Instructions for presenters
Virtual attendees have the option of presenting one live virtual talk during the virtual conference May 29-30, 2025.
In-person attendees have the option of presenting one in-person talk and/or one poster during the in-person meeting in Athens, GA (June 21-24, 2025). In addition, in-person attendees may also present one virtual live talk at the virtual conference.
The talk limits above only apply to the presenting author; you can be a co-author on multiple talks or posters given by others. The person presenting the talk should be the one who submits it, even if they are not lead author on the work.
Once registered for the meeting, a link to submit/edit a talk or poster will appear in your 'Profile home' in the registration system. Talks are accepted first come, first served until the submission deadline, or until capacity is reached.
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In-person attendees have the option of presenting one in-person talk and/or one poster during the in-person meeting in Athens, GA (June 21-24, 2025). In addition, in-person attendees may also present one virtual live talk at the virtual conference.
The talk limits above only apply to the presenting author; you can be a co-author on multiple talks or posters given by others. The person presenting the talk should be the one who submits it, even if they are not lead author on the work.
Once registered for the meeting, a link to submit/edit a talk or poster will appear in your 'Profile home' in the registration system. Talks are accepted first come, first served until the submission deadline, or until capacity is reached.
Jump to:
Important Deadlines
April 4 |
Deadline: In-Person Talk submission |
April 15 |
Deadline: Virtual Talk submission Deadline: Mayr & Hamilton award consideration |
June 1 |
Deadline: Poster submission |
Posters
Posters are in-person only. Those wanting to present a poster should sign up using the poster submission option which becomes available after registering as an in-person attendee (by visiting your "Profile Home" in the registration system). We recommend reviewing these Tips for Preparing Your Poster.
All posters will be accepted if submitted by the June 1 deadline. Submissions after June 1 are discouraged, but may be possible, space permitting. Unless you are applying for the poster prize competition, abstracts are optional but encouraged (300 word limit). If an abstract is provided, it will be available to attendees through the online program. Abstracts will not be published in hard-copy form. You can edit details of an existing poster, or withdraw it, by logging back into the submission site. Such changes will be automatically (and instantly) reflected in the conference program, once it is live.
Posters can be a maximum of 1.2 m x 1.2 m (4 ft x 4 ft) and pushpins will be provided. Poster boards will be numbered and presenters should use the assigned space for their given session. Note: there is more than evening one poster session -and posters will be assigned to one of the two evening sessions. Posters should be displayed by noon on the day of the assigned poster session and removed by noon of the following day. Presenters should attend their poster during their assigned session.
Poster invitations: As in previous years, we will feature a poster invitation system that allows presenters to browse a list of conference registrants ahead of the meeting and select up to three who will receive a personalized invitation to their poster (indicating the title, author(s), date, time and location). Past experience shows that most invitees make the effort to visit a poster to which they are invited. This is very different from a talk, which may not be attended by the specific people you would like to meet and may not allow one-on-one interactions. Therefore, if you want to discuss your work one-on-one with someone, consider giving a poster.
Archiving and sharing your poster: We encourage you to consider archiving your poster. Doing so makes it publicly available and citable by yourself and others. In addition, those interested can easily download it for later reference and it may provide increased visibility for your work. We suggest figshare as content deposited on figshare is stored under Creative Commons licenses that allow you to retain ownership and get credit for your work. More details about their licensing options are available here. Figshare is simple to use and allow you to easily generate a QR code that can be included on your printed poster allowing users to directly access your poster online. Be sure to include Evol2024 as a tag when uploading your poster.
Posters are in-person only. Those wanting to present a poster should sign up using the poster submission option which becomes available after registering as an in-person attendee (by visiting your "Profile Home" in the registration system). We recommend reviewing these Tips for Preparing Your Poster.
All posters will be accepted if submitted by the June 1 deadline. Submissions after June 1 are discouraged, but may be possible, space permitting. Unless you are applying for the poster prize competition, abstracts are optional but encouraged (300 word limit). If an abstract is provided, it will be available to attendees through the online program. Abstracts will not be published in hard-copy form. You can edit details of an existing poster, or withdraw it, by logging back into the submission site. Such changes will be automatically (and instantly) reflected in the conference program, once it is live.
