PRE-CONFERENCE EXCURSIONS
Dzibilchaltun ruins and Progresso town
Ria Celestun (flamingos)
PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS
"Visualizing Evolution in Space and Time"
David M. Kidd, National Evolutionary Synthesis
Center (NESCent),
Durham, North Carolina, USA
Geophylogenies are geographically referenced
phylogenetic trees. This workshop will
introduce the geophylogenetic data model
and software to create and visualize them.
Particular attention will be paid to using
'Geophylobuilder for ArcGIS' (https://www.nescent.org/wg_EvoViz/GeoPhyloBuilder)
and 3D visualization with ArcScene, including
the output of 'fly-by' movies. The use
of KML and earth browsers will also be
considered. Experience of GIS is desirable
but not essential.
This will be a full-day, pre-conference
workshop (8 January 2009), limited to the
first 40-45 people who sign up. Cost is
$75 US.
Dave Kidd and Xianhua Liu designed and
implemented 'Geophylobuilder for ArcGIS,'
and Dave and Michael Ritchie presented
a "manifesto" for GIS application in evolutionary
science in a guest editorial in the Journal
of Biogeography (2006, 33:1851-1865). For
further background information, please
see Dave's guest article, "Geophylogenies - Uniting
Space and Time" in the Summer 2007 issue
of the IBS Newsletter (http://www.biogeography.org/newsletter.htm).
"Communicating Biogeography"
Robert J. Whittaker
and Richard Ladle, University of Oxford
The workshop will provide an overview
of how to put together a paper for journal
submission (adopting an appropriate writing
style, organisation of material, structuring
a convincing narrative, pace of referencing,
importance of identifying core questions/hypotheses,
use of tables, figures, etc), what happens
in the peer review process, what reviewers
and editors are looking for, the role of
co-authors, etc. Participants will be given
some draft manuscript material and specific
tasks to work on (e.g. how to write Aims
statements, writing abstracts, editing
text, preparing legends). The template
for the exercises will be the Journal of
Biogeography format and guidelines, but
the workshop is intended to be of general
value in how to prepare manuscripts for
submission to any scientific journal.
This will be a half-day, pre-conference
workshop (8 January 2009), limited to 30
participants. It is intended primarily
for postgraduates and those who have completed
their doctorates in the last 2-3 years.
Cost is $50 US.
Rob Whittaker was sole editor and then
editor-in-chief of Global Ecology and Biogeography
from 1995 to 2004, and has been editor-in-chief
of the Journal of Biogeography since 2004.
He takes a keen interest in assisting writers,
particularly graduate students, to improve
their ability to communicate their research
through publication. Please see his article,
"Outreach - Communicating Our Research" in
the Winter 2007 issue of the IBS Newsletter
(http://www.biogeography.org/newsletter.htm).
Richard Ladle is course director for the
Biodiversity, Conservation and Management
MSc, at the Oxford University Centre for
the Environment. He has a special interest
in science communication (see, e.g. Ladle,
R.J. [2008] Catching fairies and the public
representation of biogeography. Journal
of Biogeography 35:388-391).
"Spatial Analysis in Macroecology"
Jose Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho, Richard
Field, and Thiago Rangel
Universidade Federal de Goias, Brazil,
University of Nottingham, UK, and University
of Connecticut, USA
Spatial Analysis in Macroecology (SAM)
was developed as user-friendly software
to perform different types of exploratory
spatial analysis and spatial modeling,
which have been applied in different fields
of macroecology and biogeography. It is
now in its third version, and two levels
of workshops will be available in Merida.
Basic SAM (morning) - For those without
experience with SAM, we will briefly discuss
how available techniques can be applied
and interpreted, and we will provide simple
examples of how to run them in SAM. Practical
classes in SAM will show how to input data
and how to perform basic techniques, such
as exploratory spatial autocorrelation
using correlograms, basics on statistical
inference, spatial correlation, and different
techniques of spatial regression, including
autoregressive models.
Advanced SAM (afternoon) - For those with
some experience with SAM or spatial analysis,
we will discuss new developments in spatial
analysis as applied to macroecology and
biogeography, including comparison of multiple
forms of spatial regression, eigenvector-based
spatial filtering, geographically weighted
regression, multi-model inference, and
autologistic methods. We also will show
how the new routines of SAM 3.0 allow one
to use these techniques.
Each session be a half-day, pre-conference
workshop (8 January 2009), each limited
to 30 participants. If there is sufficient
interest, we may be able to offer an additional,
half-day session (basic or advanced) to
30 people. Cost is $50 US for each session,
or $75 US for both sessions.
Alexandre Diniz-Filho, Thiago Rangel,
and Mauricio Bini have presented over 20
courses on spatial statistics in graduate
courses and at conferences worldwide, using
the SAM software that they developed. Along
with Richard Field, they presented the
initial tests of SAM version 2.0 at two
very popular workshops organized by Richard
and Lindsay Banin at the 2007 IBS meetings
in Tenerife, and will be using the newly
released SAM 3.0 in Merida. For further
information, please see their guest article
in the Summer 2007 issue of the IBS Newsletter
(http://www.biogeography.org/newsletter.htm).
