Dear colleagues, We invite submissions to the upcoming special session entitled ‘Ecosystem size: a fundamental driver of processes in freshwaters’ to be held at the joint ASLO/NABS 2010 Annual Meeting in Sante Fe, NM (6-11 June 2010; http://aslo.org/santafe2010/). Conference organisers have recently made the first call for papers, and on-line abstract submission will be available shortly (submittal closes 12 February 2010).
A bit more background on the special session and its intended scope: Ecosystem size: a fundamental driver of processes in freshwaters Ecologists have long recognized an over-riding influence of habitat or ecosystem size on the structure and function of biological communities and whole ecosystems. One of the earliest quantitative generalizations made in ecology, for instance, involved the demonstration of positive species richness–area relationships for island environments. Recent research has documented linkages between the size of freshwater ecosystems and a range of biological traits, like food web structure and stability, the importance of cross-ecosystem subsidies, and the cycling of nutrients. It is also a dynamic feature of aquatic ecosystems, varying seasonally or on longer time scales. Moreover, size is arguably the most imperilled attribute of the Earth’s freshwater environments, as stream, lake, and wetland hydrology are increasingly altered to meet human demands, and global climate change impinges on hydrological cycles. Thus, improved knowledge of how the size of freshwater ecosystems affects biological communities is central to advancing ecological understanding and the management of these systems. This special session aims to gather freshwater scientists exploring ecosystem size-related questions from a diversity of perspectives, as well as to synthesise the state of knowledge on the influence of habitat size on a range of ecological processes. Further, it will serve as a forum for linking lotic and lentic ecologists pursuing related research themes. We encourage submissions that consider a role of ecosystem size—either explicitly or implicitly—at any level of biological organization (i.e., from behaviour to biogeochemistry) and using a range of tools for scientific enquiry (i.e., from mesocosms to mathematical models). Ultimately, we hope that this ecosystem size-focused session will both facilitate the exchange of new ideas and help pave the path towards new size-based conceptual models of aquatic ecosystem structure and function. If this session sounds like a suitable outlet for your work, we encourage you to submit your abstract via the conference website (http://aslo.org/santafe2010/) and indicate Session Topic Code S26 (Ecosystem Size: A Fundamental Driver of Processes in Freshwaters) upon submission. If you have any session-related questions, please contact the co-chairs at the email addresses below. Regards, Angus McIntosh ([email protected]) Ross Thompson ([email protected]) Pete McHugh ([email protected])
