In his talk Eduardo Colombo will use concepts from physics and ecology to set a platform for a broad discussion about perception, communication, and measurement. Starting from the idea that “more is different”, he will explore how interactions between individual components can generate new forms of organization, from multicellular organisms to forests and marine ecosystems.

These interactions generate spatial and temporal patterns that can encode information that is not directly accessible to our senses, but can be detected and interpreted through scientific instruments, mathematical models, and ecological theory. Once decoded, these patterns can potentially guide how we understand and intervene in ecological systems, creating a feedback between the ecosystem and the observer.

This leads to a thought-provoking hypothesis: if ecosystems benefit from our responses, could the evolution of biological traits influence the quality and detectability of the signals we receive—effectively allowing ecosystems to become better at asking for help? More broadly, this raises the question of why communication exists in the first place: being able to sense and respond to others can mean survival, and whenever communication creates a benefit, there is a reason to maintain the connection—while connections that no longer provide a benefit may eventually be broken.