The 66th IAVS Annual Symposium 2024 will be held in Funchal, in Madeira Island, Portugal, from the 16th to the 20th of September 2024. The theme of the Symposium will be ‘From local to global: vegetation patterns across spatial scales in a changing World’. A simultaneous joint event, the 32nd Conference of the IAVS Working Group European Vegetation Survey will also take place there, from the 16th to the 20th of September 2024. Some events will be shared between both meetings, namely some parallel sessions, the mid-symposium excursion, and some social events. The theme of the EVS conference will be ‘Vegetation of sea, oceanic and ecological islands of Europe’.

Madeira is a large island in the NE Atlantic Ocean about 1000 Km SW of mainland Europe and it is a beautiful natural and historical setting: laurel forest, endemic vegetation, and the city of Funchal. 

The symposium and conference are being organised by a group of Portuguese, Spanish, French and Ukraine IAVS members working for long in the islands of Macaronesia, the group of Azores, Madeira, Salvage, the Canaries and Cape Verde archipelagos. The IAVS symposium and EVS conference will be hosted, primarily, by the University of Madeira (Portugal), in association with the universities of Porto, Lisbon, Bilbao (Spain) and Occidental Britanny (Brest, France). 

We, the organizers, chose the theme of vegetation change assessment in multiple space and time scales because of the impending need of Vegetation Science to actively contribute to keeping and restoring of Earth’s  ecosystems. 

At the same time, Madeira has a large stretch of well-preserved relict laurel forest of Macaronesia, the Macaronesian laurisilva. Such forest is the best preserved heir of the subtropical forests around the paleo-ocean Thetys (the ancestor of the Medieterranean Sea). Although a few scattered elements of the Thethysian geoflora might be still found in the Mediterranean mainland, for the most, they were later destroyed by several global geological events ( e.g. Messinian salinity crisis, the Pleistocene glaciations). In turn, such events did not reach Macaronesian islands and, thus, remnants of thethysian laurel forest survived. Contemporary laurel forests (macaronesian laurisilvae) include such ancient tertiary elements (paleoendemics) but also a great wealth of neoendemics. The later evolved in the islands from singular dispersion events of mainland plants. There, several genera exhibit large exuberant size and a woody habit not found in their annual continental ancestors: Echium, Sonchus, Euphorbia and even some neoendemic genera arising as woody giant versions of herbaceous ancestors (e.g., Isoplexis cf. Digitalis; Muschia, Azorina and Canarina cf. Campanula). This has been described as ‘island woodiness syndrome’ and it is the sole place this can be observed in Europe. The unique vegetation of Macaronesia spans from the northernmost warm-temperate wet Azores islands, passing through temperate and Mediterranean climate in Madeira and the Canaries and reaching arid tropical climate in the Cape Verde islands. Many endemic species, genera or infra-generic taxa are shared among the islands making up of vicarious similar vegetation types unique of the territory. 

Participants will have the opportunity to approach such unique and overwhelming vegetation in the mid-symposium excursion in Madeira and during the pre- and post-symposium excursions. During the mid-symposium excursion in Madeira mostly Mediterranean and Temperate laurel forest will be visited 

Pre-symposium excursion will be in the Madeira Island

Post-Symposium excursion will take place in the Canary Islands. The extremely beautiful arid volcanic islands of Tenerife and La Gomera will be visited during five days. 

We, the Organizing Committee of the 66th IAVS 2024 Symposium and of 32nd EVS Conference hope that many of us, vegetation scientists, will meet once again, this time in Madeira Island for fruitful science and companionship celebrations, as usual. 

Dear colleagues, be most welcome to Madeira, Portugal! Again: we hope to see many of you there in 2024!

The Organizing Committee.