SYMPOSIA
"Pattern and Process at Biogeographic
Boundaries"
Organizers:
Brett R. Riddle, University of Nevada,
Las Vegas
David J. Hafner, New Mexico Museum of Natural
History
Confirmed speakers
include: Brett R. Riddle, Juan J. Morrone,
Laurel S. Collins,
R.
Toby Pennington, John Klicka, Todd
Castoe, & David
J. Hafner
Description:
The biogeographic boundaries that suture
together the great biogeographic regions
of the world often coincide with zones
of dynamic geotectonics and geomorphic
evolution or paleoclimatically-driven dynamics.
These boundaries represent zones of interchange
between long-isolated biotas, followed
by episodes of rapid extinction and diversification,
resulting in novel ecological assemblages.
Biogeographic boundaries therefore offer
biogeographers a particularly informative
suite of natural experiments regarding
the interplay between geology, paleoclimatology,
and biotic interchange in the historical
diversification of species, and might provide
insights into the significance of current
and future human-mediated biotic invasions.
The transition zone between the Neotropical
and Nearctic regions represents one Earth's
great regions of biogeographic, ecological,
and evolutionary transformation. Geomorphic
transformations that are roughly coincident
within a Late Cenozoic timeframe provide
a unifying theme for the histories of biotic
dispersal and diversification between northern
South America and southwestern North America.
Our invited speakers will be summarizing
common, complementary, and competing patterns
and processes among a diversity of organisms
across this complicated biotic boundary.
"The Biogeography of Disease"
Organizers:
Kate Smith (Brown University)
Sam Scheiner (National Science Foundation)
Confirmed speakers
include: Leon Blaustein, Peter Daszak, Kate Jones, Christopher
C. Mundt, Amy
B. Pedersen, Krystal L. Rypien, & Sara
States & Amy S.
Turmelle
Description:
Recent studies suggest that infectious
diseases in humans, wildlife populations,
domesticated plants and animals are emerging
at unusually high rates. Emerging infectious
diseases are those caused by parasites
and pathogens that have recently increased
in incidence, occupied host species or
geographic extent; have been newly discovered;
or are caused by a newly evolved agent.
But what drives the emergence and spread
of infectious disease? The biogeographic
processes that contribute to disease
spread are not well understood, but have
become critical in a world increasingly
globalize. These issues will be addressed
by scientists whose research will shed
a collective light on the patterns and
processes that govern the geography of
infectious disease.
"Biogeographic disjunctions between Asia
and the Americas"
Organizers:
Jun Wen (Smithsonian Institution)
Robert E. Ricklefs (University of Missouri-St.
Louis)
Confirmed speakers
include: Jun Wen, Richard H. Ree, Beth
Shapiro, Ivan Jimenez,
Stephen
A. Smith, & Susanne S. Renner
Description:
Biogeographic disjunctions between Asia
and North America have attracted many
investigators during the past 15 years,
and as a result our understanding of
the biogeographic connections between
the two continents has progressed steadily.
This is especially true concerning the
phylogenetic relationships of disjunct
lineages, the timing of the disjunctions,
and migration pathways. The results are
more complicated than first thought and
further progress on biogeographic dynamics
now requires integrated efforts among
biogeographers, systematists, ecologists,
and paleobotanists, and the examination
of many more tropical lineages shared
between Asia and the New World, not just
North America. The symposium highlights
recent advances in studying the biogeographic
disjunctions between Asia and the Americas,
emphasizing issues that have not been
widely discussed in past symposia and
meetings (e.g., tropical disjunctions,
and morphological and ecological patterns).
It promotes the involvement of young
colleagues and hopefully will stimulate
future work on such intercontinental
disjunctions in the next decade.
"Extinction Biogeography"
Organizers:
Jack Williams, Department of Geography,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Steve Jackson, Department of Botany, University
of Wyoming
Felisa Smith, Department of Biology, University
of New Mexico
Confirmed speakers
include: Stuart Pimm, Doug Erwin, Kirk
Johnson, Kate Lyons,
Alison Boyer, Sandy Andelman, John Anderson, & Josh
Donlan
Description:
Extinction, a primary evolutionary force,
has been central to shaping current
biogeographic patterns of diversity
and distribution.
Increasingly detailed paleontological
records are providing new insights
into the causes and consequences of
the five
mass extinctions observed in the geological
record. (The convention site in Merida,
Mexico, overlies the famous Chicxulub
crater, likely site of the end-Cretaceous
extraterrestial impact.) We may be
in the midst of a "Sixth Extinction" as
human activities have unleashed a new
wave of species extinctions, beginning
in prehistory and continuing through
the present day. Threats to species
are expected to grow during the 21st
-century
due to increasing habitat fragmentation,
increased resource demand by growing
human populations and economies, and
climate change. This symposium reviews
1) our current state of knowledge about
processes shaping the biogeographic
patterns of extinction, at timescales
ranging
from deep geological time into the
near future, and 2) current and proposed
ways
in which biogeographers and conservation
biologists, working in concert, can
reduce the severity of the on-going
Sixth Extinction.
POST-CONFERENCE EXCURSIONS
Chichen Itza ruins
Loltun caves and Uxmail ruins
