| |
Special sessions
Teaching in the 21st Century: Programs and Funding Opportunities
Teaching undergraduates in today's academic institutions offers great
challenges and great opportunities. Institutional demands for excellence,
innovation, and skillful leadership in the classroom have increased
dramatically in the past 10 years. We are expected to recruit and retain at the
same time that students have developed a "consumer mentality". We are
expected to develop and maintain "academically rigorous" programs at
the same time that student preparedness has declined. And yet, most of us have
not been trained to teach; rather teaching is something we have learned on the
job through trial and error and through the mentorship of our peers. As a
consequence, many of us are not aware of the resources that are readily
available to help us meet the expectations of our institutions and the needs of
our students. This year, the Human Resources Committee is pleased to offer a
Teaching Special Session featuring presentations/ discussions on educational
reform, innovative curriculum development, the role of technology, case
studies, and funding opportunities for curriculum design and innovations in
teaching. If you have something to contribute and something to learn about
teaching, this is the session for you. If you are interested in giving a paper
in this session, please contact Billie L. Kerans (bkerans@montana.edu ; 406-994-3725) or Pamela
Silver (psb3@psu.edu ; 814-898-7132).
Statistical (Probabilistic) Survey Designs: Local to National
Examples
In the past 10 years there has been increased interest and application of
probabilistic (random) survey designs for making bioassessments of streams and
rivers. Applications range from multistate surveys of the five Mid-Atlantic
states and 12 conterminous Western United States to individual river basins or
metropolitan areas. The objective of this session is to report results from
those bioassessment surveys, and to document the strengths and weaknesses of
probabilistic survey designs. The proposed session is not yet full, so
interested speakers are encouraged to contact Bob Hughes (hughes.bob@epa.gov ; 541 754 4516) with
proposed titles.
Photoecology of Benthic Habitats: Interactions Among Ultraviolet Radiation,
Organisms, and the Environment
The effect of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) on marine and lentic plankton
communities has received considerable attention in recent years. However, our
understanding of how UVR impacts benthic communities is greatly limited.
Although planktonic organisms can often avoid intense UVR by moving to deeper
water, the sessile nature of many benthic organisms increases potential UVR
exposure. Even relatively mobile macroinvertebrate taxa may be exposed to
intense UVR while grazing on periphyton in shallow lakes and streams. This
special session will examine the direct and indirect effects of UVR on benthic
communities in lentic and lotic habitats. Presentations will focus on various
environmental factors that modify exposure and influence susceptibility of
benthic organisms to UVR. Please contact Will Cements (willc@cnr.colostate.edu ; 970-491-0690) or
Paul Frost (pfrost@nd.edu ; 574-631-0580)
for more information.
West Nile Virus goes West
This special session will consider the westward advance of West Nile Virus
with a key address from Andrew Spielman on the progress of the disease and the
major mosquito vectors. Peter Belton, author of ?Mosquitoes of British
Columbia?, will provide an update on the latest mosquito news in British
Columbia. The virus has confronted a number of natural barriers as well as many
human attempts at control. Some of these control measures have been
controversial, such as controlling adult mosquitoes with malathion, whilst
others have promoted more natural abatement methods. Contributors from across
Canada and North America will explore the effectiveness of natural and human
defenses against mosquito vectors and the somewhat puzzling routes that this
virus has taken on its movement across the continent. This session has
openings for additional speakers. Please contact Michael J. Jackson (acroloxus@dccnet.com ; 604-740-5895)
Small Streams and Forest Management
Riparian zone management around larger streams, largely for the protection
of fish and water quality, has been a key land-use requirement in many places
for over a decade. The effects of land-use, particularly forestry, on small
streams can be dramatic, yet many jurisdictions are reluctant to protect these
smallest of streams. This session will focus on studies of the effects of
forest practices and the effectiveness of riparian buffers for small streams.
Studies of small streams have been motivated by several concerns, including
their role as a unique habitat, the effects on downstream water quality and
quantity, as well as their service as conduits of resources (detrital organic
matter and invertebrates) to downstream parts of the fluvial network. Another
concern that has proven difficult to deal with are the cumulative effects from
incremental alterations of headwaters that propagate downstream, but are
challenging to isolate, and we will discuss that additional element. Session
organizer is John Richardson (john.richardson@ubc.ca ; 604-822-6586).
New Directions in Food Web Analysis
Major advances in the construction and analysis of food web models have
increased their value as predictive tools and hypothesis generators. Recent
advances include stable isotope analysis for elucidating material flows,
complex network analysis, and paleolimnological techniques for
reconstructing ancient food webs. If our understanding of food web
properties and material and energy flows is to expand and deepen, further
advances are required. We also need to expand the scope of food web models
by incorporating recent phenomena such as species invasions and
urbanization. The goal of this session is to highlight and critique new
approaches for constructing, analyzing, and expanding the scope of
freshwater food webs. Topics may include: accounting for exogenous
nutrients, stable isotope mixing models, meta-analyses, inverse and network
analyses, incorporating climate changes, invasive species and urban
streams, and food webs as units of stream and lake management. The session
is not yet full so potential speakers are encouraged to contact
co-organizers Scott Larned (s.larned@niwa.cri.nz; 64-3-343-7834) or Peter
Eldridge (eldridge.pete@epamail.epa.gov; 541-867-4031).
Innovative approaches for investigating stream networks at multiple spatial
scales
As society copes with pervasive problems involving rivers and streams,
studying and managing lotic ecosystems across a variety of spatial and temporal
scales is increasingly required. Appropriate research and management techniques
have been elusive despite recent developments in landscape ecology. The
primary objective of this symposium is to increase awareness of innovative
approaches for examining spatial and temporal heterogeneity in rivers and to
demonstrate how such approaches can enhance understanding of stream ecosystems
at scales relevant to conservation and management. Topics include (1)
analytical advances in spatial statistics and network characterization, (2)
examples of multi-scale studies, (3) remote sensing of rivers, (4) linkages
between watersheds and streams, and (5) regional assessments of riverine
systems. Presentations will explore ideas developed in terrestrial landscape
ecology and oceanography and their application for explaining patterns of, and
relationships between, aquatic biota and physical habitat in
hierarchically-structured hydrologic basins and river networks. Session
organizers are Kelly Burnett (kmburnett@fs.fed.us ; 541-750-7309), Robert E.
Gresswell (robert_gresswell@usgs.gov ;
541-750-7410) and Christian Torgersen (ctorgersen@usgs.gov ; 541-750-7797).
|
|
