Azores Summer School
The AzSS – Azores Summer School follows the need and ambition to create a complete, high-quality multidisciplinary course on Marine Island (Palaeo)Biogeography, gathering internationally recognized experts to present state-of-the-art knowledge in diverse areas. Over the past two decades, multidisciplinary studies on recent and fossil coastal marine Macaronesian taxa have culminated in the publication of an in-depth marine biogeographic theory, contributing to a better understanding of the evolutionary processes and patterns in marine groups inhabiting these remote regions.
The second edition of the AzSS will be held at Santa Maria Island (Azores Archipelago, Portugal) from 09 to 21 of July 2023, aiming to grow in the next years into the most complete and unique course on Marine Island (Palaeo)Biogeography worldwide. This is a unique opportunity to enhance proliferous discussions on island ontogeny, global marine biodiversity patterns, and island marine biogeography among enthusiastic researchers. For 13 days, participants will experience life at the oldest island of the Azores and be able to observe in loco the results of more than 20 years of fieldwork at Santa Maria.
The AzSS 2023 integrates lectures (50 hours), field trips (20 h), a vibrant social programme (14 h), and benefits from the extraordinary geological and palaeontological diversity of the island and expertise of the invited lecturers. The course, conducted by a panel of international senior scientists, widely recognised on their fields of expertise and vibrant early-career researchers, will address multiple areas of knowledge, such as the geological evolution of islands, study of past organisms and environments, statistical analyses of collected data, evolutionary processes and patterns, and will finish with the historical and contemporary forces shaping the marine biodiversity in remote volcanic oceanic archipelagos. The main goal of the AzSS is to provide the participants outstanding tools and unconventional knowledge from several research areas which, puzzled together, allow for interpretation of large and fine-scale marine biogeographic processes and patterns in these extraordinary insular systems.
