Topics at ISME18
- Animal microbial ecology
- Biophysical interactions in microbial ecosystems
- Chemical microbial ecology
- Computational and experimental approaches in microbial ecology
- Computational models in microbial ecology
- Controlling microbiome composition, one at a time
- Deep subsurface microbial ecology
- Engineering microbial communities
- Evolution of microbial communities
- Extreme environment microbial ecology
- Freshwater microbial ecology
- Global biogeochemical cycles
- Human microbial ecology
- Marine microbial ecology
- Metabolic interactions in microbiomes
- Microbial ecology and climate change
- Microbial ecology of Anti-Microbial Resistance
- Microbial ecology of food
- Microbial ecology of fungi, protists, and other eucaryotes
- Microbial ecology of the built environment
- Microbial ecology of viruses and phages
- Microbial invasion ecology
- Molecular aspects of microbes-microbes - microbes-host interactions
- Newly discovered branches of the tree of life
- Plant microbial ecology
- Soil microbial ecology
- Spatial organisation of microbial communities
- Synthetic biology in microbial ecology
- Theoretical microbial ecology
- Translational microbial ecology and One Health
Each topic equals a session. A session consists of a morning and an afternoon slot of two hours each. Per session, there will be 4 invited speakers (30 minute talks), 7 contributed talks (15 minutes each), as selected from the abstracts, and 6 poster pitches of 2 minutes each, which are also selected from the abstracts.
Typically, a session would look like:
| Morning Session | Afternoon Session |
| 10.30 - 11.00 Invited Talk 1 | 14.00 - 14.30 Invited Talk 3 |
| 11.00 - 11.30 Invited Talk 2 | 14.30 - 15.00 Invited Talk 4 |
| 11.30 - 11.45 Contributed Talk 1 | 15.00 - 15.15 Contributed Talk 5 |
| 11.45 - 12.00 Contributed Talk 2 | 15.15 - 15.30 Poster Pitches (6) |
| 12.00 - 12.15 Contributed Talk 3 | 15.30 - 15.45 Contributed Talk 6 |
| 12.15 - 12.30 Contributed Talk 4 | 15.45 - 16.00 Contributed Talk 7 |
However, few sessions may deviate from this structure due to organizational reasons.