Small mammal cycles conference 2024

Welcome to the Small Mammal Cycles Conference (SMCC) 2024 website !

As many agreed over recent discussions, we are long overdue to meet altogether to talk about population cycles ! Now that we can officially say that Charles Elton's seminal work published in 1924 is 100 years old, the organizing committee thought that it would be a great opportunity to gather as many as we can of those people that have worked and are working on small mammal cycles. We are happy to organize this Small Mammal Cycles Conference at the Canadian Museum of Nature (240, Mcleod street, Ottawa (Ontario) Canada). You can visit the Museum's website here: http://www.nature.ca .

The conference starts on the January 31^st, 2024 at 9 AM and will end on the 2nd of February at 6 PM (followed by a banquet). Save the dates and make sure you come visit us with your warmest winter coat !

The SMCC 2024 will be a mix of traditional slideshow presentations with plenaries by guest speakers and short talks given by participants, but we will also allocate a significant amount of time to brainstorming sessions so we have time to discuss, debate and generate ideas. Our objective will be to push everyone's creativity to predict what ecologists of the near future (2050?) will witness and what we should do today to help them have the tools to understand what's happening (e.g. how do we keep doing long-term monitoring? Is the effort and costs still worth it?), and to have the right ecological information for management.

(Updated January 16^th, 2023)

Tentative schedule (Eastern Standard Time; EST) - All activities will be held in the Hatch Salon

First day (January 31^st, 2024)

- 9:00 - 12:20 : Plenary #1, followed by topical sessions, first set of lightning talks

- 13:20 - 16:40 : Plenary #2, followed by topical sessions, second set of lightning talks

- 17:00 - 22:00 (in person only) : Poster session and dining cocktail

Second day (February 1^st, 2024)

- 9:00 - 12:20 : Plenary #3, followed by topical sessions, third set of lightning talks

- 13:20 - 17:00 (in person only) : Brainstorming workshop (General idea: We have a century of literature, so what should we expect and do over the next half-century?)

- 16:30 - 18:00 (in person only) : Poster session

Third day (February 2^nd, 2024)

- 9:00 - 12:20 : Plenary #4, followed by topical sessions, fourth set of lightning talks

- 13:20 - 17:00 (in person only) : Panel discussion, followed by workshop #2 (we'll also do a wrap-up of the conference)

- 17:00 - 18:00 (in person only) : Poster session.

- 18:00 - 22:00 (in person only) : Banquet, with some animation !

Registrations

Registrations are now open until January 10^th, 2024 ! Fees include access to the conference, coffee and snacks, lunches, and food during the dining cocktail of the first evening. We will not offer breakfasts. Diner on the second day of the conference will be on your own and a banquet is planed for the last day. Fees for the banquet will be charged only to those that will confirm their presence for that evening.

A receipt will be sent to you once you have registered. Alternately, we will be happy to offer a certificate of attendance/participation once the conference is finished. Please, let us know if that is your case by writing to smallmammalcc@gmail.com.

Submissions

Submissions are now accepted. We decided to extend the period for receiving presentations until January 10^th, 2023. The conference is designed to have a single room for presentations to keep everyone together. We will welcome a limited number of oral presentations and will prioritize presenters who have substantial results from well-advanced projects (i.e. presentations with preliminary results will be given low priority). We are planning for 20-minutes talks, including questions, during the topical sessions. Based on the tentative schedule above, we will host 20 short talks during the conference. We will also hold poster sessions and each presenter will be invited to give a lightning-talk (3 minutes) to invite participants to visit their poster. Smaller projects and those with preliminary results are invited to submit a poster with a lightning talk.

Advice for planning your trip to Ottawa, Canada

Transportation

For participants travelling by bus, train, or car, traffic near Ottawa is relatively light compared to other large Canadian cities. We strongly recommend travel by VIA rail, and then by taxi for the smoothest travel.

For participants who need to travel by plane: In Ottawa, public transit is not the most efficient when comparing to other large Canadian cities as we still rely mostly on buses. Finally, since the construction of the new railway for the light train connecting the airport to downtown won't be finished by the time the conference starts, we recommend to travel by taxi or by Lyft/Uber once you landed in Ottawa (see options here: https://yow.ca/en/parking-transportation/ground-transportation-options .

For non-American international participants, we do not have a specific airline to suggest, but we strongly suggest that your flight goes directly to Canada (and have stopovers in Canada instead of the United-States) for the smoothest trip. Toronto and Montreal are typical stopovers before flying to Ottawa.

Generally, the earlier you reserve your ticket, the cheaper it will be.

Housing

There are many lodging options around the Canadian Museum of Nature. We do recommend Sonder Rideau hotel (~15 min walk). You can book your room directly from their website (https://www.sonder.com) and get your free membership for a 15% discount. Then, you can use the promo code LOSPC5 to obtain an extra 5% reduction. Note that it is best to reserve early as prices generally increase over time.

Security

Ottawa may be one of the safest among the large cities in Canada. It is a highly multicultural city and people are highly educated. There is substantial 2SLGBTQ+ community resources (https://capitalpride.ca/community-resources/). Some areas of the city may be less safe due to poverty and drug use, but crime levels remain low even in those areas. It is the capital of Canada and demonstrations may happen in the streets near the parliament, which is near the Canadian Museum of Nature. Demonstrations are usually very peaceful.

On behalf of all the team, we can't wait to welcome you in Ottawa!

Dr. Dominique Fauteux, research scientist, Canadian Museum of Nature

Dr. Pierre Legagneux, professor, Université Laval

Dr. Angélique Dupuch, professor, Université du Québec en Outaouais

We are supported by these amazing students and professionals :

Gabriel Bergeron, Ph.D. student, Université Laval

Ariane Bisson, Research professional, Canadian Museum of Nature

David Bolduc, Ph.D. student, Université Laval

Camille Gaudreau-Rousseau, Ph.D. student, Université Laval

Dr. Mathilde Poirier, Post-doc, Université Laval

Stéphanie Tessier, Collections manager, Canadian Museum of Nature