Posters can be a maximum of 1.2 m x 1.2 m (4 ft x 4 ft) and pushpins will be provided. Poster boards will be numbered and presenters should use the assigned space for their given session. Note: there is more than evening one poster session -and posters will be assigned to one of the two evening sessions. Posters should be displayed by noon on the day of the assigned poster session and removed by noon of the following day. Presenters should attend their poster during their assigned session.
Poster invitations: As in previous years, we will feature a poster invitation system that allows presenters to browse a list of conference registrants ahead of the meeting and select up to three who will receive a personalized invitation to their poster (indicating the title, author(s), date, time and location). Past experience shows that most invitees make the effort to visit a poster to which they are invited. This is very different from a talk, which may not be attended by the specific people you would like to meet and may not allow one-on-one interactions. Therefore, if you want to discuss your work one-on-one with someone, consider giving a poster.
Archiving and sharing your poster: We encourage you to consider archiving your poster. Doing so makes it publicly available and citable by yourself and others. In addition, those interested can easily download it for later reference and it may provide increased visibility for your work. We suggest figshare as content deposited on figshare is stored under Creative Commons licenses that allow you to retain ownership and get credit for your work. More details about their licensing options are available here. Figshare is simple to use and allow you to easily generate a QR code that can be included on your printed poster allowing users to directly access your poster online. Be sure to include Evol2024 as a tag when uploading your poster.
Talk sign-up
Those wanting to give a contributed talk, or who have been invited to give a special talk (e.g. plenary or award), should sign up via the talk registration link which becomes available in your 'Profile home' after registering and paying as a meeting attendee. Virtual attendees can sign up to give a live talk during the the virtual 2-day conference (May 29-30), while in-person attendees can sign up to give an in-person talk during the in-person conference (Jun 20-24). In-person attendees have the additional option to present one virtual talk if they wish, but a separate abstract submission must be made for in-person and virtual talks (even if it's the same topic). In-person attendees may be the presenter for one in-person talk, although they may be a co-author on multiple talks given by others.
The deadline for talk submission is April 4 for both the in-person conference and the April 15 for the virtual conference. Talk submissions may close earlier if capacity is reached. Those applying for the Hamilton or Mayr competitions must submit their abstracts in the virtual submission system by April 15. Hamilton and Mayr applicants may also choose to present the same or different talk in-person as well, but must submit a separate in-person submission to do so. We recommend that you register and submit your talk early to secure a spot, as talks are allocated first-submitted first-filled.
Virtual talks: These are 14 minutes in total length and given live by the presenter via Zoom, with a live virtual audience. The presenter is expected to be available to answer questions immediately after their talk. For those anticipating internet difficulties, it may be possible for a recorded talk to be shown in place of a live-virtual talk with advance planning.
In-person talks: These are presented live at the in-person meeting, meaning you must be present in Montréal. When submitting an in-person talk, there are two types to choose from:
Submitting your talk:
Those wanting to give a contributed talk, or who have been invited to give a special talk (e.g. plenary or award), should sign up via the talk registration link which becomes available in your 'Profile home' after registering and paying as a meeting attendee. Virtual attendees can sign up to give a live talk during the the virtual 2-day conference (May 29-30), while in-person attendees can sign up to give an in-person talk during the in-person conference (Jun 20-24). In-person attendees have the additional option to present one virtual talk if they wish, but a separate abstract submission must be made for in-person and virtual talks (even if it's the same topic). In-person attendees may be the presenter for one in-person talk, although they may be a co-author on multiple talks given by others.
The deadline for talk submission is April 4 for both the in-person conference and the April 15 for the virtual conference. Talk submissions may close earlier if capacity is reached. Those applying for the Hamilton or Mayr competitions must submit their abstracts in the virtual submission system by April 15. Hamilton and Mayr applicants may also choose to present the same or different talk in-person as well, but must submit a separate in-person submission to do so. We recommend that you register and submit your talk early to secure a spot, as talks are allocated first-submitted first-filled.
Virtual talks: These are 14 minutes in total length and given live by the presenter via Zoom, with a live virtual audience. The presenter is expected to be available to answer questions immediately after their talk. For those anticipating internet difficulties, it may be possible for a recorded talk to be shown in place of a live-virtual talk with advance planning.
In-person talks: These are presented live at the in-person meeting, meaning you must be present in Montréal. When submitting an in-person talk, there are two types to choose from:
- Regular contributed. These are 14 minutes in total length and are open to all attendees not giving any other type of talk. This is the appropriate talk-type for the majority of attendees, including those wishing to apply to thematic symposia.
