Advances in Antarctic Marine Biology Symposium

University Of Alabama At Birmingham, Birmingham AL

Investigators

Abstract

The project will support travel for participants to attend and give presentations at a national symposium entitled Advances in Antarctic Marine Biology that will review current and future directions of research in the field. This full day, society-wide symposium is scheduled to take place at the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) meetings on January 3-7, 2010 in Seattle, Washington. The speakers will cover a broad spectrum of topics that emphasize cutting edge science, novel techniques, and future directions. Topical areas will include, among others, the recent dramatic ecological impacts of climate changes across multiple trophic levels in Antarctic seas, advances in molecular and physiological aspects of cold adaptation in marine invertebrates (including larvae) and fish, the role of chemical ecology in structuring nearshore marine benthic communities of the Antarctic Peninsula, new understanding of marine invertebrate biogeography and phylogenetics based on novel molecular approaches, and the use of recently engineered instrumentation to elucidate foraging habitats of Antarctic marine mammals. The broader impacts of this proposal also include publication of the proceedings of this symposium in the international journal Integrative and Comparative Biology. These papers will provide an important and timely reference source for those interested in advances in polar marine biology. The symposium is anticipated to be of broad interest and among the most well attended by the approximately 1500 participants anticipated to attend the 2010 SICB meetings.