Last week a few members of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L research group attended the European Geosciences Union (EGU) Conference held in Vienna. EGU focuses on research around Earth, planetary and space sciences and has sessions on everything from soil sciences to research on solar-terrestrial systems. The S.P.E.C.I.A.L group research falls within the branch of “biogeosciences”, covering the interactions between physical processes on Earth.
This year at EGU 2026 group PI Sandy Harrison, Sophia Cain and Ruijie Ding presented their work to the scientific community. A number of our LEMONTREE project colleagues also presented and you can find links to the SPECIAL team and LEMONTREE team presentation abstracts here.
Image 1: Group photo at EGU. From left to right: Mengdi Gao (ICL), Ruijie Ding (UoR) , Sandy Harrison (UoR) , Colin Prentice (ICL), Jierong Zhao (ICL), Haoran Liu (ICL), Sophia Cain (UoR) and David Sandoval (ICL).
Sandy and Ruijie both presented in the session “Functional diversity in motion: ecological and evolutionary drivers of biogeochemical processes across terrestrial, aquatic and atmospheric systems“. Sandy presented on the groups work towards developing an eco-evolutionary optimality (EEO) theory derived fire model. Ruijie presented on work from her PhD at Imperial College London on forest dynamics and biomass production efficiency. Both participated in an engaging panel discussion afterwards. Sophia presented in the session “The Role of Fire in the Earth System: Interactions with Climate, Biosphere and Human Systems” on her work developing a model of fine fuels from optimality derived leaf litterfall and decomposition. All three presentations involved work of other colleagues from Reading and Imperial including Boya Zhou, David Sandoval and Colin Prentice.
Images: Left: Sophia Cain presenting in the Fire session, Right: EGU main hall booth area.
Outside of the presentations it was great to see colleagues from the fire, EEO and paleo communities. Opportunities for networking and brainstorming were everywhere and we are glad that the group was able to have a wonderful time engaging with a vast range of science in Vienna!