Call for contributed talks and abstracts for symposium on "Time-dependency in micro- and macroevolutionary rates" (Symposium S49) at ESEB 2025 The ESEB 2025 Congress will be held at the International Convention Centre of Barcelona (CCIB) in Barcelona, Spain, from August 17 to 22,2025. Within this congress, we are happy to announce this exciting symposium on time-dependency in evolution and we invite you to contribute with talks and posters. Organizers are Erik Svensson (Lund University, Sweden), Stephen DeLisle (Karlstad University Sweden) and Lesley Lancaster (Aberdeen University, UK). Time-dependency in micro- and macroevolutionary rates In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the possible role of time-dependency in evolutionary rates. Such putative time-dependency include systematic slowdowns or accelerations of phenotypic change, speciation and extinction rates estimated from phylogenies, morphological rates in the fossil record and rates of molecular evolution. The strength and generality of these associations has led some researchers to argue that rates of evolution appears to be slower over longer (macroevolutionary) temporal scales, or conversely, rates appear to be faster over short timescales. If rate shifts are real, systematic time-dependency of evolutionary rates will have major consequences for our understanding of the temporal scaling of evolution and for efforts to build bridges between micro- and macroevolution. However, claims for systematic time-dependency have also been criticized, and some researchers argue that such (perceived) time-dependency could result from statistical or methodological artefacts. Thus, it is unclear the degree to which rate-time scaling reflects actual time-dependence of the evolutionary process. In this symposium, we will discuss the problem of time-dependency across temporal scales, aiming to clarify what may be artefact versus real patterns and how it will affect our understanding of evolution. We invite evolutionary ecologists, comparative biologists, developmental biologists, molecular evolutionists, paleontologists and all other researchers interested in the problem of time-dependency to this cross-disciplinary and highly integrative symposium. We will discuss the methodological and statistical challenges of studying time-dependency in evolution in both extant and extinct organisms. One of our aims with this symposium is to stimulate further discussion of time-dependency in micro- and macroevolution. We will cover methodological, empirical and statistical aspects as well as more conceptual and theoretical issues. We also aim to prepare the ground for a joint review article or theme issue in e.g. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. We have two exciting invited speakers to this symposium, namely Jeremy Michael Beaulieu (Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, USA) and Rosana Zenil-Ferguson(Department of Biology, University of Kentucky, USA). Deadline for abstract submission: 25 April 2025. For more information and to submit your abstract, please visit: https://eseb2025.com/call-for-abstracts/ We are looking forward to see you in Barcelona in August 2025 and hope that you will consider our symposium for sharing your research on evolutionary rates. Best regards, Prof. Erik Svensson, Department of Biology, Lund University, SWEDEN (erik.svensson@biol.lu.se) Dr. Stephen De Lisle, Dept. Environmental and Life Science, Karlstad University, SWEDEN (stephen.de.lisle@kau.se) Prof. Lesley Lancaster, School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK (lesleylancaster@abdn.ac.uk) Erik Svensson Professor (Division for Biodiversity and Evolution) Department of Biology Lund University SWEDEN Homepage: https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/erik-svensson Research lab: https://portal.research.lu.se/en/organisations/population-biology-micro-and-macroevolution Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Erik-Svensson-3 Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.se/citations?user=-66nqTEAAAAJ&hl=sv Erik Svensson (to subscribe/unsubscribe the EvolDir send mail to golding@mcmaster.ca)