Report of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Society of Eukaryotic Microbiology (<scp>EuMik</scp>)

The Society of Eukaryotic Microbiology (EuMik—formerly German Society for Protozoology) met February 11–14, 2025 at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. These meetings bring together protistologists mainly from Germany and Austria, but attendance is increasingly broad, hence the renaming of the society. The aim of the meeting was to bring together young and advanced scientists working on any aspect of protistology. A total of 68 people participated to the meeting. The pre-meeting workshop was held on Tuesday, February 11th and attended by 30 people with two options offered: (1) Dung-dwelling Protists by Tristan Henderson (Mississippi State University, USA) and analyses of barcoding and metabarcoding amplicon sequencing datasets by Guillaume Lentendu (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland). The first day of the meeting proper (February 12th) was opened by a keynote lecture by Laure Guillou (Unseen Ecological Drivers: The Role of Marine Parasites in Ecosystem Dynamics and their Unexpected Biology) followed by nine contributed talks. The afternoon session on parasites and symbionts was opened by a keynote lecture by Elisabeth Hehenberger ([Core] Dinoflagellates—Never stop shopping for plastids) followed by five contributed talks and finally the Grell Prize Lecture followed by the poster session. Thursday, February 13th started with a keynote lecture by Yana Eglit (Exploring unseen cellular and behavioral diversity through cultivation) followed by nine contributed talks with a break in the middle to give participants time for discussions. In the afternoon, participants were offered a choice of four excursions: (1) Latenium, the largest archaeological museum in Switzerland, (2) the Centre Dürenmatt Neuchâtel, a museum dedicated to Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990), one of Switzerland's major writers, (3) the Space–time laboratory where the World's most precise atomic clocks are produced, and (4) the old city of Neuchâtel. After the excursions, Martin Schleger gave a honorary member lecture after which the society business meeting took place. The day ended with the conference dinner on the shore of Lake Neuchâtel with live music and dancing and the best student poster and oral presentations awards. The best student presentation was given by Dana Bludau: “Hitchhiking Bacteria: Diverging effects of different tyre wear particles on microbial biofilm composition,” the second-best students presentations (tied) were given by Johannes Werner: “Spatio-temporal patterns of Tetrahymena and other protists at the edge of chaos” and Julian Wagenhofer: “Disentangling the cryptic Rhynchomonas morphospecies complex by combining phylogenetic, morphological and autoecological methods.” The best student poster was presented by Martina Schalch-Schuler: “The planktonic freshwater ciliate Balanion planctonicum (Ciliophora, Prostomatea): a cryptic species complex or a ‘complex species’?,” the second best student poster was presented by Caroline Planche: “Impacts of tephra and dust deposition on testate amoebae communities in Iceland,” the third best student poster was presented by Xenia Schefer: “Geographic origin or phylogeny—what determines the ecophysiology of Prymnesium parvum?” Friday morning started with the keynote by Jens Boenigk (Stability of microbial food webs in a changing world), followed by eight contributed talks. The meeting ended with a final lunch. The meeting was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Hydrobiologie-Limnologie-Stiftung für Gewässerforschung. The International Society of Protistologists (ISOP) supported the meeting by providing funds for travel/housing awards for students and postdocs who were ISOP members, and for general running costs. The Society of Eukaryotic Microbiology covered the costs of the honorary speaker and the Grell prize lecture and helped with registration tasks and the website. The Swiss National Science Foundation covered the expenses of the keynote speakers and workshop presenters from outside of Switzerland. The University of Neuchâtel supported the meeting by providing the meeting rooms and space for the meals. Further support as a prize for the best student presentation and contribution to the general costs of the meeting was provided by Zeiss. The book of abstracts can be found on the Society of Eukaryotic Microbiology's website: https://www.protozoologie.de/meeting/44th-meeting/. Open access publishing facilitated by Universite de Neuchatel, as part of the Wiley - Universite de Neuchatel agreement via the Consortium Of Swiss Academic Libraries. The author has nothing to report.