Schedule

Our team will be ready to assist with your registration, provide conference materials, and answer any queries. Coffee will be available upon your arrival.

Take a breather and mingle with peers during our coffee break. It's the perfect opportunity to discuss the morning's insights, refresh, and energize yourself for the upcoming sessions.

This is an excellent opportunity to network, reflect on the morning's work, and prepare for the afternoon sessions. You may also enjoy your meal on the outdoor terrace! Please note that bringing outside food into the Delta is prohibited. Those who did not select meals during registration must consume their meals outside the conference center.

Several CSEE members with recent experience on the Ecology and Evolution evaluation panel will lead a mock review of a fictitious NSERC Discovery Grant (DG) proposal. Following a brief explanation of the evaluation process, the panel will conduct a simulated review, highlighting key issues that frequently arise during evaluations—some of which can strengthen applications, while others may be detrimental. Dr. Lauren Segall, an NSERC officer, will then explain the process a DG application undergoes after evaluation, culminating in a funding decision. Following her presentation, attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions, both to the review panel and to Dr. Segall. Below are links to the two key documents used by DG evaluation panels. It would be helpful to review them in advance, especially the one-page evaluation grid, which outlines the three merit indicators for a DG proposal. Students and postdoctoral researchers are also strongly encouraged to attend to gain firsthand insight into a grant evaluation process and discover funding opportunities that can directly impact their career advancement. Peer Review Manual https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/_doc/Reviewers-Examinateurs/CompleteManual-ManualEvalComplet_eng.pdf Evaluation Grid https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/_doc/Professors-Professeurs/DG_Merit_Indicators_eng.pdf

Moderator: Dominique Gravel

Climate change ecology

Moderator: Steve Heard

Evolutionary ecology

Moderator: Evelien de Greef

Marine mammals

Many hosts have external microbiomes that provide critical functions to their hosts, including defense against abiotic fluctuations. Better understanding assembly and evolution of these microbiomes is essential for predicting and manipulating responses of macro-organisms to global change. Plant aerial microbiomes (phyllosphere microbiomes) are an important study system due to their ecological diversity, abundance and role in plant stress responses and ecosystem health, and potential contributions to evolutionary trait change in plant hosts. Recent increasing interest and development of scientific tools in this long understudied system makes it an ideal moment for synthesis in this field. To collect this expertise, we propose a diverse set of speakers. Lajoie co-organized several regional and international conferences, including QCBS annual symposia and the 2022 joint ESA/CSEE symposium. O’Brien co-organized the regional NSF/MCB Outreach Workshop at UNH, 2024. This symposium will be relevant for a broad range of ecologists working on host-microbe interactions, microbiome ecology, or global change.

This session is led by members of the Canadian Community of Statistical Ecology/ Communauté canadienne de la statistique et de l'écologie (CCSE) an informal group of (currently) more than 60 researchers who are working to create a new joint section of the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution and the Statistical Society of Canada. The new section aims to bring together members of both the ecology and statistics communities who are interested in the development and application of advanced statistical methods to model every aspect of ecological systems to learn about their dynamics, distributions and their interactions with other populations, and to contribute critical information for implementing conservation practices. This session highlights the contributions of diverse researchers within the CCSE, and we plan to present a similar session at the 2025 meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada to reach members of both groups.

Over the past half millennium, humans have amassed vast natural history collections that once proved foundational to our understanding of Earth’s biodiversity. Now, a growing body of work suggests that the value of these collections likely extends much further, as the mobilization of the various data stored in herbaria and museums is set to transform our understanding of biodiversity change in the Anthropocene. In this symposium, we showcase the multifaceted and expanding role these institutions and their collections play in modern biodiversity research: from resolving biogeographic patterns, to monitoring responses to global change, to directly informing conservation action. Here, we highlight the importance of natural history institutions, not only as custodians of historical specimens, but also as critical sources of novel biodiversity data, hubs of global-change research, and bridges between scientific research, policy, the public, and the natural world. Finally, throughout the symposium, we address the ethical considerations of working with these institutions and their data, their colonial and Indigenous legacies, and the future role they can play in scientific outreach, conservation, and reconciliation.

Moderator: Eric Vander Wal

Mammalogy

Take a breather and mingle with peers during our coffee break. It's the perfect opportunity to discuss the morning's insights, refresh, and energize yourself for the upcoming sessions.

Moderator: Mark Vellend

Evolutionary ecology

Moderator: Dalal Hanna

Limnology

Moderator: Marco Festa-Bianchet

Mammalogy

Moderator: Joanie Van der Walle

Modelling and sampling

Moderator: Jeannette Whitton

Plant ecology

Moderator: Kiyoko Gotanda

Urban ecology

Cities are the focus of interactions between humans and nature and offer unique opportunities to study ecological dynamics from new angles. In this regard, the fine scales of urban ecology can reveal dynamics that are essential to understanding urban ecosystems. This symposium explores how insects and microbes, often neglected, offer unique perspectives on ecological interactions in urban environments. Addressing entomology, microbiology and micro-ecology, the presentations will highlight the role of small organisms in urban biodiversity, ecosystem services and adaptation to anthropogenic pressures. Speakers from all backgrounds will share their research on these small-scale but high-impact organisms and discuss their implications for urban planning and environmental management. Join us as we explore new dimensions of urban ecology, where the very small becomes essential to understanding and shaping the cities of tomorrow.

Les tiques au Québec : Comprendre, réagir, prévenir Au cours de la dernière décennie, l’augmentation marquée des cas de maladie de Lyme au Québec a entrainé une conscientisation accrue des médias et de la population quant à l’expansion rapide des populations de tiques et des maladies qu’elles peuvent causer. Cependant, les informations disponibles sur le sujet sont souvent sensationnalistes, incomplètes, voire inexactes, et il peut être difficile de s’y retrouver. Cette présentation vise donc à brosser un portrait général de la situation actuelle en termes de santé publique et de surveillance acarologique. Quelles sont les espèces et les maladies à surveiller? Pourquoi les tiques sont soudainement "apparues" chez nous? Que dois-je faire à la suite d’une piqûre de tique? Étant donné l’évolution constante des connaissances au sujet des tiques et des maladies qu’elles peuvent transmettre, la présentation se conclura par un survol d’outils récents et de certains projets de recherche en cours au Québec.