A post on the Functional Ecology conference in Montpellier, organised by AnaEE France.

Opening up the view on Montpellier and its cathedral

Montpellier, the city that opened up the views on the interesting topic of functional ecology (the theme of the 3-day conference I attended here this week).

Overarching the entrance to the cathedral of Montpellier

A city that – through this conference – taught me that we need strong connections between the various pilars of ecology, and keep on searching for ways to integrate them: (1) repeating projects at different locations, yet taking into that each different location will have different factors at play; (2) searching for adequate models to cover this increasing complexity that we want to explain and (3) being aware of the need of good platforms to share data and information, that are consistent between different scientists.

Two towers are better than one, as they are never exactly the same

And a city that again convinced me that two experiments are always better than one, as every attempt to approach an ecological issue from another direction will bring you closer to the truth, yet not always directly.