Species on the Move International Conference

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

9 - 12 February 2016

The global redistribution of our planets’ species is widely recognised as a fingerprint of climate change, however, the mechanisms that underpin such range shifts are poorly understood. Additionally, the pervasiveness of range shifts, from poles to the equator, and depths of oceans to tops of mountains, provides us with unique opportunity to advance our theory of biogeography, evolutionary ecology and macroecology.

Our move into the ‘anthropocene’ allows unprecedented opportunity to understand the mechanisms that drive species distributions across ecosystems and address the fundamental tenet of ecology: what lives where and why?  However, such dramatic changes also pose significant challenges for sustainable management of our natural resources.

We see this conference targeting scientists and natural resource managers working in the disciplines of global change, biogeography and evolution, and relevant in contexts of natural resource management, biodiversity management and conservation, and theoretical ecology.

Species responses to climate change is a rapidly evolving research field, however, much of our progress is being made in independent research areas: e.g. understanding the process vs responding to the implications, terrestrial vs marine ecosystems, global meta-analyses vs in depth species-specific approaches. This interdisciplinary conference would develop connections between these parallel streams, and across temporal and spatial scales.

If you or your organisation/society would like to help shape this exciting conference, please contact Dr Gretta Pecl (Gretta.Pecl@utas.edu.au) or Professor Stephen Williams (Stephen.Williams@jcu.edu.au) for more information.

We would welcome suggestions for theme areas, Steering Committee members, Theme Organisers, Session Chairs and Plenary Speakers.

Dr Gretta Pecl & Professor Stephen Williams
Conference Co-Convenors

www.ausmepa.org.au