- Plenary or award. These are by prior invitation only and include presidential addresses and talks by the winners of the Dobzhansky, Early Career Investigator, and John Maynard Smith prizes. Award talk timings differ from regular talks and will be coordinated with presenters. Plenary and award winners should choose this talk type and submit their talk details by the May 1 deadline. Plenary talks will be live-streamed and recorded for later on-demand viewing.
Submitting your talk:
- Keywords are critical. Virtual and regular contributed in-person talks will be grouped into sessions using the keywords you select, so choose carefully.
- Abstracts are encouraged and are required if applying for SSB Mayr or SSE Hamilton awards (300 word limit).
- Additional alternate-language abstracts are encouraged. Include this alongside your English abstract, if you can (300 word total limit for one abstract).
- Edit or withdraw your talk at any time by logging back into the submission system. Changes will be automatically and instantly reflected in the program (once available). Changes after the abstract submission deadline will not affect the session your talk is assigned to, however.
Talk preparation & delivery
Virtual talks and contributed in-person talks should be a maximum of 14 minutes, leaving 1 minute of movement/setup time between talks. We recommend a 12-13 minute talk, allowing 1-2 minutes for questions. You may want to give a slightly shorter talk for virtual to allow for any connection difficulties. The 14 minutes total time for both in-person and virtual talks will be strictly enforced.
Timing system: For in-person talks, different audio chimes will sound to denote the start of your talk, a 2 minute warning (i.e. at minute 12), and the end of your talk (i.e. at minute 14), indicating the start of the 1 minute movement/setup time. Please respect these. If the chime systems fails, appoint someone to monitor the time and alert speakers at the appropriate moments. In the virtual meeting, we will not have a set of centralized chimes that will play. Within your Zoom session, the host will be using the nonverbal reactions to let speakers know when they’ve reached 12 minutes into their talk. At 14 minutes, speakers will be prompted to stop sharing their screen, so that the next presenter can share their slides.
Accessibility: For guidance on preparing your talk, including making it more accessible, review these Best Practices for Preparing Your Oral Presentation.
Copyright: Please adhere to ethical and legal reuse of any images/ videos in your presentations. You may find the information in this document useful.
Format (in-person talks): Presentations should be formatted using the widescreen (16:9) slide size, not 4:3. Only Powerpoint and pdfs are supported. Additional information about supported file types, embedding audio/video files, fonts, etc. is available here. Slides may be uploaded ahead of and during the conference via Edit / Withdraw / Upload link on your Profile home in the registration system (preferred method), or by visiting the Speaker Ready Room onsite at the conference. Slides must be uploaded by 5 pm on the day BEFORE your scheduled presentation. You can review your talk in the Speaker Ready Room and technicians will be there to help resolve any compatibility or formatting issues. All session rooms, and the Speaker Ready Room, will have PCs with Office 365 and the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. If your presentation was prepared on a Mac or other non-Windows system, we recommend that you review it in the Speaker Ready Room ahead of time. A PDF may be the safer option in this case.
Format (virtual meeting talks): Speakers at the virtual meeting will share their slides through Zoom. By default, people will see both the screen you are sharing, and whatever is shown from your webcam. Some authors may want to combine their video and their slides into a single screen. This can be done under the Advanced options of screen sharing, and choosing Slides as Virtual Background. You will then have your image super imposed on your slides; you can drag that to where you like on the screen, and change the size of it. (If you choose to do this, we strongly recommend you set your slide template to have a box where your image will be, to keep you from trying to use that portion of the screen). A downside to this is that you won’t be able to use Presenter mode when doing so.
Zoom events allows for both automated captions and translations. While these are not perfect, they are surprisingly robust to even some scientific terminology. The speaker must set the speaking language. Each participant will be able to set whether a) captions are shown on their end (this will not affect any other participant), and b) what language those displayed captions are in.
Virtual talks and contributed in-person talks should be a maximum of 14 minutes, leaving 1 minute of movement/setup time between talks. We recommend a 12-13 minute talk, allowing 1-2 minutes for questions. You may want to give a slightly shorter talk for virtual to allow for any connection difficulties. The 14 minutes total time for both in-person and virtual talks will be strictly enforced.
