role of selection in hybridization outcomes”

Runner up for best presentation: Sunandan Das, with “Phylogenomic systematics of snake superfamily Elapoidea, with discovery of a new family”

2nd runner up for best presentation: Nadja Verspagen, with “Intraspecific variation in thermal plasticity in a temperate butterfly”

Best poster presentation: Giorgio Zavattoni, with “Who is eating the eggs, and where?”

Runner-ups for best poster presentation: Cindy Emilia Schwenk with “Calving site fidelity and dispersal of wild forest reindeer females (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) in the region of Kainuu, Finland”  and Taru Niittynen with “Effects of cortisol and oxytocin in learning of young horses”

Logo competition winnter: Zowi Oudendijk 

Dear everyone,

The registration for the 32nd Spring Symposium of the LUOVA Doctoral programme (March 6th – 8th, Viikki campus) is now open. It closes the morning of Monday, February 13th at 16:00. Registration is only necessary for those presenting a talk or a poster, or writing a diary; Those attending to enjoy other people’s presentations are welcome to join without registering. We also hope that supervisors and other researchers will participate and provide feedback on the talks and posters. 

With that, we’d like to invite all doctoral researchers (PhD students) life sciences-related to give a talk at the symposium, and all master’s students are encouraged to present their study as a poster (see details below). 

Registration link is here

Please remember to register in Sisu as well if you’re applying for credits.

The Spring Symposium is a great opportunity for doctoral researchers and master’s students to get live experience giving conference-style presentations in a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. Doctoral researchers can apply to get one study credit for presenting a talk via course code LUOVA-401 and LUOVA-402. Master’s students can also earn credits by presenting a poster or writing a learning diary (Course code EEB-312). Sign up for these on the registration form and in Sisu.

Regarding the practical organization of the symposium: 

1. The symposium will be organised as an on-site event, but there is a possibility to set up tools for live streaming and remote attendance for those who need it.
2. The posters will be shown on screens in the auditorium. We will ask the students to make a poster in the landscape format. 
3. We are happy to announce to you that the Grande Finale event will take place in the Zoological Museum of Natural History the evening of the last day of the symposium (Wednesday, the 8th of March). More information about this event soon.

Best wishes, 

The LUOVA 32nd Spring Symposium committee.

Deryk Tolman – Joséphine Couet – Nora Bergman – Thomas Merrien & Yuhan He.

The Spring Symposium is organized by doctoral students from the Doctoral Programme in Wildlife Biology Research (Finnish acronym LUOVA) of the University of Helsinki. The symposium brings together students active in research fields related to ecology, evolution, systematics and nature conservation.