Hello! (or should we say "Konnichiwa!" ?)
This email is to warmly invite you to submit an abstract for our special session on stromatolites to take place at this summer's Aquatic Sciences meeting of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) in Otsu, Japan (http://www.aslo.org/forms/japan2012.html). The description of the session is below. In addition to the scientific session, during the ASLO week we also plan to convene a separate, special discussion among stromatolite researchers focused on measures and methods needed to protect and conserve the increasingly threatened habitats in which stromatolites thrive. We seek to have representatives from all of the major stromatolite research sites in attendance. Finally, we can tell you that the meeting site is fantastic - on the shores of beautiful Lake Biwa and close by to fascinating Kyoto. Please join us in this ancient city to share your studies of Earth's most ancient ecosystems! *Please circulate this email widely* to anyone working on the ecology and evolution of stromatolites, both ancient and modern. *Abstract deadline*: December 2011 or early January 2012. Watch ASLO web site. (We will also send a new mailing when it is announced.) Jim Elser (Arizona State University, USA) Wayne Wurtsbaugh (Utah State University, USA) Maria Farias (PROIMI, Tucumán, Argentina) *ASLO Special Session: Ecology, evolution, and geochemistry of stromatolites: past and present* Whatever you call them (stromatolites, microbialites, bioherms, biostromes, thrombolites), the complex biological and geochemical processes ongoing in these microbial ecosystems reveal much about the ecological workings of modern and ancient environments. This session seeks to bring together geologists, chemists, biologists, and ecologists from around the world investigating all dimensions of life in stromatolites (sensu latu), including microbial community structure, cycling of limiting nutrients, geoenvironmental reconstruction, biosignatures, trophic dynamics, environmental adaptation, functional eco-genomics, boundary layer dynamics, biomineralization, and other dimensions. We are especially interested in integrating research from freshwater, marine, and hypersaline environments and in strengthening the global network of stromatolite researchers, including those from Asian countries.
