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BES Annual Meeting
Extra Events
The BES is planning a number of events and activities outside the normal Programme of scientific sessions. A number of activities are listed below, all taking place on the Free Afternoon, Tuesday 11 September:
BES Grants Workshop 14:00 - 15:00
Organiser: Dominic Burton, Grants Officer
The BES and the Royal Society will be running a joint workshop aimed at enabling ecologists to write effective grant applications. There will be a short summary of grants available from both organisations, as well as a list of do's and don'ts for applicants and an indication of some of the things that granting bodies look for in applications. There will be a brief question and answer session with the chance to meet grant officers from both Societies.
The BES funds aim to promote ecological research and training as widely as possible mostly through a wide range of grants. For more details of these grants, please click here. The Royal Society supports scientists from postdoctoral level to senior professorships and also offer grants for a variety of purposes ranging from conference travel to the modernisation of laboratories; use this link to find out more.
Is Biodiversity Research Leading to Action? 14:00 - 15:00
Organisers: Nick Dusic, BES Science Policy Manager and BRAG (Biodiversity Research Advisory Group)
This meeting will be an opportunity to learn about UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group’s (UK BRAG) work to promote biodiversity research, support knowledge transfer activities and engage with European biodiversity research agenda. It will also provide a forum for discussing how well biodiversity research is leading to action. Points for discussion will include:
• How to make the case for biodiversity in a crowded policy and research arena?
• What are the barriers to implementing research findings?
• When does biodiversity research need co-ordination?
• Where has biodiversity research led to policy development or action on the ground?
UK BRAG is comprised of representatives from statutory conservation agencies, academia, research councils and government departments. The following members of UK BRAG will participate in the meeting:
• Peter Costigan (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
• Ian Bainbridge (Scottish Executive)
• David McCracken (Scottish Agricultural College)
• Andrew Pullin (Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation)
Further information on UK BRAG: www.ukbrag.org
Discussion session on an Ethics Policy: 15:15 - 16:15
Organiser: Rob Brooker
The Society’s Environmental Impacts Strategy Group (EISG) aims to minimise, wherever possible, the negative environmental impacts of the British Ecological Society. Its work is based upon an ethical standpoint –we believe that some of our environmental impacts are “a bad thing”. In so doing we move beyond the original guiding aim of the Society to promote the science of ecology. Many other current activities of the Society are also based on assumptions about ethics, but are such assumptions correct (do they genuinely reflect the ethics of our members) and should we, as a Society, look toward developing a formal ethics policy to act as a touchstone for future developments?
The session will be chaired by Phil Warren, beginning with a brief introduction concerning the aims of the session and its structure. Rob Brooker will then give a presentation on the workings of the EISG, how EISG activities force us to take an ethical standpoint, how (so far) we have had to assume which standpoint to take, and how a formal ethics policy might remove the need for such assumptions. The presentation would then go on to examine the form of ethics policies of other organisations as a possible starting point for developing a policy of our own (should we decide it is necessary). We will then open the session for comment and debate.
BES Publishing Workshop 15:15 - 16:30
Organiser: Lindsay Haddon and Sarah Dalrymple
Until you have been through the system a few times, submitting a paper can be a daunting experience. What can you do to improve the chances that it will emerge from the black hole sooner, rather than later, and relatively unscathed? We have asked editors and publishers from a range of journals to talk about questions such how they decide whether a manuscript has that extra something that sets it above the average and how getting involved with journals (e.g. as a reviewer) can help you as an author. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion after the series of short presentations. All are welcome, although the session is aimed at students and early-career ecologists.
WORKSHOP: Advances in Animal-attached remote sensing: 14:00 - 16:30
Organisers: Dr Dan Forman, Professor Graeme Hays & Professor Rory Wilson
‘Smart’ animal tags that record information on free living animals operating in their normal habitats are beginning to transform our wider understanding of whole animal biology and ecology. Increasingly information can be relayed via satellite (Argos) or by mobile phone networks, as well as being retained onboard for download if the instrument is recovered. This workshop will be comprised of three inter-related core sessions. Each session will commence with a basic review of the latest developments in key areas of this rapidly evolving field and will include practical demonstrations of a number if tags, tag attachment devices and telemetry systems. Each session will close with a short chaired discussion.
Outline Programme:
Each workshop session will comprise of a 40 minute introductory talk and equipment practical demonstrations (including basic data analysis) and will close with a 10 minute chaired open discussion.
Professor Rory Wilson, Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Swansea University, UK: Research thrusts in the development of an animal daily diary
Professor Graeme Hays, Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Swansea University, UK: Advances in satellite telemetry systems and applications
Dr Dan Forman, Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Swansea University, UK: Deployment dilemmas and welfare implications of animal-attached devices: towards a common code of practice
WORKSHOP: Research Synthesis and meta-analysis in applied ecology: 14:00 - 16:30
Organisers: Gavin Stewart, Jessica Gurevitch, Andrew Pullin and Julia Koricheva
Outline Programme:
Increasing use is made of meta-analytical tools to combine ecological data, but decisions such as when and how to combine data, weighting parameters, subgroup findings, surrogate end-points and the likely effects of bias and confounding are often poorly understood. The complexity of these issues is compounded by the array of computational techniques available. The objective of this workshop is to discuss the use of research synthesis and the importance and impact of these decisions.
• Introduction. Dr Gavin Stewart (Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation)
• Evidence Based Conservation. Professor Andrew Pullin (Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation)
• The use and abuse of meta-analysis for research synthesis. Professor Jessica Gurevitch (State University of New York)
• Bias in meta-analysis. Dr Julia Koricheva (Royal Holloway, University of London)
• Overview of statistical software for meta-analysis. Dr Gavin Stewart (Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation)
• General Discussion
The opportunity to discuss meta-analysis and evidence-based conservation will be extended to a nearby pub in the evening. Bring some data to crunch!
Special Session: Climate change impacts on tropical ecosystems: Wednesday 12 September
Organiser: Will Gosling, BES Tropical Special Interest Group
Keynote Speaker:
Chris Thomas, University of York, UK
Invited Speakers:
Francis Mayle University of Edinburgh, UK: Palaeoenvironmental evidence of climate change impacts on Neotropical ecosystems
Michael Bird, St Andrews University, UK: Palaeoenvironmental evidence of climate change impacts on SE Asian ecosystems
Yadvinder Mahli, University of Oxford, UK: Climate change impact on Neotropical ecosystems
Sue Page, University of Leicester, UK: Climate change impact on SE Asian ecosystems
Simon Lewis, Leeds University, UK: Climate change impact on African ecosystems
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