About the congress

The rapid advancement of genomic technologies, coupled with decreasing costs and increasing accessibility, has significantly accelerated herpetological research. These developments have opened new avenues for robust studies in taxonomy, behaviour and evolutionary ecology. In recent years, new reference genomes have become available for a growing number of amphibian and reptile families, offering an unprecedented genomic foundation for comparative studies. At the same time, methodological advances in museomics now allow the extraction and analysis of DNA from historical specimens housed in natural history collections, even those preserved under suboptimal conditions. This has enabled researchers to incorporate genetic information from the past—and in some cases even extinct—biodiversity, adding an essential temporal dimension to evolutionary and ecological studies. In the field of ecology, new tools are being developed to use only traces of DNA contained in environmental DNA to detect species, monitor diseases, and assess community composition and biodiversity within the broader context of complex and constantly changing ecosystems. In this symposium, we aim to bring together researchers at the forefront of herpetological genomics to showcase recent methodological innovations and applications. Through a series of case studies spanning diverse taxonomic groups, we will highlight the wide-ranging potential of genomic approaches in herpetology and foster interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration across the emerging field of Herp-omics.

Understanding how phenotypic traits evolve in response to both natural and anthropogenic selective pressures remains a central challenge in evolutionary biology. Amphibians and reptiles offer an ideal system to explore these dynamics, given their wide ecological diversity, sensitivity to environmental changes, and extensive phenotypic variability. This symposium aims to explore how selective forces interact to shape phenotypic evolution and ecological success of herpetofauna. Key topics of this session will include adaptive colouration, thermal and hydric physiology, morphological plasticity, and behavioural flexibility, with particular emphasis on the consequences of climate change, habitat transformation, and chemical pollution. This symposium will bring together researchers from evolutionary biology, ecology, and ecotoxicology, offering an integrated perspective on the mechanisms driving phenotypic variation in amphibians and reptiles. We invite presentations that emphasise cross-disciplinary approaches, combining field-based studies, experimental lab work, long-term ecological data, and mechanistic insights from genomics to physiology. By examining trait-environment interactions across temporal and spatial scales, we seek to understand how phenotypic responses mediate ecological success, resilience, or decline on herp species under rapid environmental change.

One of the most fascinating aspects of amphibians is their biphasic life cycle, featuring the astonishing process of metamorphosis. This unique developmental trajectory can range from a smooth transition between aquatic larvae and a similar terrestrial adult form to a complete reshaping and restructuring of the body plan. Over the past 20 years, interest in the amphibian larvae has grown significantly, leading to many exciting discoveries. This symposium will explore recent advances in the study of amphibian larval evolution by integrating perspectives from developmental biology, comparative morphology, evolutionary ecology, and phylogenetics. Our goal is to bring together researchers who are uncovering how larval traits evolve, what developmental mechanisms drive these changes, and how selective pressures shape larval diversity. Topics will include heterochrony, paedomorphosis, evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), and systematics.

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are one of the biggest challenges in our globalized world. Among them are amphibian skin chytrid fungi, Bd and Bsal, which have caused declines of more than 500 species, a fifth of which are presumably extinct by now. Bd is considered one of the world’s most invasive species and Bsal has become a serious threat to the salamander diversity of the Western Palearctic. Because of this urgency, Bsal is a focal topic of this symposium, but not the only one. We are aware of other pathogens that affect amphibians and reptiles, among which are Ophidomyces (snake fungal disease), Perkinsozoa, ranaviruses and herpesviruses. The biology of these agents is little known and their impact on herpetofauna is poorly understood. Prevention and control of EIDs in a One Health approach is an increasingly important issue in amphibian and reptile conservation. The goal of the symposium is to report new research results as well as to summarize the knowledge on specific EIDs..