Timing system: For in-person talks, different audio chimes will sound to denote the start of your talk, a 2 minute warning (i.e. at minute 12), and the end of your talk (i.e. at minute 14), indicating the start of the 1 minute movement/setup time. Please respect these. If the chime systems fails, appoint someone to monitor the time and alert speakers at the appropriate moments. In the virtual meeting, we will not have a set of centralized chimes that will play. Within your Zoom session, the host will be using the nonverbal reactions to let speakers know when they’ve reached 12 minutes into their talk. At 14 minutes, speakers will be prompted to stop sharing their screen, so that the next presenter can share their slides.
Accessibility: For guidance on preparing your talk, including making it more accessible, review these Best Practices for Preparing Your Oral Presentation.
Copyright: Please adhere to ethical and legal reuse of any images/ videos in your presentations. You may find the information in this document useful.
Format (in-person talks): Presentations should be formatted using the widescreen (16:9) slide size, not 4:3. Only Powerpoint and pdfs are supported. Additional information about supported file types, embedding audio/video files, fonts, etc. is available here. Slides may be uploaded ahead of and during the conference via Edit / Withdraw / Upload link on your Profile home in the registration system (preferred method), or by visiting the Speaker Ready Room onsite at the conference. Slides must be uploaded by 5 pm on the day BEFORE your scheduled presentation. You can review your talk in the Speaker Ready Room and technicians will be there to help resolve any compatibility or formatting issues. All session rooms, and the Speaker Ready Room, will have PCs with Office 365 and the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. If your presentation was prepared on a Mac or other non-Windows system, we recommend that you review it in the Speaker Ready Room ahead of time. A PDF may be the safer option in this case.
Format (virtual meeting talks): Speakers at the virtual meeting will share their slides through Zoom. By default, people will see both the screen you are sharing, and whatever is shown from your webcam. Some authors may want to combine their video and their slides into a single screen. This can be done under the Advanced options of screen sharing, and choosing Slides as Virtual Background. You will then have your image super imposed on your slides; you can drag that to where you like on the screen, and change the size of it. (If you choose to do this, we strongly recommend you set your slide template to have a box where your image will be, to keep you from trying to use that portion of the screen). A downside to this is that you won’t be able to use Presenter mode when doing so.
Zoom events allows for both automated captions and translations. While these are not perfect, they are surprisingly robust to even some scientific terminology. The speaker must set the speaking language. Each participant will be able to set whether a) captions are shown on their end (this will not affect any other participant), and b) what language those displayed captions are in.
Recording of talks
Captioning. When viewing recorded talks on the Evolution Meetings YouTube channel, attendees will be able to turn on captions, should they wish.
- Virtual talks will be recorded as they are given on the Zoom-based virtual platform. Those who wish to opt out of recording will have that option.
- Those giving a regular contributed in-person talk have their talk recorded at the meeting and uploaded to the Evolution Meetings YouTube channel after the in-person conference. We encourage presenters to do this to increase exposure to their talk and allow in-person attendees who missed a talk to view the recording later.
- Plenary talks at the in-person meeting will be live-streamed, recorded, and then posted to the Evolution Meetings YouTube channel.
Captioning. When viewing recorded talks on the Evolution Meetings YouTube channel, attendees will be able to turn on captions, should they wish.
Social media
The Evolution Meetings support the communication and discussion of science. Information presented at the meeting (in audio or visual format) may be reported and discussed by attendees and science writers via blogs, Twitter, or other platforms. We require that this be done respectfully and without direct reproduction of visual materials (e.g., no posting photos of slides or recordings), unless permission is obtained from the presenter or they have already made this information freely available in an open-source forum. Presenters are welcome to share their own material publicly. Presenters not wanting information from their presentations to be broadcast publicly should explicitly state so in their presentation. See the meeting Broadcasting Policy for more information.
The Evolution Meetings support the communication and discussion of science. Information presented at the meeting (in audio or visual format) may be reported and discussed by attendees and science writers via blogs, Twitter, or other platforms. We require that this be done respectfully and without direct reproduction of visual materials (e.g., no posting photos of slides or recordings), unless permission is obtained from the presenter or they have already made this information freely available in an open-source forum. Presenters are welcome to share their own material publicly. Presenters not wanting information from their presentations to be broadcast publicly should explicitly state so in their presentation. See the meeting Broadcasting Policy for more information.