I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 annual meeting (the 61st) of
the Ecological Society of Japan in Hiroshima last week, along with
over 2,100 other ecologists. The conference began on Saturday, ended
on Tuesday, and occurred during a break in the academic schedule of
Japanese universities. The ESJ publishes the journal Ecological
Research, which has been published in English since 1986. Ecological
Research publishes original research papers, reviews, technical
reports, and notes and comments covering all aspects of ecology and
ecological sciences, and welcomes submissions from all ecologists
(disclaimer: I'm a member of the Editorial Board).
Seven of 26 symposium and organized session speakers were from US
institutions, and two others came from Holland and Greece
(http://www.esj.ne.jp/meeting/61/invited_speaker/). I helped to
represent the Ecological Society of America, as did Past-President
Mary Power and some other ESA members. Seven of the symposia were
conducted in English, as were two of the organized oral sessions and
seven contributed paper sessions, and several awards were given to
presenters whose native languages were not English. Many of the
posters at poster sessions had titles or other components in English,
making them relatively accessible to non-Japanese speakers. A list of
the English sessions is at
http://www.esj.ne.jp/meeting/abst/61/index-e.html, They included
sessions on community ecology, citizen science, landscape ecology,
island biogeography, isotope tools, tree communities, emergent
properties in river systems, and plant-pollinator community interactions.
The conference center in Hiroshima is adjacent to the Peace Memorial
Museum, in the park about where the atomic bomb exploded in 1945. The
evening banquet was held in a nearby hotel, with about 800 in
attendance for the awards ceremony, a performance by a local Kagura
group (Shinto theatrical dance, with several spectacular dragons),
and a lot of very nice Japanese food, beer, and sake.
In contrast with ESA meetings there weren't any organized field
trips. The meetings are held in a different city every year. If
you're interested in learning more about ecological studies in Japan,
this meeting is a good opportunity to do that. Travel in Japan is
also pretty easy for non-Japanese speakers, with many signs in
English. It's also easier now than it was when I was there 10 years
ago because of the availability of tools such as smartphones with
Google Translate and Google Maps. Another possibility to learn about
ecological research in Asia is the biennial meeting of the East Asian
Federation of Ecological Societies. Ecological societies of China,
Japan, and Korea collaboratively established a federation to promote
ecological science in East Asia, and their meeting is conducted in
English. It will be in Haikou, China, next month
http://eafes2014.csp.escience.cn/dct/page/70004.
David Inouye
Dr. David W. Inouye, Professor
Associate Chair, and Director of Graduate Studies
Dept. of Biology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-4415
Rocky Mtn. Biological Laboratory
PO Box 519
Crested Butte, CO 81224
[email protected]
301-405-6946
2013-14 President-elect, Ecological Society of America
