What ecosystems know about daylight — and what we don’t yet

DLA Annual Conference 2026
Parallel Session F

Friday, 29 May 2026
from 11:00 – 12:30

Lead
Prof. em. Peter Edwards, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Description
Daylight is one of the most fundamental forces shaping the natural world. Ecosystems — from forests and water bodies to soils, coastlines, and urban green spaces — have evolved in intimate relationship with light: its quantity, quality, timing, and variability. And yet, across the many disciplines that study these environments, the role of daylight often remains implicit, underexplored, or siloed within individual fields.

This session invites researchers from across the environmental and natural sciences — and beyond — to reflect on what we know, and what we don’t, about daylight in ecosystems. Forest and aquatic research offer rich examples of how light structures living systems, but the conversation is deliberately open to other ecosystems and disciplinary perspectives. Where are the gaps in our understanding? What questions remain unanswered? And where might cross-disciplinary dialogue open new directions?

Rather than presenting finished research, this session is designed as a space for exchange and curiosity — a starting point for collaborations that could bridge the environmental sciences with fields such as architecture, human health, or data science.

Objectives

  • Share perspectives on how daylight shapes ecosystems across different environments and research traditions, using forest and aquatic contexts as anchors for broader discussion.
  • Surface knowledge gaps and open questions where daylight in natural systems remains poorly understood or underrepresented in research.
  • Foster connections across disciplines by exploring where environmental science perspectives on daylight can enrich — and be enriched by — other fields represented at the conference.
  • Identify promising directions for future collaboration and lay the groundwork for potential new project ideas emerging from the session.