Benjamin Judkewitz (University Hospital Charité) will give a short external seminar, hosted by Thomas Chaigne (Fresnel).

Location: Hexagone
Date: 02.03.2026
Time: 1:30 PM

CENTURI is also providing for off-campus participants only a zoom link to attend the seminar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85941690095?pwd=Nm5NVGhESGlUbG1FMnZ2dU5vSlkxUT09

Meeting ID: 859 4169 0095
Secret Code: 002024

Title: The smallest vertebrate brain knows how to sing.

Abstract: In this talk I will describe our work on Danionella cerebrum, a tiny fish that is small and transparent even in adulthood, when neural circuits and behavior have matured. Despite having the smallest known adult vertebrate brain, Danionella displays a rich set of behaviors, including courtship, shoaling, schooling and – remarkably – acoustic communication. I will discuss recent insights into their vocalisation behavior, brain-wide processing of acoustic stimuli, and how these tiny fish solve a big problem posed by underwater acoustics: tell the direction of a sound source.

Ricardo Martinez-Garcia (CASUS Görlitz) will give a short external seminar, hosted by Pierre Ronceray (CINaM).

Location: Hexagone
Date: 16.03.2026
Time: 1:30 PM

CENTURI is also providing for off-campus participants only a zoom link to attend the seminar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85941690095?pwd=Nm5NVGhESGlUbG1FMnZ2dU5vSlkxUT09

Meeting ID: 859 4169 0095
Secret Code: 002024

SELF-ORGANIZATION AND ROBUSTNESS IN COMPLEX ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS.

Complex systems often self-organize into macroscopic regular patterns despite the stochastic dynamics and structural heterogeneity governing the microscopic scale. These emergent patterns, in turn, give rise to new functions and features, such as enhanced robustness to external perturbations. In many cases, however, different microscopic processes and interaction mechanisms can produce seemingly indistinguishable patterns that imply very different system-level consequences. Dryland ecosystems, where vegetation self-organizes into kilometric regular patterns in response to increased aridity, provide a paradigmatic example of this ambiguity: models invoking different plant-level interactions reproduce observed patterns, yet predict opposite responses to environmental perturbations.

Using ecological systems as examples in which robustness is directly linked to real-world challenges, I will show how this ambiguity arises in complex systems with intrinsically different microscopic dynamics and structures, dominated by interactions that are either local among sessile components or driven by encounters among moving components. I will then discuss ongoing efforts in my group to develop an understanding of complex-system robustness while capturing the microscopic interactions underlying self-organized patterns.